# Most avoided musical era



## KenOC

Vote for one! Which one doesn't make it to your favorite listening media?


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## PetrB

It is more really 'vote against one,' of course. I'd almost bet a few shekels on the 20th tonal or atonal topping the list here, with the (Obvious) choice of the big bang era, later romantic, coming out as the most preferred -- lots of people in their twenties on TC, all probably big on personal expression, emotion, because it is that much newer to them than it is to us older coots codgers and harridans 

P.s. are their enough TC fans of the Gothic (wonder how many youth will think that means the pop music genre, lol) or the Renaissance for there to be any significant numbers there?


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> It is more really 'vote against one,' of course. I'd almost bet a few shekels on the 20th tonal or atonal topping the list here, with the (Obvious) choice of the big bang era, later romantic, coming out as the most preferred -- lots of people in their twenties on TC, all probably big on personal expression, emotion, because it is that much newer to them than it is to us older coots codgers and harridans


Curses on young people! Nonetheless the choice is offered. I see that Beethoven has been dinged...


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## Klavierspieler

Bridge. Darn that Beethoven guy and everything to do with him!

That Schubert fellow was pretty awful, too. 

Did I miss anyone?


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## violadude

I don't avoid any era. I am a fearless explorer of musical depths.


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## ahammel

Galante for me, closely followed by Medieval and then Renaissance (listening to a little more of these last two lately, though).

I'm not even sure who or what qualifies as galante, to be honest with you. C.P.E. Bach? Haven't listened to him in a dog's age.


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## KenOC

ahammel said:


> I'm not even sure who or what qualifies as galante, to be honest with you. C.P.E. Bach?


CPE Bach is a weirdo and hard to classify. I'm waiting for the guy with thick glasses to point out that galante is a style, not an era.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> I don't avoid any era. I am a fearless explorer of musical depths.


Watch out for that newly discovered "bridge era" though -- hear it is shallow reef, as sharp as some coral, and that it can cut you up as quickly and badly!.

(... and where it places the 'official' first romantic Carl Maria von Weber, near parallel dates of Beethoven, I dunno.)


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## brotagonist

I listen to very little Gothic music. I was heavily into the troubadours, trouvères and minnesänger in the mid-'90s, but the genre occupied me for only a couple of years. I own only about 2 or 3 albums from the era presently (yes, another one of my great purges from the '90s  ). I don't avoid the era, however.


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## KenOC

brotagonist said:


> I listen to very little Gothic music.


No black lipstick for you then?


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## ArtMusic

"Other avant-garde" for me. The stuff that technically qualifies as composed music on sheets, and that's about it.


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## ArtMusic

ahammel said:


> ...
> 
> I'm not even sure who or what qualifies as galante, to be honest with you. C.P.E. Bach? Haven't listened to him in a dog's age.


Oh man....you might like to read some books!


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## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> Oh man....you might like to read some books!


Well to be fair, a lot of composers within that time pretty are pretty hard to categorize into one style.


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## brotagonist

KenOC said:


> No black lipstick for you then?


Had to give it up.









I figured it didn't go so well with the cowboy hat


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## Ukko

KenOC said:


> Vote for one! Which one doesn't make it to your favorite listening media?


They are all there. Makes it easier to avoid quibbles about which is what, too.

J.C. was the Bach most commonly referred to as a Galante composer, C.P.E. as a Manheimer (I keep wanting to add 'Steamroller' to that).


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

The period 1800-1825 as the "era that doesn't cut it" for me, by no means do I avoid it though. I relentlessly search through hours of music to find things I _really_ like from this period in music's history. String symphonies and other pieces of juvenilia from the most outstanding musical prodigy Mendelssohn, concertos by Giuliani and Crusell immediately spring to mind as music I find I most enjoy.


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## Praeludium

I voted Avant-garde but that was a mistake ): I thought it was about the music that received the less love with the general public.
Otherwise, probably Galante. Or early Romantic if we talk about salon music.


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## Ukko

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> The period 1800-1825 as the "era that doesn't cut it" for me, by no means do I avoid it though. I relentlessly search through hours of music to find things I _really_ like from this period in music's history. String symphonies and other pieces of juvenilia from the most outstanding musical prodigy Mendelssohn, concertos by Giuliani and Crusell immediately spring to mind as music I find I most enjoy.


Sensible enthusiasms - for a whippersnapper.

[On a more serious note: What I've heard from Giuliani apparently didn't sink in, but the other two choices ring my geezerly chimes too.]


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## arpeggio

*None of the Above*

None of the above.


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## joen_cph

Ooops, voted Gothic but had overlooked Minimalist, so it should have been Minimalist.


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## Couac Addict

violadude said:


> I don't avoid any era. I am a fearless explorer of musical depths.


Same here...moments before running like hell.


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## elgar's ghost

I've no real interest or liking for music before the very late 17th century so I'd really need to cast 2.5 votes rather than just the one.


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## hpowders

I see a lot of votes for modern "atonal". I've spent a lot of time recently with this music. My pet project has been the symphonies of William Schuman and Peter Mennin and I must say, spending the time and re-training my "tonal" ears was worth it to me.

I wouldn't put down any of the musical eras in this poll. There can be found profound, moving musical experiences in each.


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## quack

80s pop, how I hate it.

Can I be the first to point out that the last 4 or 5 aren't really eras either as they tend to overlap partly and run concurrently.


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## Weston

joen_cph said:


> Ooops, voted Gothic but had overlooked Minimalist, so it should have been Minimalist.


I did the exact same thing. Minimalism is interesting as long as I don't have to listen to it.

I'm none too fond of Frank Bridge either. Not sure why he was placed out of order.


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## ptr

None of the above, but I find a lot of Jazz from 1970 onwards quite difficult to enjoy, hence quite easy to avoid!

/ptr


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## maestro267

I voted Classic, because it applies to everything before and including it. Hardly ever listen to anything before Beethoven. It just doesn't interest me one bit. Too simple and boring. I've found plenty of music to keep me going by delving into the lesser-known corners of 20th-century music.


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## aleazk

Gothic?. I thought the most common terms were ars antiqua and ars nova.


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## Ukko

aleazk said:


> Gothic?. I thought the most common terms were ars antiqua and ars nova.


The most common term for the era is Medieval. Looks like it applies to everything between the fall of Rome ~600 and the Renaissance. Before Ambrosian Chant I have kept nothing.


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## EdwardBast

ahammel said:


> Galante for me, closely followed by Medieval and then Renaissance (listening to a little more of these last two lately, though).
> 
> I'm not even sure who or what qualifies as galante, to be honest with you. C.P.E. Bach? Haven't listened to him in a dog's age.


Galante style traits can certainly be found in C.P.E. Bach's music. But his music defies reduction to such categories. If one takes Haydn's, Mozart's, and Beethoven's opinions seriously, he was an enormously influential composer. All of them cited his music as essential to know.


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## Blake

hpowders said:


> I see a lot of votes for modern "atonal". I've spent a lot of time recently with this music. My pet project has been the symphonies of William Schuman and Peter Mennin and I must say, spending the time and re-training my "tonal" ears was worth it to me.
> .


I agree, as I've grown to love it. But I still voted for it because I believe it really is the "most avoided" considering all the negative comments I've run across on the net. Much more than any other era I dig.


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## Crudblud

I have a physical aversion to Renaissance polyphony, gives me a headache. I believe this is down to both the sound of unaccompanied vocals and the manner in which they are recorded, which seems rather confrontational, as if they're backing me up into a corner while shouting threats in Latin. I try in earnest to listen to it once in a while, I spend the next hour waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in.


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## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> I agree, as I've grown to love it. But I still voted for it because I believe it really is the "most avoided" considering all the negative comments I've run across on the net. Much more than any other era I dig.


It rewards time spent. On first hearing I thought Schuman's 10th symphony (American Muse) was a dog; now after many intense repeated hearings, it is my favorite Schuman symphony.

Too bad so many folks make judgments based on superficial first hearings.


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## hpowders

Crudblud said:


> I have a physical aversion to Renaissance polyphony, gives me a headache. I believe this is down to both the sound of unaccompanied vocals and the manner in which they are recorded, which seems rather confrontational, as if they're backing me up into a corner while shouting threats in Latin. I try in earnest to listen to it once in a while, I spend the next hour waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in.


Take one 400mg tablet of ibuprofin on an empty stomach with lots of water. Can kick in by band 3 of " High Renaissance Greatest Hits".


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## Blake

hpowders said:


> It rewards time spent. On first hearing I thought Schuman's 10th symphony (American Muse) was a dog; now after many intense repeated hearings, it is my favorite Schuman symphony.
> 
> Too bad so many folks make judgments based on superficial first hearings.


Agreed again. I became a great fan of Schoenberg. Well, I was already great... I just became a fan.


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## brotagonist

I voted Gothic, but that was ill considered. I used to be heavily into the Minnesänger, Trovères and Troubadours, albeit only for a few years in the '90s, but it is Rennaissance music, characterized largely by masses, motets and madrigals, that have never had any appeal for me. But there is John Dowland  Perhaps the best, best choice for me would be none of the above :lol:


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## Mahlerian

I question the wisdom of splitting a single era into several stylistic divisions, while running together the disparate styles of other eras...


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> CPE Bach is a weirdo and hard to classify. I'm waiting for the guy with thick glasses to point out that galante is a style, not an era.


Where have you seen a photo of me?

Anyway, yes, I was just about to point out that it's helpful to populate lists of things with the actual things.

A list of eras should really have only eras on it. No cooked carrots or photography, for instance.


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## GGluek

As I enter my dotage, I find the early romantics continue a longtime trend of speaking to me less and less.


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## TitanisWalleri

Why can I not vote for both Classical and Baroque? :lol:

I really dislike those two, but I chose Baroque. It all sounds the same. I don't intentionally avoid the Gothic and Renaissance periods. I just have not come across them in my classical music journey as of yet.


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## neoshredder

Modern Atonal ftw or ftl.


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## KenOC

TitanisWalleri said:


> I really dislike those two, but I chose Baroque. It all sounds the same.


I checked and, by gosh, you're right! Odd I'd never noticed that before. Oh well...


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## PetrB

All polls with gratuitously attempted humorous categories of distinction of musical eras (somehow flakily mixed up with styles), even if presented tongue in cheek, ultimately appear the same: as if believed to be fact -- and fatuous.

fat·u·ous
ˈfaCHo͞oəs/
adjective


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> All polls with gratuitously attempted humorous categories of distinction of musical eras (somehow flakily mixed up with styles), even if presented tongue in cheek, ultimately appear the same: as if believed to be fact -- and fatuous.


I may have committed many crimes against nature, but I am *not* fat!


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## Guest

Wish I could have voted for three! I voted minimalist because early Glass drives me mad and I can't bear more than 1 minute of it. A close second is Atonal. Webern and Schoenberg cause make me uneasy, anxious and depressed. Third would be avante-garde because it often seems silly to me and disrespectful to serious and intelligent music making. I'm basing that almost entirely on a few works I've heard by Varese.


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## ArtMusic

Some fool avoids the Baroque, to his/her lost. Maybe he/she should listen to this for example.


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## Guest

Well there's a fine howdy-do--Varese as silly and disrespectful.

One of the more serious and intelligent composers of the early twentieth century.

Well, OK then.

Anyway, I thought that this thread had accomplished its purpose once "atonal" (one of the non-era items on the era list) had been rejected, but now that minimalist and avant garde (hey! two more non-era items*) have been scratched....

Hey, I see what's happening. We're getting rid of all the non-era items on the era list. Well, good on youse!

Then, with just era items on the era list, maybe we can start all over again.:devil:

*Though to be fair, "atonal" is listed as a sub-category of one of the two "Modern" items. ('Course, that was just to divide the era up for easy rejection of the "wrong" part of it.)


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Modern Atonal ftw or ftl.


What a relief! For a moment I thought you were including (banning) the older atonal of Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Elgar, Milton Babbitt, The Moody Blues, and Led Zeppelin.


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## PetrB

.... if there were a "Melody / Melodic" style, and a "Tune / Tuneful" style, I'd vote against them.


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## joen_cph

Jerome said:


> Wish I could have voted for three! I voted minimalist because early Glass drives me mad and I can't bear more than 1 minute of it. A close second is Atonal. Webern and Schoenberg cause make me uneasy, anxious and depressed. Third would be avante-garde because it often seems silly to me and disrespectful to serious and intelligent music making. I'm basing that almost entirely on a few works I've heard by Varese.


Varese´s "_Ameriques_" in a good recording - such as Chailly´s - is quite close to Stravinsky´s "_Le Sacre du Printemps_", if one gets to know it reasonably well, so you´d more or less have to characterize that work as avoidable too ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amériques


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## neoshredder

Jerome said:


> Wish I could have voted for three! I voted minimalist because early Glass drives me mad and I can't bear more than 1 minute of it. A close second is Atonal. Webern and Schoenberg cause make me uneasy, anxious and depressed. Third would be avante-garde because it often seems silly to me and disrespectful to serious and intelligent music making. I'm basing that almost entirely on a few works I've heard by Varese.


Same here. All 3 are inferior styles to previous Eras.


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## Blake

Jerome said:


> Wish I could have voted for three! I voted minimalist because early Glass drives me mad and I can't bear more than 1 minute of it. A close second is Atonal. Webern and Schoenberg cause make me uneasy, anxious and depressed. *Third would be avante-garde because it often seems silly to me and disrespectful to serious and intelligent music making. I'm basing that almost entirely on a few works I've heard by Varese.*


I know this is just opinion, so don't think I'm so serious here. But, it is quite funny how the mind pushes so hard to come up with labels when it clearly knows it's lacking understanding. I don't know why people don't say, "I don't know" or "I don't get it" instead of spreading labels like "disrespectful." This is exactly how misinformation gets spread, because most people don't know how to simply be quiet when they don't understand something.


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## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> I know this is just opinion, so don't think I'm so serious here. But, it is quite funny how the mind pushes so hard to come up with labels when it clearly knows it's lacking understanding. I don't know why people don't say, "I don't know" or "I don't get it" instead of spreading labels like "disrespectful." This is exactly how misinformation gets spread, because most people don't know how to simply be quiet when they don't understand something.


Naturally humans want to express what they like or dislike. I guess he should've listened to a few more Composers before generalizing. But that would be torture though. Lol


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## Jos

The present time, if I could; musically and otherwise........
Much rather dwell in the past.

Cheers,
Jos


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## Jos

Although I quite enjoy this particular internet forum.......

J


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## Ukko

Vesuvius said:


> I know this is just opinion, so don't think I'm so serious here. But, it is quite funny how the mind pushes so hard to come up with labels when it clearly knows it's lacking understanding. I don't know why people don't say, "I don't know" or "I don't get it" instead of spreading labels like "disrespectful." This is exactly how misinformation gets spread, because most people don't know how to simply be quiet when they don't understand something.


Hah. I mostly agree; but the 'disrespectful' label hasn't _effectively_ been attached to Varese... has it? It must have been trotted out because his style _*departs*_ from... Ravel's? Haydn's? The label won't stick without the other half of the Velcro.


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## neoshredder

Jos said:


> The present time, if I could; musically and otherwise........
> Much rather dwell in the past.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jos


That would be awesome to live during the Mozart Era.


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## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> That would be awesome to live during the Mozart Era.


I'm rather attached to penicillin, myself.


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## starry

Aren't many not avoiding eras so much as being too busy with other ones to bother for the time being?


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## Guest

I'd venture to guess that neoshredder is rather attached to his refrigerator, too. And indoor plumbing.

And electricity.

And the internet....


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## neoshredder

some guy said:


> I'd venture to guess that neoshredder is rather attached to his refrigerator, too. And indoor plumbing.
> 
> And electricity.
> 
> And the internet....


Too bad we can't get the best of both worlds.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> But that would be torture though. Lol


Sorry about your condition. I wish for the safe recovery of function in your ears.


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## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> Sorry about your condition. I wish for the safe recovery of function in your ears.


My ears are just fine. Just as long as I treat them good. No atonal junk. Btw this comment borders on insulting.


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## hpowders

I'm truly getting a migraine just looking at that list!! LOL!!


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> My ears are just fine. Just as long as I treat them good. No atonal junk. Btw this comment borders on insulting.


I find your insinuation that "atonal" music is inherently physically painful insulting as well. Can't you understand that it sounds just fine to some of us?


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## hpowders

Yes. Nothing wrong with the symphonies of William Schumann or Peter Mennin. Atonal music may sound less painful to those who make the effort to immerse themselves in it.


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## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> I find your insinuation that "atonal" music is inherently physically painful insulting as well. Can't you understand that it sounds just fine to some of us?


We are free to speak our dislikes towards any style of music. There is no rule saying you can't express dislike towards Avant-Garde. Alright maybe exaggerate a little for comedy purposes. It's not painful to listen to atonal music. Just boring.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> We are free to speak our dislikes towards any style of music. There is no rule saying you can't express dislike towards Avant-Garde. Alright maybe exaggerate a little for comedy purposes. It's not painful to listen to atonal music. Just boring.


I never said you couldn't express your dislike. The problem is that you are expressing your dislike of something you don't understand as if your problems with it were in it rather than in you. You are generalizing your own personal experience into a universal one, and then making blanket condemnations of things with which you have no personal experience whatsoever.

People who call _all_ classical music "boring" probably find their repetition of their opinion amusing as well...


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## arpeggio

*Bash What I Dislike Thread*

This is just another bash what I dislike thread.


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## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> I never said you couldn't express your dislike. The problem is that you are expressing your dislike of something you don't understand as if your problems with it were in it rather than in you. You are generalizing your own personal experience into a universal one, and then making blanket condemnations of things with which you have no personal experience whatsoever.
> 
> People who call _all_ classical music "boring" probably find their repetition of their opinion amusing as well...


Well looking at the poll results, I'm not far off from it being a universal one. lol


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## Guest

Seventeen seems a trifle small to constitute "universal," even in this tiny subsection of a miniscule group of all the people in the world.


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## ArtMusic

As of right now, it is 17 + 5 + 5 = 27 i.e. including minimalism and "other avant-garde, which majority of people do generally find difficult. Just accept the statistical facts. Nothing more, nothing less.


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## Blake

Difficult, sure. But well worth the effort. Just need to break down previous conditionings.


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## Guest

Twenty seven?

Wow!! 27 out of 7 billion. That is the majority.

I concede.:lol:


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Twenty seven?
> 
> Wow!! 27 out of 7 billion. That is the majority.
> 
> I concede.:lol:


I would suspect that "modernist" music would be more likely to be accepted and enjoyed among the members here than within a "cross-section" of the general population.


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## Ukko

ArtMusic said:


> As of right now, it is 17 + 5 + 5 = 27 i.e. including minimalism and "other avant-garde, which majority of people do generally find difficult. Just accept the statistical facts. Nothing more, nothing less.


Oh, it's quite a bit less. Or a lot more, depending.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Well looking at the poll results, I'm not far off from it being a universal one. lol


I put no stock whatsoever in an opinion based on lack of experience, rather than on knowledge. It's the same reason no one here takes seriously the millions upon millions of people who find all classical music "boring". It's even classed as its own logical fallacy.


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## Blancrocher

Mahlerian said:


> I put no stock whatsoever in an opinion based on lack of experience, rather than on knowledge.


The forum is clearly much more painful for me than for you, Mahlerian. It seems like every day I have to read somebody with more knowledge about music than I possess learnedly and expertly dismissing Shostakovich and Sibelius.

It's like a knife to the heart!

:lol:


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## Mahlerian

Blancrocher said:


> The forum is clearly much more painful for me than for you, Mahlerian. It seems like every day I have to read somebody with more knowledge about music than I possess learnedly and expertly dismissing Shostakovich and Sibelius.
> 
> It's like a knife to the heart!
> 
> :lol:


Well, taste plays a role as well. All views contain both objective and subjective qualities.

And, for what it's worth, I think pretty highly of Sibelius myself!


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## arpeggio

*Sibelius and Shostakovitch*



Blancrocher said:


> The forum is clearly much more painful for me than for you, Mahlerian. It seems like every day I have to read somebody with more knowledge about music than I possess learnedly and expertly dismissing Shostakovich and Sibelius.
> 
> It's like a knife to the heart!
> 
> :lol:


I can only speak from my modest experiences. I have performed Sibelius and Shostakovitch on several occasions. I have never run into a conductor or fellow musician who thought either of these composers to be bad.


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## Guest

Well, there are things about both Sibelius and Shostakovich that are backwards looking rather than forwards looking. Since they both came from a time in which forward was no longer just taken for granted. A time in which backward looking was increasingly rewarded by audiences, to the consternation of critics and fellow composers--and a few listeners as well. 

Neither of them ever did anything of the magnitude of Penderecki's betrayal, though. (Yes, I know. That's how we felt about it in the seventies, though.) I don't know of anyone who thinks of Sibelius or Shostakovich as betraying anyone or anything. They were a little regressive, sure, but so were thousands of others much MUCH less talented than those two. 

And the adulation of Sibelius and Shostakovich as the best composers of the twentieth century is a bit wearying. 

But that says nothing about their music. Their music is not wearying at all. Not that I have found, anyway. Their music is quite delightful, actually!


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## Blancrocher

I appreciate all the civilized respect for a couple of great composers, but you're all making it hard for me to feel aggrieved. And after all: isn't that what this thread is about?


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## ArtMusic

19 + 5 + 6, about half of the 58. Interesting sample considering many members here are dedicated lovers of classical music in general and we do have listeners who enjoy listening to a wide range of music (but obviously the statistical distribution is very different).


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Well, there are things about both Sibelius and Shostakovich that are backwards looking rather than forwards looking.


I would estimate that at least 80% of Beethoven's music is "backwards looking" in almost all of his works. It was the other 20% that bothered some people...


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## Blake

Well, I didn't vote for what I don't like... as I like them all. I voted for the era that I see getting the most crap around here... and that would be "Atonal." Regardless, quite a few intelligent members around here seem to find something in this "Atonal" stuff, as do I. 

Another funny thing I've notice: The ones who do appreciate the "atonal" style still appreciate the older styles as well. The one's who criticize are normally those who have confined themselves into these genre-boxes. So, I wonder who's really seeing clearly here...

I used to be pretty ignorant to the era as well, but that's nothing a little open-minded exploration won't cure.


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## KenOC

Uh, you gave a mercy vote to "atonal"? You just voted it "the era that doesn't cut it..." Perhaps not your intent!


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## Blake

KenOC said:


> Uh, you gave a mercy vote to "atonal"? You just voted it "the era that doesn't cut it..." Perhaps not your intent!


The title of the thread is _Most Avoided Musical Era._ I thought you were talking about in general. You tricked me, silly-rabbit.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I put no stock whatsoever in an opinion based on lack of experience, rather than on knowledge. It's the same reason no one here takes seriously the millions upon millions of people who find all classical music "boring".

But is that always the case? It seems rather presumptuous to assume that all those among those who enjoy classical music are the least fond of Era-X due to a lack of experience.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I used to be pretty ignorant to the era as well, but that's nothing a little open-minded exploration won't cure.

In a Pavlovian manner, eh? Keep listening to anything... even Miley Cyrus... or Billie Ray Cyrus for that matter... and eventually you will come around?


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## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> The title of the thread is _Most Avoided Musical Era._ I thought you were talking about in general. You tricked me, silly-rabbit.


Heh-heh! Age and cunning, as they say...

Interesting that "late Romantic" seems the least offensive category here. I think the only vote against it is mine. Oops, no, it's somebody else.


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## Mahlerian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But is that always the case? It seems rather presumptuous to assume that all those among those who enjoy classical music are the least fond of Era-X due to a lack of experience.


No. Of course not. There are numerous composers and musicians who find certain things not to their taste, and they know and understand them.* They tend not to make sweeping, broad pronouncements about whole groups of composers working in disparate styles, though.

*I chose Galante in the poll above. Not because I think the music is inherently worse, per se, but most of it doesn't appeal much to me. This may be in part because I'm not as familiar with it, and I admit that.


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## StlukesguildOhio

No. Of course not. There are numerous composers and musicians who find certain things not to their taste, and they know and understand them.* They tend not to make sweeping, broad pronouncements about whole groups of composers working in disparate styles, though.

But then again I've surely heard such sweeping pronouncements made concerning the shortcomings of entire eras (the Baroque... it all sounds alike) or individual composers (Vivaldi... his music all sounds alike...). I agree that opinions based upon a lack of experience are worth less than nothing. So many who dismiss the Baroque have never listened in any depth to the range of music of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi... let alone explored the work of Biber, Rameau, Couperin, Alessandro Scarlatti, Weiss, Zelenka, etc... So many who have dismissed Vivaldi are barely aware of anything he composed beyond his concertos... such as his choral works, operas, etc...

On the other hand... there are certainly composers, works, styles of music not to our personal taste... in spite of our having spent time coming to know and understand them. I have some 15+ discs of Schoenberg... but can't really come around to liking his work. Berg and Webern... on the other hand... I have quite come to enjoy. Ligeti? A few works here and there. The same with Penderecki. Scelsi, on the other hand, I quite like. But if I am honest, atonal and other more avant-garde strains of Modern/Contemporary music is hit and miss with me. I may actually be familiar with more composers of the era than I am with the galante era... or classicism (beyond Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, and a handful of others)... but I have found that I am more likely to be put off by a "new" or rather unfamiliar work from the Modern/Contemporary era than any other. Admittedly this may owe much to the fact that most of the music/art from past eras has already been "cherry-picked" over for us.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> I chose Galante in the poll above. Not because I think the music is inherently worse, per se, but most of it doesn't appeal much to me. This may be in part because I'm not as familiar with it, and I admit that.


My impression is that music of the Galante era (or, to make certain people happy, that era when Galante music was prevalent) is simply not very popular. In a series of polls elsewhere to determine the top ten works in each decade, exactly one Galante-style work made any list -- JC Bach's Op. 1 concertos, which came in at #10 in the 1760s. Of course, this is classifying Haydn's early works as "classical."

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/ama/best-works-by-decade


----------



## KenOC

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Sounds like the sort of personal insult that ends up getting me banned. But I guess that's OK as long as its in support of Modernism.


Be of good cheer! There are several reasons why some people might not enjoy "modernist" music. All of these have been suggested at one time or another. Some may be curable.

- Lack of knowledge or experience
- Lack of intelligence (inherited?)
- Hearing or neurological problems
- Truly stunning narrow-mindedness
- Unthinking rejection of the new (the "Beethoven theory")
- Aesthetic impoverishment
- "Bad ears" (yes, this has been suggested)
- Some toxic combination of the above.

If only people could be...somehow...better! :lol:


----------



## Mahlerian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But then again I've surely heard such sweeping pronouncements made concerning the shortcomings of entire eras (the Baroque... it all sounds alike) or individual composers (Vivaldi... his music all sounds alike...). I agree that opinions based upon a lack of experience are worth less than nothing. So many who dismiss the Baroque have never listened in any depth to the range of music of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi... let alone explored the work of Biber, Rameau, Couperin, Alessandro Scarlatti, Weiss, Zelenka, etc... So many who have dismissed Vivaldi are barely aware of anything he composed beyond his concertos... such as his choral works, operas, etc...
> 
> On the other hand... there are certainly composers, works, styles of music not to our personal taste... in spite of our having spent time coming to know and understand them. I have some 15+ discs of Schoenberg... but can't really come around to liking his work. Berg and Webern... on the other hand... I have quite come to enjoy. Ligeti? A few works here and there. The same with Penderecki. Scelsi, on the other hand, I quite like. But if I am honest, atonal and other more avant-garde strains of Modern/Contemporary music is hit and miss with me. I may actually be familiar with more composers of the era than I am with the galante era... or classicism (beyond Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, and a handful of others)... but I have found that I am more likely to be put off by a "new" or rather unfamiliar work from the Modern/Contemporary era than any other. Admittedly this may owe much to the fact that most of the music/art from past eras has already been "cherry-picked" over for us.


...isn't this basically a repetition of what I said? People who condemn eras wholesale tend to do so out of ignorance, whereas people who admit that they dislike certain composers/styles as a matter of taste may in fact know and understand them well.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

What exactly are the boundaries of the Galante-Era? Wikipedia defines the period as dating from 1720-the 1770s. This would embrace the last thirty years of the careers of J.S. Bach and Handel... as well as some of the earlier works of Haydn and Mozart (ie. the violin concertos). Stylistically, the Galante is defined as a music of the Baroque era in which there was a consciously simplification of contrapuntal texture and a greater fluidity and transparency. Personally, I think that much of not only Handel's oeuvre would qualify... but also Vivaldi's, Alessandro Scarlatti's, Rameau's, and even some of J.S. Bach's instrumental work. Thus I have to question... is the Galante an era... or rather a transitional movement from the contrapuntal density of the High/Late Baroque into the Classical Era?


----------



## Mahlerian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> What exactly are the boundaries of the Galante-Era? Wikipedia defines the period as dating from 1720-the 1770s. This would embrace the last thirty years of the careers of J.S. Bach and Handel... as well as some of the earlier works of Haydn and Mozart (ie. the violin concertos). Stylistically, the Galante is defined as a music of the Baroque era in which there was a consciously simplification of contrapuntal texture and a greater fluidity and transparency. Personally, I think that much of not only Handel's oeuvre would qualify... but also Vivaldi's, Alessandro Scarlatti's, Rameau's, and even some of J.S. Bach's instrumental work. Thus I have to question... is the Galante an era... or rather a transitional movement from the contrapuntal density of the High/Late Baroque into the Classical Era?


The biography I read of Bach by Geck identifies galante elements in Bach's music from time to time. He tended to integrate elements of contemporary styles into the contrapuntal methods of the high Baroque much as composers like Sibelius and Zemlinsky integrated parts of contemporary trends into a more or less Romantic/functionally tonal base.

So even though I chose it, I admit that my picking Galante here is based entirely on my own bias against a style that I believe doesn't appeal to me...even though I'll enjoy a work or two by one of Bach's children now and then, to say nothing of early Mozart and Haydn.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

By the same token... what the hell is "The Bridge" (unless you are referring to Die Brücke, a movement within the larger German Expressionist movement). Where do you get the cut-off dates for the Bridge, Early Romanticism, and Late Romanticism and where do such non-Romantic composers as Faure, Debussy, Offenbach, Johann Strauss, and Koechlin fall? What of 20th century "Romantics" like Richard Strauss, Virgil Thomson, Samuel Barber, Erich Korngold, etc...? :devil:


----------



## ahammel

StlukesguildOhio said:


> By the same token... what the hell is "The Bridge"


Beethoven, Schubert, von Weber, Hummel and some associated hangers-on, I expect.


----------



## KenOC

ahammel said:


> Beethoven, Schubert, von Weber, Hummel and some associated hangers-on, I expect.


Yes, I really had in mind Beethoven's heyday. He is often spoken of as a "bridge" between the classical and romantic periods, with what truth I am unsure. But I think that quarter-century provided a bridge, with Beethoven's help or not, through the people that ahammel named and others.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

KenOC said:


> Heh-heh! Age and cunning, as they say...
> 
> Interesting that "late Romantic" seems the least offensive category here. I think the only vote against it is mine. Oops, no, it's somebody else.


Wagner is not controversial at all. Everybody loves Wagner.


----------



## Yardrax

I've heard it said previously that Wagner is the most controversial composer of all time. That could be hot air, but then remember back when Wagner threads were popping up every week on TC and degenerating into 'Was Wagner a Nazi' debates just as quickly.


----------



## Jos

Yardrax said:


> but then remember back when Wagner threads were popping up every week on TC and degenerating into 'Was Wagner a Nazi' debates just as quickly.


Ah, the musical-equivalent of Godwin's Law.....:devil:

Cheers,
Jos


----------



## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> By the same token... what the hell is "The Bridge" (unless you are referring to Die Brücke, a movement within the larger German Expressionist movement). Where do you get the cut-off dates for the Bridge, Early Romanticism, and Late Romanticism and where do such non-Romantic composers as Faure, Debussy, Offenbach, Johann Strauss, and Koechlin fall? What of 20th century "Romantics" like Richard Strauss, Virgil Thomson, Samuel Barber, Erich Korngold, etc...? :devil:


A too great number of those 'eras' are not, and then we have, without, qualification, a 'Bridge' era, and plainly, out of thin air, a 'minimalist' era, a simultaneous 'tonal' and 'atonal' era.... ya da ya da da.

But hey, its a poll, not Groves.


----------



## hpowders

The most avoided is the one we are currently in.


----------



## Novelette

PetrB said:


> A too great number of those 'eras' are not, and then we have, without, qualification, a 'Bridge' era, and plainly, out of thin air, a 'minimalist' era, a simultaneous 'tonal' and 'atonal' era.... ya da ya da da.
> 
> But hey, its a poll, not Groves.


You're right! One could never consider these as eras when the failure to mention the boldest of them all borders on gross effrontery and insolence. I speak of course of the Rococo.


----------



## PetrB

Novelette said:


> You're right! One could never consider these as eras when the failure to mention the boldest of them all borders on gross effrontery and insolence. I speak of course of the Rococo.


I'm thinking the OP also missed the Fauxbourdon, Ficta, Mannheim, Transcendental, Aleatory, Neoclassical, Drone, Neoromantic, Concrète, Darmstadt, and a _whole bunch_ of other eras as well


----------



## Novelette

PetrB said:


> I'm thinking the OP also missed the Fauxbourdon, Ficta, Mannheim, Transcendental, Aleatory, Neoclassical, Drone, Neoromantic, Concrète, Darmstadt, and a _whole bunch_ of other eras as well


We could _all_ use a good reminding! Harrumph!

Edit: Wasn't there a Neo-Aleatory movement to boot?


----------



## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> I'm thinking the OP also missed the Fauxbourdon, Ficta, Mannheim, Transcendental, Aleatory, Neoclassical, Drone, Neoromantic, Concrète, Darmstadt, and a _whole bunch_ of other eras as well


Where's the post-Wagnerian Germanic neo-conservative post-Romantic era? That one's important......


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> Where's the post-Wagnerian Germanic neo-conservative post-Romantic era? That one's important......


.... missed the Impressionist era, too, also quite important.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> .... missed the Impressionist era, too, also quite important.


Deepest apologies for any inadequacies in the poll! But is does seem that most people were able to figure it out with little trouble. It may be that those having more difficulty are also those dissatisfied with the results? No, couldn't be... :lol:


----------



## neoshredder

PetrB said:


> .... missed the Impressionist era, too, also quite important.


The main thing though is he didn't miss the most avoidable era.


----------



## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> I'm thinking the OP also missed the Fauxbourdon, Ficta, Mannheim, Transcendental, Aleatory, Neoclassical, Drone, Neoromantic, Concrète, Darmstadt, and a _whole bunch_ of other eras as well


Those might have been included under "other," but unfortunately there was only room for "other avant-garde" in the poll.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Deepest apologies for any inadequacies in the poll! But is does seem that most people were able to figure it out with little trouble.


Well, good for them. I personally have a hard time understanding how the most selected option isn't an era at all...I'm honored to be on a forum with so many people who have such an acute and rare comprehension of the nature of time.


----------



## guy

God how I hate atonality and it's 12-tone chromaticism and dissonance. How is it even music?


----------



## Blake

Hahaha, oh guy.


----------



## guy

What I say is true, the best I can muster is Transfigured Night, and maybe Schoenberg's String Quartet No 2.


----------



## Blake

I agree that you believe it's true.


----------



## Novelette

KenOC said:


> Deepest apologies for any inadequacies in the poll! But is does seem that most people were able to figure it out with little trouble. It may be that those having more difficulty are also those dissatisfied with the results? No, couldn't be... :lol:


_Most_ is not an adequate criterion of success. The results are undoubtedly skewed by the narrow choices. Much like a police line-up in which one is asked "_Which_ of these people did you see?" rather than "Is the person you saw standing before you now?" A medium mark for effort, KenOC, but we expect better in the future.


----------



## guy

Do you believe it's true, Vesuvius?


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

On the other hand, "Gothic" was most certainly an "era" historically... but it fails to include the whole of the Medieval period of music... which goes back to the Romanesque in Spain and even the Byzantine within my own collection:


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> Do you believe it's true, Vesuvius?


Nah, I really dig the stuff.


----------



## guy

Vesuvius said:


> Nah, I really dig the stuff.


How is that even possible?!


----------



## KenOC

Novelette said:


> Much like a police line-up in which one is asked "_Which_ of these people did you see?" rather than "Is the person you saw standing before you now?"


I've always found that the best way to get those scoundrels behind bars! Sure, some innocent people get locked up, but some of the guilty are still bound to go free. It all comes out even in the end.


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> How is that even possible?!


All I know is that the music enters my ears, my brain translates, and I dig it.


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> How is that even possible?!


It sounds good.


----------



## guy

Vesuvius said:


> All I know is that the music enters my ears, my brain translates, and I dig it.





Mahlerian said:


> It sounds good.


Ehh. Ok then, I guess.


----------



## Novelette

KenOC said:


> I've always found that the best way to get those scoundrels behind bars! Sure, some innocent people get locked up, but some of the guilty are still bound to go free. It all comes out even in the end.


You have succinctly stated the mathematician's desperate prayer: "May all of my errors be offsetting!"


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> Ehh. Ok then, I guess.


I know where you're coming from, though. Not too long ago I had a similar reserve. All I can say is to stay open and don't lock yourself down by thinking what "should" be. One day something might click and you'll be in for a treat. If not, that's okay too.


----------



## Tristan

I don't listen to a lot of what people call "avant grade" or classical music written after 1960. Not that I've never listened to it or anything, I have. It just more often than not doesn't appeal to me.


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> God how I hate I realize you have the luxury of virtual instruments and it's *12-tone chromaticism* and dissonance. *How is it even music?*


*How is that even a legitimate question? Seriously.*


----------



## Blancrocher

Vesuvius said:


> I agree that you believe it's true.


It's possible, but I prefer to reserve judgment on the matter.


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Do you believe it's true, Vesuvius?


Well, some actually KNOW it is true from first hand experience! The Berg Violin Concerto is one of the greatest of violin concerti, and it is one of the most highly lyric pieces (and a masterpiece at that) of the entire late romantic - early modern period. ~ Period.

_*If you want to talk about really really truly dirty and nasty dissonances, you have to reach back to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Beethoven*_


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Well, some actually KNOW it is true from first hand experience! The Berg Violin Concerto is one of the greatest of violin concerti, and it is one of the most highly lyric pieces (and a masterpiece at that) of the entire late romantic - early modern period. ~ Period.


Maybe only a semicolon. Easily outshadowed by Shostakovich's concerto of thirteen years later.


----------



## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> _*If you want to talk about really really truly dirty and nasty dissonances, you have to reach back to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Beethoven*_


"But if one writes a sustained chord, b#-d#-f#, in the right hand for the piano, and adds an eighth note melody, g#-f#-e-d#-c#-b, this produces horrible, incomprehensible dissonances, and I am glad it was not I who first wrote that sort of thing, but Johann Sebastian Bach." - Arnold Schoenberg


----------



## guy

PetrB said:


> *How is that even a legitimate question? Seriously.*


Because it ends in a question mark and is inquisitive in nature.

_*If you want to talk about really really truly dirty and nasty dissonances, you have to reach back to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Beethoven*_ [/QUOTE]

True, I guess. In _Grosse Fuge_ there's a Bb-C-D dissonance, and several sharp dissonances in the Gb part.


----------



## Novelette

PetrB said:


> Well, some actually KNOW it is true from first hand experience! The Berg Violin Concerto is one of the greatest of violin concerti, and it is one of the most highly lyric pieces (and a masterpiece at that) of the entire late romantic - early modern period. ~ Period.
> 
> _*If you want to talk about really really truly dirty and nasty dissonances, you have to reach back to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Beethoven*_


In his first opera, too! The nerve of that guy, writing music couldn't even be played by the violinists, sung by the soloists, or borne by the hearers. Zoroastre is chock full of some rough, heavy music. It's not for nothing that I have a a copy of the famous portrait of Rameau hanging over my desk at home.  Truly outstanding composer.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Maybe only a semicolon. Easily outshadowed by Shostakovich's concerto of thirteen years later.


Deaf and blind, or a relative of Dmitri, perhaps, or just asserting your personal taste as fact? -- as do I -- but only sometimes


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Because it ends in a question mark and is inquisitive in nature.
> 
> _*If you want to talk about really really truly dirty and nasty dissonances, you have to reach back to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Beethoven*_


True, I guess. In _Grosse Fuge_ there's a Bb-C-D dissonance, and several sharp dissonances in the Gb part.[/QUOTE]

Well then, even many people who don't care for atonal music at all are _at least mature enough to acknowledge it as music which they do not care for at all_.


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Because it ends in a question mark and is inquisitive in nature.


Well, you got me there, but I still find that disingenuous... or you _really are_ that musically green.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Well, you got me there, but I still find that disingenuous... or you _really are_ that musically green.


Arguments to the fact, not the man, are generally preferred or so I understand.


----------



## guy

Yeah, I guess I did misstep with that comment. I should have said It is not music _that I like._


----------



## Blake

Everyone has had their time in the green suit... no shame in that. You just can't criticize while you're in green, it just doesn't work.


----------



## guy

Vesuvius said:


> Everyone has had their time in the green suit... no shame in that. You just can't criticize while you're in green, it just doesn't work.


I'm wearing blue, actually.


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> I'm wearing blue, actually.


I can't think of anything smart-a** to say, so I digress. :tiphat:


----------



## guy

Back to the topic at hand. 

Why so many dislikes for Early Romantic, I wonder?


----------



## SimonNZ

Mahlerian said:


> "But if one writes a sustained chord, b#-d#-f#, in the right hand for the piano, and adds an eighth note melody, g#-f#-e-d#-c#-b, this produces horrible, incomprehensible dissonances, and I am glad it was not I who first wrote that sort of thing, but Johann Sebastian Bach." - Arnold Schoenberg


Which Bach work is that?


----------



## moody

guy said:


> God how I hate atonality and it's 12-tone chromaticism and dissonance. How is it even music?


Boy, you're asking for it.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

guy said:


> God how I hate atonality and it's 12-tone chromaticism and dissonance. How is it even music?


Whoa, boy! Calm down, no need to throw a tantrum! I'm sure atonality and its composers hate you too....


----------



## neoshredder

guy said:


> God how I hate atonality and it's 12-tone chromaticism and dissonance. How is it even music?


Yeah it's more of an atmosphere than music. Or a very chaotic version of music. Assuming music is as simple as a collection of sounds.


----------



## DeepR

Modern, however I try to be open minded and I actually like quite a bit of modern music I've listened to. I have these random youtube sessions to discover new music. I can't put my finger on it... it's really unpredictable.... sometimes I like certain modern music a lot and sometimes I absolutely detest it.


----------



## starthrower

neoshredder said:


> Yeah it's more of an atmosphere than music. Or a very chaotic version of music. Assuming music is as simple as a collection of sounds.


Ever listen to Webern? Nothing chaotic about it. Not really atmospheric sounding either.

Interestingly, last night on the CSO broadcast, they featured cello concertos by Lutoslawski, and Hadyn back to back. The former is a rather unorthodox work, but it held my interest, while the Hadyn sent me dozing off.


----------



## Blancrocher

moody said:


> Boy, you're asking for it.


That's what I think, too--but perhaps it's for the best that many members are so obliging, since I tend to learn a lot from them.


----------



## guy

I now renounce my "How is it music" comment. My apologies.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Yeah it's more of an atmosphere than music. Or a very chaotic version of music. Assuming music is as simple as a collection of sounds.


But you see, it's only "chaotic" to your ideas of what harmony should be. I can't even imagine how music would be centuries from now, if humans are still on this planet.... But I would bet that they wouldn't be latching on to the conservative ideas of Baroque and Classical structure. This is evolution happening right before your eyes. Dig it.


----------



## ahammel

guy said:


> Back to the topic at hand.
> 
> Why so many dislikes for Early Romantic, I wonder?


Avoidance, not necessarily dislike. And there are only 4, which is a reasonable number of people to be indifferent to Schumann, Chopin, and Mendelssohn, I suppose.


----------



## mmsbls

Even though 72 people have voted, the statistics are still a bit low. Still, based on these results one can understand the playlists of many classical radio stations (at least all the ones I have listened to). Those stations seem to avoid early (pre-Baroque) and late (20th century besides a few well know composers) classical music. I guess that makes sense even though some of us would very much like to see that change. 

I did not vote partly because I'm not sure if the poll is asking for the era most avoided or the music least enjoyed. For me the two are quite different. The music I least enjoy is probably avant-garde. I wouldn't say I avoid any era (i.e. there's no music I purposely do not play), but I listen to less Gothic than any others probably because there seems to be less available.


----------



## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> But you see, it's only "chaotic" to your ideas of what harmony should be. I can't even imagine how music would be centuries from now, if humans are still on this planet.... But I would bet that they wouldn't be latching on to the conservative ideas of Baroque and Classical structure. This is evolution happening right before your eyes. Dig it.


I have a feeling the evolution has played out. Atonal being the last straw based on everything tonal has been covered.


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> I have a feeling the evolution has played out. Atonal being the last straw based on everything tonal has been covered.


And yet, people keep writing music.


----------



## neoshredder

ahammel said:


> And yet, people keep writing music.


Yeah but basically more of the same.


----------



## Aramis

ahammel said:


> And yet, people keep writing music.


And yet, other people don't care to listen to it.

Except some guy.


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> Yeah but basically more of the same.


What an absolute load of the purest balderdash.


----------



## aleazk

I love "Gothic" (ars antiqua in particular):

*Pérotin* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perotin):

-Alleluia nativitas: 




-Viderunt Omnes: 



 (my favorite, listen to those wonderful chords at the end of each section)

This is a very good documentary (I saw it on TV some time ago), unfortunately the full documentary is not on youtube, just this fragment:


----------



## Mahlerian

SimonNZ said:


> Which Bach work is that?


Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, Prelude in C# minor:




At 1:22 or so.


----------



## neoshredder

ahammel said:


> What an absolute load of the purest balderdash.


How have they progressed since Ligeti?


----------



## Yardrax

aleazk said:


> This is a very good documentary (I saw it on TV some time ago), unfortunately the full documentary is not on youtube, just this fragment:


Either you didn't look very hard or the video isn't available in your country, but I found it in full right here. I agree that it's a good documentary by the way.


----------



## aleazk

Yardrax said:


> Either you didn't look very hard or the video isn't available in your country, but I found it in full right here. I agree that it's a good documentary by the way.


Oh, great. I think I was looking for it using a wrong name.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> I have a feeling the evolution has played out. Atonal being the last straw based on everything tonal has been covered.


I don't have these apocalyptic visions as you do. But I have a feeling that music will continue to evolve as long as humans are creating and enjoying it. I love old styles of music, but to hold on to it like it's the end-all of music making is a bit silly.


----------



## KenOC

Because of earlier complaints about the categories in this poll, I want to apologize for three important omissions: both macrobiotic eras (Smooth and Bumpy), the Era of Schneera, and of course the Lower flatulent period, without which some later composers would be in great difficulty.


----------



## quack

KenOC said:


> Because of earlier complaints about the categories in this poll, I want to apologize for three important omissions: both macrobiotic eras (Smooth and Bumpy), the Era of Schneera, and of course the Lower flatulent period, without which some later composers would be in great difficulty.


Well you need to go back and get it right this time. Include all these eras you missed the first time, even the micro-eras that lasted an hour and a quarter in 1932 in Stravinsky's kitchen just after lunch. I'm sure we will end up with a much more accurate and true result and not just an answer obvious from the get go. Once done, then, and only then, can I point out you missed the bel canto era as well.


----------



## PetrB

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Whoa, boy! Calm down, no need to throw a tantrum! I'm sure atonality and its composers hate you too....


Yeah, right. (said with a painful to maintain straight face


----------



## KenOC

"Atonality is God's way of telling us that we have too much music." -- Ludwig Dmitrivich von Liberace


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Yeah it's more of an atmosphere than music. *Or a very chaotic version of music.* Assuming music is as simple as a collection of sounds.


You do know that at the time it was written, Webern, Schoenberg, etc. _is in fact the most rigorously and highly ordered / organized music_ that had ever been written ?

That is antithetical to any notion of music being a random collection of sounds!


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> "Atonality is God's way of telling us that we have too much music." -- Ludwig Dmitrivich von Liberace


"Atonality is God's way of telling us that we have too much tonal music, and that the cosmic order of things is not nearly as simple or hummable as we had previously thought."

~ Dmitri Buxtehude / Johann Sebastian Bach / Wolfgang Mozart / Ludwig von Beethoven / Johannes Brahms / Claude Debussy / Igor Stravinsky, etc.


----------



## hpowders

I could say that composing atonally is the perfect cop out for never having to have a composers' compositions compared with the likes of Beethoven and Brahms, but why stir up controversy?


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> I could say that composing atonally is the perfect cop out for never having to have a composers' compositions compared with the likes of Beethoven and Brahms, but why stir up controversy?


But they still can be compared anyway.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> I could say that composing atonally is the perfect cop out for never having to have a composers' compositions compared with the likes of Beethoven and Brahms, but why stir up controversy?


This is more a display of what bits you know with what bits you don't as clearly missing -- as if 'melody' or some such simple thing was the main basis / criterion for qualifying and comparing classical music -- with I suppose tertian harmony (triads) another.

Sorry, that just ain't so.


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Back to the topic at hand.
> 
> Why so many dislikes for Early Romantic, I wonder?


I like it for its tendency (while being more 'romantic' in harmony and style than classical) of its still remaining somewhere within the more restrained aesthetic of classicism, i.e. no big overt or extremely personal / emotive displays.

I think because the early romantic does not 'do' the more full-out full throttle romantic (the most preferred of all, it seems) is exactly why it is less favored -- for many, it is too restrained.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> I like it for its tendency while still staying somewhere within the more restrained aesthetic of classicism, i.e. no big overt or extremely personal / emotive displays. I think because it is not the more full-out full throttle romantic (the most preferred of all, it seems) is exactly why it is less favored.


My feeling as well. Sometimes after listening to the late romantic stuff I really need to cleanse my palette with some nice bracing neoclassical...


----------



## neoshredder

KenOC said:


> My feeling as well. Sometimes after listening to the late romantic stuff I really need to cleanse my palette with some nice bracing neoclassical...


If I need cleansing, I go to the source. Galante for me.


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> If I need cleansing, I go to the source. Galante for me.


I thought the source was beating on drums and ululating while the soles of our bare feet slap joyously on Gaia's belly... or some such other than our so refined and artificial constructs of 'classical music'


----------



## ahammel

PetrB said:


> I thought the source was beating on drums and ululating while the soles of our bare feet slap joyously on Gaia's belly... or some such other than our so refined and artificial constructs of 'classical music'


Pfft, drums. Flash modern stuff.


----------



## PetrB

ahammel said:


> Pfft, drums. Flash modern stuff.


Hollow logs, sticks, stretched animal hides and bare hands or sticks -- the ultimate high tech midi gear? _Or What!?! _


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> "Atonality is God's way of telling us that we have too much music." -- Ludwig Dmitrivich von Liberace


Ha! Ha! Maybe it's true, but I have an excellent feeling that if Brahms or Beethoven were resurrected, they would still find plenty to create out of the good old "standard scales".


----------



## neoshredder

hpowders said:


> Ha! Ha! Maybe it's true, but I have an excellent feeling that if Brahms or Beethoven were resurrected, they would still find plenty to create out of the good old "standard scales".


But as you mentioned, that was old music. Why go to old music when we can go to atonal music? The only problem with that is that atonal music isn't good. lol


----------



## Novelette

Guys and gals, we desperately need to find something new to fight about.


----------



## Mahlerian

Novelette said:


> Guys and gals, we desperately need to find something new to fight about.


Okay! Countertenors or female altos? This one's going to get nasty, folks, but let's go at it!


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> Okay! Countertenors or female altos? This one's going to get nasty, folks, but let's go at it!


Choral music. _Ewww._


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Choral music. _Ewww._


I suppose that is all 'bad music' or 'not music,' too?


----------



## guy

PetrB said:


> I suppose that is all 'bad music' or 'not music,' too?


No, I just disagree with it on principle this time.


----------



## Novelette

guy said:


> Choral music. _Ewww._


Miserere nobis! Miserere nobis! Miserere nobis!


----------



## KenOC

Uh-oh, we have a vote against the Choral era. I left that one off too!


----------



## guy

I actually do like some choral music, but I'm very selective. Requiem in D minor, Omnes amici mdi, and Beethoven's Symphony 9 mvmt 4 is pretty much it


----------



## Blancrocher

guy said:


> No, I just disagree with it on principle this time.


They used to know how to write music, and then the "stile moderno" came and it was all over.


----------



## Novelette

KenOC said:


> Uh-oh, we have a vote against the Choral era. I left that one off too!


Forgiven, KenOC.

Once.


----------



## KenOC

Novelette said:


> Miserere nobis! Miserere nobis! Miserere nobis!


Or possibly, to the offending one, Deus animae tuae misereatur.


----------



## guy

Blancrocher said:


> They used to know how to write music, and then the "stile moderno" came and it was all over.


No, stile moderno was a step towards contrapuntal techniques and polyphony. If no stile moderno, symphonies would be a bunch of instruments playing in unison. Heck, there might not even _be_ symphonies.


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> No, stile moderno was a step towards contrapuntal techniques and polyphony. If no stile moderno, symphonies would be a bunch of instruments playing in unison. Heck, there might not even _be_ symphonies.


Yes, but contrapuntal techniques and the demands of voice leading led to the use of chromaticism, which killed music, apparently. I say if there's a poison in there, you'd best cut it off at the source.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but contrapuntal techniques and the demands of voice leading led to the use of chromaticism, which killed music, apparently. I say if there's a poison in there, you'd best cut it off at the source.


It's when _everything_ is chromaticism and atonal, that's where I have a problem. Omnes amici mei has suitable chromaticism. Mozart's chromaticism is just plain weird, but forgivable. Schoenberg's, however, is plain weird and _*everywhere*_. Of course, that's just my opinion.


----------



## Novelette

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but contrapuntal techniques and the demands of voice leading led to the use of chromaticism, which killed music, apparently. I say if there's a poison in there, you'd best cut it off at the source.


Exhibit B: Gesualdo.


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> It's when _everything_ is chromaticism and atonal, that's where I have a problem. Omnes amici mei has suitable chromaticism. Mozart's chromaticism is just plain weird, but forgivable. Schoenberg's, however, is plain weird and _*everywhere*_. Of course, that's just my opinion.


I don't believe in atonality. In my opinion, there's no consistent definition of it out there that includes everything commonly called atonal while at the same time excludes everything commonly called tonal.

I believe in good music and bad music. Mozart wrote plenty of good music. So did Schoenberg.


----------



## guy

Novelette said:


> Exhibit B: Gesualdo.


How is Gesualdo bad? Yeah, I guess he did kill some people... other than that, though. Here is Omnes amici mei with *suitable* chromaticism:


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> I don't believe in atonality.
> 
> I believe in good music and bad music. Mozart wrote plenty of good music. So did Schoenberg.


Gosh darn it. Point taken.


----------



## neoshredder

Except Mozart made much more great music than Schoenberg.


----------



## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Except Mozart made much more great music than Schoenberg.


Given that he composed hundreds of works as compared to Schoenberg's 50 opus numbers plus change, that's not surprising...


----------



## guy

No matter whether someone changes the topic, it all comes back to the world + atonality vs. me. :lol:


----------



## neoshredder

guy said:


> No matter whether someone changes the topic, it all comes back to the world + atonality vs. me. :lol:


Just remember tonality is the way to go.


----------



## guy

neoshredder said:


> Just remember tonality is the way to go.


Thank you! Now let's not bring up Bartok. Except for his 3rd piano concerto.


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> I actually do like some choral music, but I'm very selective. Requiem in D minor, Omnes amici mdi, and Beethoven's Symphony 9 mvmt 4 is pretty much it


Try these on for size:
Maurice Ravel ~ Daphnis et Chloe





John Adams ~ Harmonium (part 1 of 3)


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> Thank you! Now let's not bring up Bartok. Except for his 3rd piano concerto.


But that doesn't have a choir in it...


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> But that doesn't have a choir in it...


But it's Bartok, and Bartok is usually quite... weird:


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> But it's Bartok, and Bartok is usually quite... weird:


Gesualdo is weird. Monteverdi is weird. Bach is certainly weird. Haydn is weird. Mozart is weird. Beethoven is weird. Chopin is weird. Bruckner is weird. Mahler still strikes me as downright bizarre in many spots.

It's the normal ones who aren't worth paying much attention to.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> Gesualdo is weird. Monteverdi is weird. Bach is certainly weird. Haydn is weird. Mozart is weird. Beethoven is weird. Chopin is weird. Bruckner is weird. Mahler still strikes me as downright bizarre in many spots.
> 
> It's the normal ones who aren't worth paying much attention to.


Okay then. Bartok is usually quite unattractive, repugnant, and just plain bad sometimes. Just so I don't get killed, I will say that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine. To me, is second string quartet makes no sense. Can anyone _possibly_ explain it?

Bartok is a bad weird.


----------



## KenOC

I think that when somebody expresses an opinion on music, they are more often than not commenting on themselves, not the music. This is especially true when the opinion suggests a lack of long familiarity with music and is expressed in rather absolute terms. Relative newcomers to classical music are particularly prone to thinking their opinions are worth far more than they actually are.

Of course some people with long acquaintance with the music can be just as absolute, and perhaps they have not profited by that familiarity.


----------



## guy

KenOC said:


> *I think that when somebody expresses an opinion on music, they are more often than not commenting on themselves, not the music.* This is especially true when the opinion suggests *a lack of long familiarity with music* and is expressed in rather absolute terms. Relative newcomers to classical music are particularly prone to thinking their opinions are worth far more than they actually are.
> 
> Of course some people with long acquaintance with the music can be just as absolute, and perhaps they have not profited by that familiarity.


How so?

Why should I be familiar with that which I hate? (most of Bartok)


----------



## Blake

Mahlerian said:


> Gesualdo is weird. Monteverdi is weird. Bach is certainly weird. Haydn is weird. Mozart is weird. Beethoven is weird. Chopin is weird. Bruckner is weird. Mahler still strikes me as downright bizarre in many spots.
> 
> It's the normal ones who aren't worth paying much attention to.


"Weird" is the language of the conservative mind when it runs into something new.


----------



## guy

It's not new. I've listened to it countless of times, trying to understand it, and it's still... gibberish. Nonsense. _Weird._


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> It's not new. I've listened to it countless of times, trying to understand it, and it's still... gibberish. Nonsense. _Weird._


Well, it hasn't really been digested yet, so there's still a newness to it.


----------



## guy

Vesuvius said:


> Well, it hasn't really been digested yet, so there's still a newness to it.


What do you mean "digested"?


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> What do you mean "digested"?


This kind of music is produced by incredibly intelligent and genuine artists. And usually when one fully digest the music, instead of just chewing it a bit and spitting it out, a certain level of appreciation can still be given for the integrity of the art and the effort it took to create it. Regardless if it is "liked" or "not liked."

Blunt statements like you're making show that you haven't let the music in at all, and you're speaking from biases that have skewed your perception.


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> Okay then. Bartok is usually quite unattractive, repugnant, and just plain bad sometimes. Just so I don't get killed, I will say that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine. To me, his second string quartet makes no sense. Can anyone _possibly_ explain it?


Yes.

The linked video contains a scherzo-like movement that is based around a few motifs that recur throughout. The first of these is a series of oscillating thirds or tritones. The second is that short run at the end of the first phrase, which is sometimes upwards, sometimes downwards. The phrase ends with a minor second to the tonal center (D at the beginning and end) The next is the melodic figure that appears at 0:35 and 0:52 in the lower strings against repeated notes in the upper. The rest of the movement is based on recombining these motifs and creating new figures out of them.


----------



## violadude

guy said:


> Okay then. Bartok is usually quite unattractive, repugnant, and just plain bad sometimes. Just so I don't get killed, I will say that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine. To me, is second string quartet makes no sense. Can anyone _possibly_ explain it?
> 
> Bartok is a bad weird.


I can possibly explain it, but first you have to explain to me what you find weird about it. I think that particular movement you posted is among the most un-weird amongst the movements of his string quartets  Is it that you can't hear the themes? or what?


----------



## guy

violadude said:


> I can possibly explain it, but first you have to explain to me what you find weird about it. I think that particular movement you posted is among the most un-weird amongst the movements of his string quartets  Is it that you can't hear the themes? or what?


No, I hear the themes. A better word would be unorthodox, I guess.



> This kind of music is produced by incredibly intelligent and genuine artists. And usually when one fully digest the music, instead of just chewing it a bit and spitting it out, a certain level of appreciation can still be given for the integrity of the art and the effort it took to create it. Regardless if it is "liked" or "not liked."


That, I agree with.



> Blunt statements like you're making show that you haven't let the music in at all, and you're speaking from biases that have skewed your perception.


I tried to let the music in, and this is the result.


----------



## hpowders

OMG!! I LOVE the Bartok quartets! How can anybody say anything bad? Absolute masterpieces!


----------



## Blake

guy said:


> I tried to let the music in, and this is the result.


Then forget about it, and listen to what you like, haha. In the end, music is primarily for joy, so don't waste time if you really can't get into something. But maybe have a little more restraint from criticizing what you haven't been able to appreciate yet.


----------



## guy

Vesuvius said:


> Then forget about it, and listen to what you like, haha. In the end, music is primarily for joy, so don't waste time if you really can't get into something. But maybe have a little more restraint from criticizing what you haven't been able to appreciate yet.


I will do that from now on


----------



## Neo Romanza

guy said:


> Okay then. Bartok is usually quite unattractive, repugnant, and just plain bad sometimes. Just so I don't get killed, I will say that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine. To me, is second string quartet makes no sense. Can anyone _possibly_ explain it?
> 
> Bartok is a bad weird.


Perhaps you're misunderstanding the composer's idiom? I applaud your efforts in trying to wrap your mind around a work like _String Quartet No. 2_, but have you ever tried any of Bartok's other works? Why only focus on one genre? Why not stretch your wings out a little and listen to something like the _Concerto for Orchestra_ or the _Piano Concerto No. 3_? These works have been described as accessible and great starting points for anyone new to Bartok's music. Do give them a try, but be sure to work backwards so you can get the full scope of his compositional prowess.

Please forgive the barrage of questions, but inquiring minds want to know.


----------



## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> Then forget about it, and listen to what you like, haha. In the end, music is primarily for joy, so don't waste time if you really can't get into something. But maybe have a little more restraint from criticizing what you haven't been able to appreciate yet.


Why do you assume he will eventually like it?


----------



## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Why do you assume he will eventually like it?


If you don't like something because you don't understand it, then it's possible that if you come to understand it, you will like it. Not in all cases, for sure, but Bartok's quartets are a staple of the 20th century chamber repertoire, and perhaps he wants to understand, at least, why they are so highly regarded by others, even if he doesn't end up liking them himself.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Why do you assume he will eventually like it?


Why do you assume that "like" and "appreciate" are interchangeable? There's a reason I chose the words that I did... I still have an appreciation for some forms of art that I don't particularly like.


----------



## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> If you don't like something because you don't understand it, then it's possible that if you come to understand it, you will like it. Not in all cases, for sure, but Bartok's quartets are a staple of the 20th century chamber repertoire, and perhaps he wants to understand, at least, why they are so highly regarded by others, even if he doesn't end up liking them himself.


Or maybe he had the right reaction the first place. He shouldn't have to like it because it is considered a staple of the 20th century chamber repertoire.


----------



## Blancrocher

Vesuvius said:


> Why do you assume that "like" and "appreciate" are interchangeable? There's a reason I chose the words that I did... I still have an appreciation for some forms of art that I don't particularly like.


I just appreciated your post, Vesuvius.


----------



## Blake

Blancrocher said:


> I just appreciated your post, Vesuvius.


I hope you liked it.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> *If you don't like something because you don't understand it, then it's possible that if you come to understand it, you will like it.* Not in all cases, for sure, but Bartok's quartets are a staple of the 20th century chamber repertoire, and perhaps *he wants to understand, at least, why they are so highly regarded by others, even if he doesn't end up liking them himself.*


That's what happened with the Grosse Fuge for me.

Pretty much :B


----------



## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Or maybe he had the right reaction the first place. He shouldn't have to like it because it is considered a staple of the 20th century chamber repertoire.


I never said that he had to like it. I'm baffled as to how you can get that out of my post.

I don't like Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos very much, but I appreciate that they are worthy pieces that deserve to be in the repertoire.

And the right reaction is _never_ misunderstanding. If one hears nothing but nonsense where countless others more familiar with the style hear artistry, then one side or the other has to be wrong, and you'd better have a firm grounding if you want to go against the grain.

Or one can just like what one likes, and dislike what one dislikes, without worrying either about what people think of it or you. That's fine, and usually doesn't start arguments.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> And the right reaction is _never_ misunderstanding. If one hears nothing but nonsense where countless others more familiar with the style hear artistry, then *one side or the other has to be wrong*, and you'd better have a firm grounding if you want to go against the grain.


Opinions, by definition, are not facts, therefore cannot be proven wrong. I stated that I do not like Bartok's music, except for his Piano Concerto in E minor. You cannot prove me wrong.


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> Opinions, by definition, are not facts, therefore cannot be proven wrong. I stated that I do not like Bartok's music, except for his Piano Concerto in E minor. You cannot prove me wrong.


......yes. And that's irrelevant to what I was saying.

One can claim that music does not inherently carry "sense" and thus any judgement that it is "nonsensical" is an opinion.

But this would make Pachelbel's Canon in D and Richard Nanes' Holocaust Symphony equally "sensical" or "nonsensical" from an objective standpoint, which is something that I cannot philosophically "swallow". From my standpoint, Nanes' Symphony is a piece of junk concocted out of borrowed parts thrown together haphazardly. Pachelbel's Canon in D, while extremely overplayed, is a well-constructed simple little piece.

Of course, there is an element of subjectivity involved here. I am referring in my mind to certain standards of how music should be put together. Perhaps motifs and harmonies don't need to be put together in any particular way. Perhaps computers can truly produce music just as worthwhile as humans. Perhaps there's no reason for one to sing in tune or play the notes the composer provided...

Or perhaps there are standards which everybody tacitly agrees to, and which remain in play no matter what.


----------



## arpeggio

*What is the point?*

As I have gotten older I have discovered that if I dislike a form of art, music or literature I just avoid it.

I dislike romance novels. My solution? I do not read them.

But there appears to be a certain person out there who feels that if they do not like something it is bad and they go on some sort of crusade to save the world from what they dislike.

I have never received an adequate explanation on why the people who like avant-garde music should stop listening to avant-garde music. Even if avant garde music is inferior to Mozart there is still a small following who perform and listen to this music.

I have heard some argue that people who like avant garde music are arrogant and look down on people who like regular music. If that is true so what? Well does anyone have data which identifies what percentage of people who like avant garde music are arrogant? Is it 10%, 20%, 60%? I refuse to believe that everyone who likes avant garde music is arrogant. All of the personal friends that I have who like avant garde music are not arrogant. Do we punish them because because of their tastes?

I do not understand how person A harms person B because A likes avant garde music.

Do the anti-avant gardists want all discussions concerning avant garde music banned from TC? I know of another classical music discussion forum where the anti-modernist have succeeded in suppressing the discussion of avant garde music.

After all of this rhetoric and all of these polls, I still do not understand what the bottom line is for the anti-modernists.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> ......yes. And that's irrelevant to what I was saying.
> 
> One can claim that music does not inherently carry "sense" and thus any judgement that it is "nonsensical" is an opinion.
> 
> *But this would make Pachelbel's Canon in D and Richard Nanes' Holocaust Symphony equally "sensical" or "nonsensical" from an objective standpoint, which is something that I cannot philosophically "swallow"*. From my standpoint, Nanes' Symphony is a piece of junk concocted out of borrowed parts thrown together haphazardly. Pachelbel's Canon in D, while extremely overplayed, is a well-constructed simple little piece.
> 
> Of course, there is an element of subjectivity involved here. I am referring in my mind to certain standards of how music should be put together. Perhaps motifs and harmonies don't need to be put together in any particular way. Perhaps computers can truly produce music just as worthwhile as humans. Perhaps there's no reason for one to sing in tune or play the notes the composer provided...
> 
> Or perhaps there are standards which everybody tacitly agrees to, and which remain in play no matter what.


So you do think some music makes more sense than others. While you may not like Rachmaninoff's piano concerto's, but do appreciate them, does that mean that I must appreciate Bartok just as much?


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> So you do think some music makes more sense than others. While you may not like Rachmaninoff's piano concerto's, but do appreciate them, does that mean that I must appreciate Bartok just as much?


But I don't dislike Rachmaninoff's music because I think it doesn't make sense. His style just doesn't appeal to me much (outside of a few works). If you dislike Bartok because it doesn't appeal to you, fine. Obviously I can't argue with that. But if you _say_ that you dislike Bartok's Second Quartet because it makes no sense, then you may get a response. Perhaps you can come to appreciate it after all, if it comes to make sense to you in time. Or maybe it will make sense, and still lack appeal. I don't know which it will be for you, because everyone is different.

The only thing I don't want is for people to give up on something that they don't understand and go around proclaiming that there's nothing there to get. It turns other people off of some music I think is great.


----------



## guy

Mahlerian said:


> But I don't dislike Rachmaninoff's music because I think it doesn't make sense. His style just doesn't appeal to me much (outside of a few works). If you dislike Bartok because it doesn't appeal to you, fine. Obviously I can't argue with that. But if you _say_ that you dislike Bartok's Second Quartet because it makes no sense, then you may get a response. Perhaps you can come to appreciate it after all, if it comes to make sense to you in time. Or maybe it will make sense, and still lack appeal. I don't know which it will be for you, because everyone is different.
> 
> The only thing I don't want is for people to give up on something that they don't understand and go around proclaiming that there's nothing there to get. It turns other people off of some music I think is great.


I get that. I'll just dislike it and acknowledge it makes sense, then.


----------



## violadude

guy said:


> I get that. I'll just dislike it and acknowledge it makes sense, then.


The conversation isn't worth it if you're going to be disingenuous.


----------



## neoshredder

guy said:


> I get that. I'll just dislike it and acknowledge it makes sense, then.


Yep good answer. I get frustrated with the politically correct answer as well. Just say how you feel and don't worry about what other people say about it. As long as you respect the forum rules.


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Yep good answer. I get frustrated with the politically correct answer as well. Just say how you feel and don't worry about what other people say about it. As long as you respect the forum rules.


It is not politically correct to say any music of any type widely acknowledged by musicians and public alike "isn't music" or is "just noise." That is more likely to come from a person who is pretty angry that there is music many 'get' that they do not 

Of course, to say you do not care for this or that, whether backed up by a ton of rationale about music theory, what harmony is, and all that silly buggers stuff or just an honest statement of personal taste, has never been 'politically correct' as much as just correct, and polite.


----------



## Guest

neoshredder said:


> Yep good answer. I get frustrated with the politically correct answer as well. Just say how you feel and don't worry about what other people say about it. As long as you respect the forum rules.


I like this approach so much that I am going to throw caution to the wind and say how I really feel.

Atonal, minimalist, and avante-gard music is a crappy cop-out for good composition. Anyone who attacks my intelligence, knowledge or understanding, should know that I am a composer and songwriter with a good working knowledge of counterpoint and musical form and structure. I have written atonal music and music that could be categorized as "avante-gard" and found it unchalllenging and much easier than writing tonally structured music in the tradition of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.

I tire of people throwing their intellegence around like a weapon when someone disagrees with them.


----------



## PetrB

Jerome said:


> I like this approach so much that I am going to throw caution to the wind and say how I really feel.
> 
> Atonal, minimalist, and avante-gard music is a crappy cop-out for good composition. Anyone who attacks my intelligence, knowledge or understanding, should know that I am a composer and songwriter with a good working knowledge of counterpoint and musical form and structure. I have written atonal music and music that could be categorized as "avant garde" and found it unchallenging and much easier than writing tonally structured music in the tradition of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
> 
> I tire of people throwing their intelligence around like a weapon when someone disagrees with them.


I'm only a little bit actually sorry to say it, but if it was not as challenging as the other way, I don't think you got into it enough to pronounce judgement upon it -- I mean, did you make that music with intent to say anything, or was it a sort of investigative essay, or a for hire on-demand request? If you did not throw yourself entirely into it (and no reason you must, or to find it more attractive if really just not your cuppa) then no wonder you found it 'easier.'

Others who have the same skills from all the old forms and usages and techniques have thrown themselves into it, sincerely, and ended up working at least just as hard, and made pieces which 'work.'

I'm as tired of people calling it crap as you are imagining it is a matter of "modernism" of any sort being touted as a matter of 'superior intelligence.' It is just one of a myriad ways of going about writing, after all, no more an end-all / be-all than modalism, tonalism, bitonality, polytonality, or any other musical vein you care to name.

*I am with you as far as the more extreme modernists working very hard (way too hard)to make it sound as if you are not completely on the bandwagon then you're "out of it." That is as supercilious as calling any kind of music we know that 'works' (whether we care for it or not) "Crap."*

I would not expect any songwriter of a more popular genre to care to get anywhere near dodecaphonic + atonal music, since it is screamingly just not the market with an audience which invites, expects or has any inclination to even taste or try that genre (I imagine even a bit of gentle bi-tonality would alarm in that marketplace.) If that is your sensibility, and you're good at it, my sincere congratulations and more power to you: it is not, however, any good reason to dis other genres or styles simply because they lie outside the boundaries of your personal taste or your market targets.

*I don't know about you, but I write how and what I can *


----------



## guy

Let's get to the root of this thing, shall we? What exactly is the case of atonality vs tonality? Why is atonality better, or in Schoenberg's opinion, freeing? I can write a random 12-tone row. But how do you develop that? Cant go to dominant or relative major because it's *atonal.* How would you develop something aharmonically?


----------



## PetrB

guy said:


> Let's get to the root of this thing, shall we? What exactly is the case of atonality vs tonality? Why is atonality better, or in Schoenberg's opinion, freeing? I can write a random 12-tone row. But how do you develop that? Cant go to dominant or relative major because it's *atonal.* How would you develop something aharmonically?


Well, just as you would within a diatonic system, either by confluent simultaneous horizontal lines (polyphony making harmony) or by an ordering of your pitch materials... which if more than one note is sounding at a time, defines 'harmony,' all that while avoiding any sense of I-IV-V-I in either horizontal or vertical relationships. I do not see how that is so radical an approach that anyone claiming to be at all musical, or a musician, can not grasp the concept. It is really not nearly as 'radical' as many would like to make it out to be. It does turn away from the hierarchy of common practice tonality, but so did, in incremental steps, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms and about any other past hero musician you care to name. (I say that because I believe it, not as a proto-advocate of serialism or atonality as 'the way.')

I don't think you can call such a rigorous approach to ordering music at all 'freeing,' but it did 'free' some from the constraints of old practice tonality -- I'll repeat myself because this is extremely important, So Did Wagner Bust Away from Common Practice Tonality... to a degree where many classical fans find that music nearly impossible to make any sense of, either.

You do not 'write a random 12-tone row' any more than you write a 'random chord progression,' in common practice harmony. It takes knowledge put into practice to make either mode of writing 'yield' anything worth listening to.

The big gripe, to "get at the root of the thing" is that some people will just not be able or willing to further develop their listening capacity to acquire the necessary to follow or enjoy even later Romantic era 'tonal' high chromaticism -- ergo a complaint that Mahler's 7th, first movement 'has no melody to follow.' _Is that a criticism about anyone's "lack of intelligence?" I think not. It is more like an observation that the listener does not have vocabulary enough to read a particular novel, for example._

If anyone said atonality was 'better' than 'tonality,' that is a load of codswallop to be sure. Both have assets, both have limitations.

As to 'melody,' well, look at the notes, literally connect the dots, and there is your "line," whether it is within your compass of expectations of what a melody is, or fits your criterion of being 'hummable' _that is a musical line, or melody if you must._

P.s. Serialism, to digress, is not necessarily atonal, but simply another means of organizing 'tones' whether the language is atonal or diatonic. (Schoenberg's serialism did have intent of being atonal.) "Atonal" is often misunderstood, it literally refers to "music without a tonic."

Here is a serial 'tonal' piece. A comment in the link says calls it "diatonic serialism"


----------



## Mahlerian

guy said:


> Let's get to the root of this thing, shall we? What exactly is the case of atonality vs tonality? Why is atonality better, or in Schoenberg's opinion, freeing? I can write a random 12-tone row. But how do you develop that? Cant go to dominant or relative major because it's *atonal.* How would you develop something aharmonically?


If you write a 12-tone row, it had better not be random. Schoenberg usually developed his tone rows out of thematic/melodic ideas that he was already working with. Webern developed his tone rows for maximum symmetry, and Berg such that he could create any triad he wished.

Yes, as in the older modal music, the concept of modulation no longer exists in a completely chromatic space. But this is not the only means of development of one's ideas. The composer is still allowed to use other forms of the row (inversion, retrograde, and inverted retrograde), as well as any transposition of any of these (starting on any note), both of which allow an extraordinary amount of variety. When I wrote a 12-tone piece recently, I selected rows based on what I wanted to get out of them, and ended up using several different forms in a very short space.

The advantage of writing using tone rows over non-ordered chromaticism of the type practiced by Schoenberg et. al circa 1908~1923 is that you have an assurance that your material will not "run away from you" and become incoherent. Everything will sound like it belongs together, because it all refers back to that initial idea.

Schoenberg did not consider "atonality" (a term he loathed) and 12-tone writing "freeing" at all. On the contrary, he thought it was exponentially more difficult to compose under these new constraints. He did not teach his methods to all of his students, and did not think that everyone should take them up, but he used them because he felt that chromatic saturation was the way forward in music and the 12-tone method presented the best way he knew of controlling it.


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> I'm only a little bit actually sorry to say it, but if it was not as challenging as the other way, I don't think you got into it enough to pronounce judgement upon it -- I mean, did you make that music with intent to say anything, or was it a sort of investigative essay, or a for hire on-demand request? If you did not throw yourself entirely into it (and no reason you must, or to find it more attractive if really just not your cuppa) then no wonder you found it 'easier.'
> 
> Others who have the same skills from all the old forms and usages and techniques have thrown themselves into it, sincerely, and ended up working at least just as hard, and made pieces which 'work.'
> 
> I'm as tired of people calling it crap as you are imagining it is a matter of "modernism" of any sort being touted as a matter of 'superior intelligence.' It is just one of a myriad ways of going about writing, after all, no more an end-all / be-all than modalism, tonalism, bitonality, polytonality, or any other musical vein you care to name.
> 
> *I am with you as far as the more extreme modernists working very hard (way too hard)to make it sound as if you are not completely on the bandwagon then you're "out of it." That is as supercilious as calling any kind of music we know that 'works' (whether we care for it or not) "Crap."*
> 
> I would not expect any songwriter of a more popular genre to care to get anywhere near dodecaphonic + atonal music, since it is screamingly just not the market with an audience which invites, expects or has any inclination to even taste or try that genre (I imagine even a bit of gentle bi-tonality would alarm in that marketplace.) If that is your sensibility, and you're good at it, my sincere congratulations and more power to you: it is not, however, any good reason to dis other genres or styles simply because they lie outside the boundaries of your personal taste or your market targets.
> 
> *I don't know about you, but I write how and what I can *


I agree almost entirely with your statement. It is simply my own opinion that such music is "crap". I would not expect anyone who enjoys it to change their view because of my opinion and I was not stating my opinion to influence anyone. I WAS however expressing a gripe. And that gripe is that others who differ with me imply that because I don't like such music I must be of lesser intelligence or musical knowledge. I would not include you in that group. You are right that I didn't throw myself into the atonal work. it didn't seem valuable enough, to me, to spend much time and energy on it.


----------



## Mahlerian

Jerome said:


> Atonal, minimalist, and avante-gard music is a crappy cop-out for good composition. Anyone who attacks my intelligence, knowledge or understanding, should know that I am a composer and songwriter with a good working knowledge of counterpoint and musical form and structure. I have written atonal music and music that could be categorized as "avante-gard" and found it unchallenging and much easier than writing tonally structured music in the tradition of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.


I think that it's difficult to write good music, no matter what the idiom. I have written fugues and waltzes as well as a piece of 12-tone music, and there are different challenges associated with each. The ability to imitate a style is no big accomplishment, but the ability to say something is a huge accomplishment indeed, no matter what the method or genre.



Jerome said:


> I tire of people throwing their intellegence around like a weapon when someone disagrees with them.


Has this been done here, even one single time?


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## hpowders

Wait....intelligence?


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Yep good answer. I get frustrated with the politically correct answer as well. Just say how you feel and don't worry about what other people say about it. As long as you respect the forum rules.


Just to let you know, any personalized feeling is going to be nonsense in productive communication. It will be strictly tailored to your individual perspective. A good bit of people here are actually trying to find a more universal perspective of looking at music. I don't see Mahlerian, violadude, some guy, PetrB, arpeggio, etc... taking useless jabs at other genres that people enjoy simply because "it doesn't suit their taste."

Repeat: Blunt subjective taste are pretty useless in a more universally inclusive discussion. Unless you constantly want to bring everything down to small-talk, which is highly a bore.


----------



## arpeggio

*Its OK to dislike atonal.*



Jerome said:


> I like this approach so much that I am going to throw caution to the wind and say how I really feel.
> 
> Atonal, minimalist, and avante-gard music is a crappy cop-out for good composition. Anyone who attacks my intelligence, knowledge or understanding, should know that I am a composer and songwriter with a good working knowledge of counterpoint and musical form and structure. I have written atonal music and music that could be categorized as "avante-gard" and found it unchalllenging and much easier than writing tonally structured music in the tradition of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
> 
> I tire of people throwing their intellegence around like a weapon when someone disagrees with them.


As a person who came to atonal, minimalist, avante-gard music late in life, I do not think people who hate it are stupid.

I know many contemporary composers who felt that the twelve-tone music did not fit their needs. Richard Danialpour is one of my favorites.

Not everyone who likes atonal music is a saint. Now that I dig atonal music, I am tired of being accused of thinking tonal music is inferior.


----------



## hpowders

It is very difficult to like and requires a major commitment of immersion to understand it. The natural tendency is revulsion to the uninitiated.

When I first heard William Schuman's 6th Symphony and Mennin's 7th symphony, I practically screamed "Let me out of here!" but I listened many times and now they are two of my favorite works.


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## arpeggio

*It is just different*



guy said:


> Let's get to the root of this thing, shall we? What exactly is the case of atonality vs tonality? Why is atonality better, or in Schoenberg's opinion, freeing? I can write a random 12-tone row. But how do you develop that? Cant go to dominant or relative major because it's *atonal.* How would you develop something aharmonically?


As a person who came to atonal late in life, I do not think it is better, just different.

I keep hearing people claim that Schoenberg objective was to replace tonality, yet I have read sources which state that this was not true.

Even after he adopted the twelve-tone method Schoenberg still composed some tonal music like his _Theme and Variations for Band_.

I know Schoenberg and Gershwin were great friends. I recall reading somewhere that Gershwin approached Schoenberg about teaching him the twelve-tone method. I think Schoenberg's response was something like if he gave Gershwin lessons, he would be a bad Schoenberg. Why would he want to be a bad Schoenberg when he was already a great Gershwin.

I recall reading that David Diamond had a similar experience with Schoenberg. Schoenberg refused to give Diamond lessons because he considered him the next Bruckner.

It appears that Schoenberg was not as dogmatic as some claim.


----------



## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> Just to let you know, any personalized feeling is going to be nonsense in productive communication. It will be strictly tailored to your individual perspective. A good bit of people here are actually trying to find a more universal perspective of looking at music. I don't see Mahlerian, violadude, some guy, PetrB, arpeggio, etc... taking useless jabs at other genres that people enjoy simply because "it doesn't suit their taste."
> 
> Repeat: Blunt subjective taste are pretty useless in a more universally inclusive discussion. Unless you constantly want to bring everything down to small-talk, which is highly a bore.


That's good for them. I'm not like them though. I prefer to share my thoughts openly about other genres and styles of music. I also don't like the Classically trained voice. Too much vibrato I find quite annoying and unclear. I also encourage others to speak their mind on other genres. And not be afraid of the backlash by other members here.


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## Blake

neoshredder said:


> That's good for them. I'm not like them though. I prefer to share my thoughts openly about other genres and styles of music. I also don't like the Classically trained voice. Too much vibrato I find quite annoying and unclear. I also encourage others to speak their mind on other genres. And not be afraid of the backlash by other members here.


You really don't get it, man. Your opinions aren't' helping anyone. It just creates more noise that others have to navigate through.


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## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> You really don't get it, man. Your opinions aren't' helping anyone. It just creates more noise that others have to navigate through.


My musical tastes can help those with similar interests and which styles of music to avoid. Btw this thread is basically about most avoided musical era. So my comments go right on topic with this thread.


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## TrevBus

Minimalist. Unless I want to sleep, then maybe.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> My musical tastes can help those with similar interests and which styles of music to avoid.


I believe that closing someone off from something they may come to enjoy or appreciate is never helpful. Haven't your own tastes shifted over time? Why tell someone that they should avoid something? It's not going to hurt them to try.

And how can you think that your tastes are in any way normative? Even if someone likes the same things as you, it could be for entirely different reasons.


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## Blake

neoshredder said:


> *My musical tastes can help those with similar interests and which styles of music to avoid.* Btw this thread is basically about most avoided musical era. So my comments go right on topic with this thread.


This is quite an awful way to look at art. No one is going to have the exact same perspective as you. Who's to say that someone with similar taste couldn't enjoy Avant-Garde if they gave it a chance?

Like you're "saving" them from some great misstep. Haha, come on... really.


----------



## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> I believe that closing someone off from something they may come to enjoy or appreciate is never helpful. Haven't your own tastes shifted over time? Why tell someone that they should avoid something? It's not going to hurt them to try.
> 
> And how can you think that your tastes are in any way normative? Even if someone likes the same things as you, it could be for entirely different reasons.


It would be helpful on preventing people new from being turned off of Classical Music based on listening to something atonal. So much great music out there. Why go to the worst part when you don't have to? And there are 25 people that agree with me based on this useful poll.


----------



## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> It would be helpful on preventing people new from being turned off of Classical Music based on listening to something atonal. So much great music out there. Why go to the worst part when you don't have to? And there are 25 people that agree with me based on this useful poll.


This poll is idiotic. If anything, it proves the opposite, given that 53 people, more than twice as many as selected "atonal/serial", selected "tonal/modal" styles.

I suggest, therefore, based on this "useful" poll, that people tend to dislike tonal/modal music.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> It would be helpful on preventing people new from being turned off of Classical Music based on listening to something atonal. So much great music out there. Why go to the worst part when you don't have to? And there are 25 people that agree with me based on this useful poll.


You need to give people a little more credit. I'm sure they would hear about Beethoven and Mozart before they would hear of "Atonal." I'm a bit bamboozled by your thinking process.


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## arpeggio

*Tonality*



neoshredder said:


> My musical tastes can help those with similar interests and which styles of music to avoid. Btw this thread is basically about most avoided musical era. So my comments go right on topic with this thread.


Really. I am not trying to make people avoid tonality.

some guy and I disagree on Bax. I like Bax. He dislikes Bax.

By discussing atonal music I am not trying to steer people away from Lloyd or Danialpour or Maslanka.


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## neoshredder

Vesuvius said:


> You need to give people a little more credit. I'm sure they would hear about Beethoven and Mozart before they would hear of "Atonal." I'm a bit bamboozled by your thinking process.


Alright that's maybe a bit of a long shot. But it's still fun talking with people of the same interests. Those that dislike atonal music and love the classics.


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## Aramis

Vesuvius said:


> I don't see Mahlerian, violadude, some guy, PetrB, arpeggio, etc... taking useless jabs at other genres that people enjoy simply because "it doesn't suit their taste."


Though it's not that none of them does that kind of stuff.


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## PetrB

hpowders said:


> It is very difficult to like and requires a major commitment of immersion to understand it. The natural tendency is revulsion to the uninitiated.
> 
> When I first heard William Schuman's 6th Symphony and Mennin's 7th symphony, I practically screamed "Let me out of here!" but I listened many times and now they are two of my favorite works.


I had Prokofiev, Kodaly, and Bach as my first exposures and introductions to classical, before I entered kindergarten. In first grade, piano lessons began: Bartok, Bach, Schumann, and some lightly bitonal contemporary music. That 'Baptism' I suppose made a huge difference in what I have later quite readily taken in and liked / loved.

None of what you claim is difficult to like or 'revulsive' was so to me, and for some others, initiated only with the older music, coming to the more contemporary held no such barriers or reservations, making what you found repellent an easy step in for them....

I don't think there is any real accounting for the why of it, but some polarities of differing degrees of type are to be found with various individuals. I don't even know if any of that is worth looking into....

To me, William Schuman was old style musical procedures with new harmony very deftly set in the old-fashioned symphonic format (A fine composer, far too little appreciated and played, IMO, perhaps an 'equal' or even better than Shostakovich?) Most of it is tonal or 'tonal-reference-ish -- i.e. when he 'went serial' it is his personal usage of that methodology.

I actually get a vicarious kick when someone becomes a novice enthusiast of this repertoire: it reminds me of my initial tremendous excitement and pleasure about this music, my picking up the mighty fine sixth symphony, the Ormandy recording which came into the catalogue I believe in the mid-late '60s (yes, I was a youngish guy when that one was released on record).

I took in Schuman as readily and in much the same way as I had already taken in Hindemith. Decades later, I still get listening pleasure, occasionally, from both composer's music, while it also sounds clearly and near extremely "old-style / old-fashioned" both in form and harmonic practices. It is all about point of reference, what one has become accustomed to, and length of time with 'all that.'

But this 'alien' / 'alienation' business eludes me, perhaps because of my early formative background? At any rate, as the old saw goes, "The way is one; the paths are many."

I'm happy to hear from someone who has recently gotten to this music, or more rightly to whom this music has spoken, and can only add that you are right, sometimes, in that whether repellent or just foreign to your tastes it is a commitment to repeated listening to get well familiar with the lay of the land, either a format you are unused to, and / or its vocabulary as well. You are right too, that the rewards are great.

I am really pleased for you that you found something there: I would also maintain that some part of you recognized there was something of interest and value there from first introduction, ergo -- you were unafraid enough and motivated to pursue it. Whether that is innate (you can't take a compliment on that) or sheer pluck to persevere (take a bow) I'm happy that someone of another stripe is reporting good experiences with what was first new, strange and even _revulsive_ at the outset of the venture.

I think in the doing with the Schuman and the Menin, you have for yourself opened a door leading to a gigantic branch of the musical edifice known collectively as 'the rep,' and _you are the richer for it for a lifetime. You have also further developed your listening skills and habits in a way which will only enhance and deepen your pleasure and appreciation of the older repertoire -- in a permanent and unalterable way._

I can only hope others side-step the false storms stirred up by fans, not composers, about 'tonal / atonal,' that they get a little gritty and persevere in giving some of this rep a chance by occasional repeated listening and find there some of the riches awaiting to be added to their personal musical wealth.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Alright that's maybe a bit of a long shot. But it's still fun talking with people of the same interests. Those that dislike atonal music and love the classics.


What's the deal with this ridiculous sectarian ideology? I'm highly fond of both....



Aramis said:


> Though it's not that none of them does that kind of stuff.


I'm sure we all have. Everyone slips, but as a whole I think they're pretty clear-headed.


----------



## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> This poll is idiotic. If anything, it proves the opposite, given that 53 people, more than twice as many as selected "atonal/serial", selected "tonal/modal" styles.
> 
> I suggest, therefore, based on this "useful" poll, that people tend to dislike tonal/modal music.


That's because the majority of music is tonal. Tonal has so much more variety compared to atonality. And there other factors of tonality that can be a negative as well. Especially in early periods where less instruments were available and dominated by choral music. Also minimalism is incredibly annoying at times by being so repetitive.


----------



## moody

Mahlerian said:


> I believe that closing someone off from something they may come to enjoy or appreciate is never helpful. Haven't your own tastes shifted over time? Why tell someone that they should avoid something? It's not going to hurt them to try.
> 
> And how can you think that your tastes are in any way normative? Even if someone likes the same things as you, it could be for entirely different reasons.


I should give you a "like" for "normative"--quite extraordinary !


----------



## neoshredder

How about some choral atonal mimimalism. lol


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> Also minimalism is incredibly annoying at times by being so repetitive.


Music that is described as "minimalist" is not necessarily especially repetitive.

It's another of those annoyingly vague, non-descriptive terms (rather like "atonal").


----------



## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> That's because the majority of music is tonal.


Actually the majority of music in world history is modal, but as people tend to conflate the two, I lumped them together here (the poll already does this anyway). Tonality didn't develop until the 1600s. I read a book on music history that cited Corelli as the first composer who composed tonally without modal admixtures. So tonality lasted roughly 300 years before breaking down. Not bad at all, I'd say, but a relatively small portion of music history nevertheless.



neoshredder said:


> Tonal has so much more variety compared to atonality. And there other factors of tonality that can be a negative as well. Especially in early periods where less instruments were available and dominated by choral music. Also minimalism is incredibly annoying at times by being so repetitive.


In harmonic terms, tonality is far more limiting than non-tonality. One has to respect hierarchical relations between key areas. One has to write melodies that express a given key (or series of keys, in more complex melodies), and the functions of dominant, sub-dominant, and tonic control harmony: it is difficult to use chords for coloration alone, because any dissonances must be resolved in a functional manner.

Non-tonal writing provides the freedom to break away from these constraints, but it can be difficult to control, because the harmony must be created along with the form. In tonal music, the harmony itself is one of the things that defines form, because one must eventually resolve from dominant to tonic.


----------



## Aramis

ahammel said:


> Music that is described as "minimalist" is not necessarily especially repetitive.


I agree, minimalist composers have posessed large arsenal of ways to make their compositions boring and sometimes they don't need to be repetative in order to achieve this.

Doomed to total failure in world of impatience, they inexorably keep on cutting out their diamonds, their boring diamonds, of whose mines they have a perfect knowledge.


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> That's because the majority of music is tonal. Tonal has so much more variety compared to atonality. And there other factors of tonality that can be a negative as well. Especially in early periods where less instruments were available and dominated by choral music. Also minimalism is incredibly annoying at times by being so repetitive.


There is NOTHING AT ALL HERE which can be (appropriately) commented upon that in the doing would not incur a penalty -- just sayin'

In that regard, this is one of the most _awesomely_ remarkable posts I've yet seen on this site  Thanks for the laughs.


----------



## arpeggio

Aramis said:


> Though it's not that none of them does that kind of stuff.


I do not believe that people who dislike atonal music are stupid. As I have stated, I came to atonal music when I was in my fifties. I would be the first to apologize if I made such a derogatory statement.


----------



## Blancrocher

arpeggio said:


> I would be the first to apologize if I made such a derogatory statement.


And, I hope, the only one :lol:


----------



## neoshredder

Mahlerian said:


> Actually the majority of music in world history is modal, but as people tend to conflate the two, I lumped them together here (the poll already does this anyway). Tonality didn't develop until the 1600s. I read a book on music history that cited Corelli as the first composer who composed tonally without modal admixtures. So tonality lasted roughly 300 years before breaking down. Not bad at all, I'd say, but a relatively small portion of music history nevertheless.
> 
> In harmonic terms, tonality is far more limiting than non-tonality. One has to respect hierarchical relations between key areas. One has to write melodies that express a given key (or series of keys, in more complex melodies), and the functions of dominant, sub-dominant, and tonic control harmony: it is difficult to use chords for coloration alone, because any dissonances must be resolved in a functional manner.
> 
> Non-tonal writing provides the freedom to break away from these constraints, but it can be difficult to control, because the harmony must be created along with the form. In tonal music, the harmony itself is one of the things that defines form, because one must eventually resolve from dominant to tonic.


To be clear. There is a lot more music not atonal than atonal. And the ear test shows there is a lot more variety with modal/tonal music than atonal music. Atonal sounds atonal. While you don't think about those terms with non-atonal music.


----------



## brotagonist

I'm a product of that late '60s, early '70s time. I was listening to all of the bands that were really in back then, like Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Faust, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Klaus Schulze, Nektar, Gong, Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Roxy Music... I could go on and on. Basically all of the stuff that hip young adults were into back then.

Guess what?

The first composers I discovered and latched onto through all of my musical explorations were Stockhausen, Xenakis, Schoenberg, Kagel, Malec, Nono, Penderecki, Webern and Ligeti! They had produced the closest things to a natural progression from psychedelic rock to classical.


----------



## PetrB

Aramis said:


> I agree, minimalist composers have posessed large arsenal of ways to make their compositions boring and sometimes they don't need to be repetative in order to achieve this.


Some composers have no need of any contemporary techniques to keep their works boring. Nice try, but it don't fly.


----------



## brianvds

neoshredder said:


> How about some choral atonal mimimalism. lol


Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh.... da capo ad nauseum.


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> Atonal sounds atonal.


Rautavaara's third doesn't sound like Berg's _Lyric Suite_ doesn't sound like Schoenberg's PC doesn't sound like Takemitsu's _A Flock Descends into a Pentagonal Garden_ doesn't sound like Messiaen's _Méditations_ doesn't sound like Murail's _Gondwana_.


----------



## PetrB

ahammel said:


> Rautavaara's third doesn't sound like Berg's _Lyric Suite_ doesn't sound like Schoenberg's PC doesn't sound like Takemitsu's _A Flock Descends into a Pentagobal Garden_ doesn't sound like Messiaen's _Méditations_ doesn't sound like Murail's _Gondwana_.


Forget it. This seems to me to be an "All _name your stereotypically negative prejudiced race type_ people look alike" mentality, i.e a mind obdurately set with no interest in seeing further as to individuation, making no real discussion possible.


----------



## Aramis

PetrB said:


> Some composers have no need of any contemporary techniques to keep their works boring.


I'm sure they are tempted, though, to adopt them and thus be able to say it's not boredom in their works but aesthetic conception that one has to adjust to.


----------



## Ingélou

There seem to be *two* questions here. Which era do I *most avoid*, and which era *doesn't cut it *for me.

To my shame , I most avoid *modern music*, no doubt about that, but only because I'm in love with tunes & fear that I would get bored or my concentration would drift - so alas, *it is I who don't 'cut it'* for modern music.

Plus, before I can vote, I will have to find out what the difference is between '*Modern - Tonal, more or less*', '*Modern - atonal, serial*', '*Minimalist*' and '*Other Avant-Garde*'. And I never heard of *'Galante'* before; you learn something new every day.

So you have to have sampled *all* the eras, and not have avoided any of them *completely* before you can answer the poll.

Maybe if I began now, in another five years, I could vote. But then it would be like the song, 'I'd walk a million miles for one of your smiles, my mammy!' I once worked out that it was *only possible* if you lived to be 112 and started walking as many miles as you could each day from the age of five.

*Some woman, that mammy! *:lol:


----------



## neoshredder

brotagonist said:


> I'm a product of that late '60s, early '70s time. I was listening to all of the bands that were really in back then, like Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Faust, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Klaus Schulze, Nektar, Gong, Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Roxy Music... I could go on and on. Basically all of the stuff that hip young adults were into back then.
> 
> Guess what?
> 
> The first composers I discovered and latched onto through all of my musical explorations were Stockhausen, Xenakis, Schoenberg, Kagel, Malec, Nono, Penderecki, Webern and Ligeti! They had produced the closest things to a natural progression from psychedelic rock to classical.


I like some of that. Though I tend to prefer late 70's Tangerine Dream more than their early stuff. I'm a huge Moody Blues fan. I think the best Era for Moody Blues fans would be from Beethoven to Rachmaninov.


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## Copperears

guy said:


> Okay then. Bartok is usually quite unattractive, repugnant, and just plain bad sometimes. Just so I don't get killed, I will say that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine. To me, is second string quartet makes no sense. Can anyone _possibly_ explain it?
> 
> Bartok is a bad weird.


This HAS to have been written tongue in cheek; Bartok's string quartets are simply the finest music the planet has ever conceived out of itself.


----------



## Copperears

Oh, I voted against minimalist only because I tire easily in my old age, and I don't need any further encouragement in that direction.

Which is not to say that minimalism is tiresome, though I find it so, comparatively speaking, but that I need a sustained challenge to keep me awake sometimes.

I napped thru much of Rigoletto this afternoon, for instance, though I love it (preferring Italian opera generally over Germanic, it's more tuneful, stuff you can whistle on the way home from work..... try that with Wagner....). I like atonality because it causes insomnia. It's not really that atonal, either: white noise and a 400Hz sine wave, now those are atonal.

Hope you're all recovering well from the advent of 2014. Looks like another bleak year ahead. I hope I am fooled.

Let's find something else to gripe about.

Music after around 1900 just got too complicated, thus paving the way for rock 'n roll. If all these guys had just restrained themselves a little, we'd still have orchestras thriving in America. But no.......


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## PetrB

Copperears said:


> This HAS to have been written tongue in cheek; Bartok's string quartets are simply the finest music the planet has ever conceived out of itself.


Some still require a night-light and sweet tonal music box repertoire to remain comfortable and unafraid.

Me, I thrill to "things that go bump in the night," at least if they are musical objects


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## PetrB

Copperears said:


> Oh, I voted against minimalist only because I tire easily in my old age, and I don't need any further encouragement in that direction.
> 
> Which is not to say that minimalism is tiresome, though I find it so, comparatively speaking, but that I need a sustained challenge to keep me awake sometimes.
> 
> I napped thru much of Rigoletto this afternoon, for instance, though I love it (preferring Italian opera generally over Germanic, it's more tuneful, stuff you can whistle on the way home from work..... try that with Wagner....). I like atonality because it causes insomnia. It's not really that atonal, either: white noise and a 400Hz sine wave, now those are atonal.
> 
> Hope you're all recovering well from the advent of 2014. Looks like another bleak year ahead. I hope I am fooled.
> 
> Let's find something else to gripe about.
> 
> Music after around 1900 just got too complicated, thus paving the way for rock 'n roll. If all these guys had just restrained themselves a little, we'd still have orchestras thriving in America. But no.......


Rock 'n' Roll as the uber simplistic reaction to late romantic high chromaticism? 
Somehow that lowers the IQ of both groups in one fell swoop, or is that one swell foop? 
... imho, natch.

[P.s. It is really time for this one to go to bed. N.B. to self: turn off computer: go to bed :-]


----------



## Guest

1900 was not a particularly noteworthy year in music.

1913, may be. Not 1900, though.

In 1900, anti-modernist sentiment had one of its more prominent spikes is all. Before Schoenberg's pantonality. Before Stravinsky's rhythmic, dissonant, percussive music.

The real truth of the matter is, I fear, that the music is not in any way a cause of the sentiment. And never has been. Truly, the targets of the anti-modernist sentiment have included Beethoven and Berlioz and Chopin and Bizet (_Carmen_ has no tunes; did you know?) and Tchaikovsky and Wagner and Debussy as well as Schoenberg and Varese and Cage and Xenakis.

Music itself has changed dramatically over the past two hundred years. The anti-modernist sentiment, however, has stayed exactly the same, with the same complaints expressed in almost the same words for that whole time. That should have really clued someone in to what was really going on--that the sentiment (like any other prejudice) precedes experience rather than being a result of it. The real cause of the situation is something quite other than any characteristic of the music or even of any response to the music.

Until we can deal with the actual root cause of the sentiment, we will continue having this unresolvable discussion. We aren't even close to getting to that point.


----------



## Blancrocher

some guy said:


> 1900 was not a particularly noteworthy year in music.





> George Enescu -
> Impromptu, for piano
> Die nächtliche Herschau, for baritone, choir, and orchestra
> Octet for strings in C major, op. 7
> Plugar, for mixed choir
> Reinhold Glière - Symphony No 1 in E-flat major, op. 8
> Alexander Goedicke - Piano Concerto
> Joseph Holbrooke - The Raven
> Josef Rheinberger - Requiem in D minor
> Josef Suk - Pieces for violin and piano


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_in_music

Fair enough, though it could have been worse. I've been enjoying Enescu's Octet since Vaneyes put me onto it recently, by the way.

Now I'm afraid it's inevitable that I'm going to waste a lot of time skimming Wikipedia's "the year in music pages"--thanks a lot, some guy :lol:


----------



## Aramis

some guy said:


> Music itself has changed dramatically over the past two hundred years. The anti-modernist sentiment, however, has stayed exactly the same, with the same complaints expressed in almost the same words for that whole time.


Not exactly. It's something that other person pointed out some time ago in other thread: the examples you're mentioning were very short-leasting sentiments towards what was truely new and composers like Beethoven and Chopin gained their large popularity rather soon after their deaths. It was a matter of one generation, if not less.

The "modern music", though, by means of what is so often assumed to be of noisy/unpleasant, incomprehensive nature begins already in early XXth century and today, in 2014, still holds the negative reputation in general conciousness.

It means that, regardless of labeling it as "bad", "astray" or not, certain boundary has been crossed at some point in the developement of Western music. After that, something makes the more recent part of it different, for many people discouraging and unattractive - in other way than popular composers you mention seemed when their more daring works were misunderstood by their contemporaries.


----------



## KenOC

Aramis said:


> ...composers like Beethoven and Chopin gained their large popularity rather soon after their deaths.


In fact, both were quite popular while still living. Beethoven was widely regarded as Europe's leading composer for the last quarter century of his life.


----------



## Guest

Cage and Stockhausen were quite popular while still living.

Cage was widely regarded as America's leading composer for the last quarter century of his life.

As far as "short-lasting" is concerned, in 1840, Halle was discouraged from performing any Beethoven in his visit to London because Beethoven's piano music was still considered too difficult for the listeners, and the fear was that having Beethoven on the program would turn patrons away. In 1870, Ruskin was still complaining about the noisy music of Beethoven.

Yes, the anti-modernist sentiment has grown over the years. In each generation, it has found more and more "evidence" to justify its existence. No surprise there. And each generation has somehow been able to produce hateworthy works that were eventually accepted, too, and even loved. Why that fact should have to be explained away, afresh, each generation, says something very important about the strength of the sentiment itself.

It is a self-perpetuating sentiment. It probably needs no fuel at all.


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> As far as "short-lasting" is concerned, in 1840, Halle was discouraged from performing any Beethoven in his visit to London because Beethoven's piano music was still considered too difficult for the listeners, and the fear was that having Beethoven on the program would turn patrons away. In 1870, Ruskin was still complaining about the noisy music of Beethoven.


Easy cherry-picking. The only review we ever see of Beethoven's 2nd is the "gross wounded snake, refusing to die" one from France. And yet it was enormously popular immediately, even though soon eclipsed by the Eroica. As for Ruskin and his "dropped bag of nails" quote, you should read what he wrote about the Meistersinger!

Claiming that Beethoven wasn't popular right through the 19th century is reaching more than a bit to make a point. Here's a Beethoven story originally recounted by Wagner, retold by Grove while still in the 19th century:

"Wagner, conducting a Court Concert at Dresden during the insurrection of 1848, felt his spirits sink as each number of the programme seemed to bring a deeper gloom over the audience, and gradually to extinguish all applause. Leaning down from his desk, he whispered to the leader of the violins, 'What is to be done?' 'Oh! go on,' said the leader, 'there is still the C-minor coming, and all will be right.' And so it was; for with the magic sound of the opening bars, everyone's spirit revived, applause burst from the benches, and it was as if a bright light shone into the rom."


----------



## Mahlerian

Aramis said:


> Not exactly. It's something that other person pointed out some time ago in other thread: the examples you're mentioning were very short-leasting sentiments towards what was truely new and composers like Beethoven and Chopin gained their large popularity rather soon after their deaths. It was a matter of one generation, if not less.
> 
> The "modern music", though, by means of what is so often assumed to be of noisy/unpleasant, incomprehensive nature begins already in early XXth century and today, in 2014, still holds the negative reputation in general conciousness.


I've seen parts of the finale of Bruckner's 8th called "noise". And that was last year. Why is that person's subjective reaction less valid than yours?



Aramis said:


> It means that, regardless of labeling it as "bad", "astray" or not, certain boundary has been crossed at some point in the developement of Western music. After that, something makes the more recent part of it different, for many people discouraging and unattractive - in other way than popular composers you mention seemed when their more daring works were misunderstood by their contemporaries.


Where is the boundary? I'm not sure any such thing exists. In any event, judging from the responses on this forum alone, it seems to be different for every single person. There are those who believe that music after the Baroque is tainted, people who believe that music post-Beethoven took the wrong turn, people who believe that Wagner led music into endless corridors of chromatic nonsense, people who believe that Stravinsky killed music, people who believe that Schoenberg killed music (with that nasty 12-tone method everyone hates but nobody understands or can even identify the usage of), people who believe that the Darmstadt serialists killed music, people who believe that John Cage killed music, and people who believe that the minimalists killed music.

Where's the line? You might say "atonality", but judging from the responses in this thread, nobody agrees what works are and are not considered "atonal".

Music still looks alive and well to me.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

> Forget it. This seems to me to be an "All name your stereotypically negative prejudiced race type people look alike" mentality, i.e a mind obdurately set with no interest in seeing further as to individuation, making no real discussion possible.


Well, it has become a rather bipolar thread.

The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion was once in a group session in which all hell was breaking loose, verbally at least.

After some time a group member turned to Bion and said "What do you think, Dr. Bion?"

He paused for a moment and then said "The situation does not seem to me to be conducive to thought!"

My reflection is that opportunities for constructive dialogue in this thread have been limited so far.


----------



## arpeggio

*What do the anti-atonalists want?*

I raised these issues earlier.

There are members here who dislike atonal music. We all know who they are and the keep reminding us of that fact. Do they believe that if they keep complaining about it atonal music will go away? Even though I now get it, I am suppose to denounce it because Mozart still sounds better?

The anti-atonalists love to attack atonalists by claiming that the music is bad because we think people who listen to tonal music are stupid. No matter how much we protest our innocence we are still guilty because of some remarks by some composers and music critics fifty years ago.

It appears to us that the anti-atonalists want to suppress atonal music. Many of the preceding remarks imply this. You only want to have discussions with people who like tonal music and dislike atonal music? Interesting delimma. Everyone I know of who likes atonal music also likes tonal music. It sounds like you want to ban all discussions concerning atonal music.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> Easy cherry-picking. The only review we ever see of Beethoven's 2nd is the "gross wounded snake, refusing to die" one from France. And yet it was enormously popular immediately, even though soon eclipsed by the Eroica. As for Ruskin and his "dropped bag of nails" quote, you should read what he wrote about the Meistersinger!
> 
> Claiming that Beethoven wasn't popular right through the 19th century is reaching more than a bit to make a point. Here's a Beethoven story originally recounted by Wagner, retold by Grove while still in the 19th century:
> 
> "Wagner, conducting a Court Concert at Dresden during the insurrection of 1848, felt his spirits sink as each number of the programme seemed to bring a deeper gloom over the audience, and gradually to extinguish all applause. Leaning down from his desk, he whispered to the leader of the violins, 'What is to be done?' 'Oh! go on,' said the leader, 'there is still the C-minor coming, and all will be right.' And so it was; for with the magic sound of the opening bars, everyone's spirit revived, applause burst from the benches, and it was as if a bright light shone into the rom."


We also should take into account that the population growth has increased by the BILLIONS since the 1800s. So, the hogwash of the mainstream is going to seem like that much more... But honestly, modern "atonal" and avant-garde have a great following. There are plenty of people who are interested in the growth of music.

It's usually those lacking understanding who make all the fuss, and that seems like much more than the past because there are billions of more people on this planet, and communicating is extraordinarily easier.... Anyone can spill their nonsense on the internet now for billions to read.

I've been repeating myself here to try and settle these ideas into some of the consciousness, as this is turning into a tiresome battle.


----------



## Aramis

some guy said:


> Cage and Stockhausen were quite popular while still living.
> 
> Cage was widely regarded as America's leading composer for the last quarter century of his life.


I don't think they were ever popular to the extent of other composers that you have mentioned before and that is the point, it doesn't matter if they we're considered leading composers by some closed circles or not. I was talking about popularity among audienes, can you say that Cage was as widely listened (or even performed) as Beethoven and Chopin? And support it?



> I've seen parts of the finale of Bruckner's 8th called "noise". And that was last year. Why is that person's subjective reaction less valid than yours?


What was that expression that KenOC used few posts back... ah, "easy cherry-picking".



Mahlerian said:


> Where's the line? You might say "atonality", but judging from the responses in this thread, nobody agrees what works are and are not considered "atonal".


I'm not going to point any specific line, I know it's impossible. Which doesn't mean at all that the claim is wrong: if you can't point specific line with detailed geographical coordinates between French-speaking and Spanish-speaking parts of Europe, does it mean that there are no such parts to distinguish?


----------



## guy

arpeggio said:


> I raised these issues earlier.
> 
> There are members here who dislike atonal music. We all know who they are and the keep reminding us of that fact. Do they believe that if they keep complaining about it atonal music will go away? Even though I now get it, I am suppose to denounce it because Mozart still sounds better?
> 
> The anti-atonalists love to attack atonalists by claiming that the music is bad because we think people who listen to tonal music are stupid. No matter how much we protest our innocence we are still guilty because of some remarks by some composers and music critics fifty years ago.
> 
> It appears to us that the anti-atonalists want to suppress atonal music. Many of the preceding remarks imply this. You only want to have discussions with people who like tonal music and dislike atonal music? Interesting delimma. Everyone I know of who likes atonal music also likes tonal music. It sounds like you want to ban all discussions concerning atonal music.


No, I don't want to ban atonal discussions! I want to know how it works, inside and out. The beginning of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto sounds messy, but the first 7 bars make some sort of chromatic sense. After that, it's beyond me. And I want to understand it.


----------



## neoshredder

arpeggio said:


> I raised these issues earlier.
> 
> There are members here who dislike atonal music. We all know who they are and the keep reminding us of that fact. Do they believe that if they keep complaining about it atonal music will go away? Even though I now get it, I am suppose to denounce it because Mozart still sounds better?
> 
> The anti-atonalists love to attack atonalists by claiming that the music is bad because we think people who listen to tonal music are stupid. No matter how much we protest our innocence we are still guilty because of some remarks by some composers and music critics fifty years ago.
> 
> It appears to us that the anti-atonalists want to suppress atonal music. Many of the preceding remarks imply this. You only want to have discussions with people who like tonal music and dislike atonal music? Interesting delimma. Everyone I know of who likes atonal music also likes tonal music. It sounds like you want to ban all discussions concerning atonal music.


Uh more like the atonalists love to attack those against atonal music. There is nothing wrong with disliking atonal music.


----------



## Mahlerian

Aramis said:


> What was that expression that KenOC used few posts back... ah, "easy cherry-picking".


Irrelevant in this case. I wasn't trying to use my example to prove anything about how "Bruckner's music still isn't accepted". My example is on the contrary one that shows how individual reactions and individual lines are....individual!



Aramis said:


> I'm not going to point any specific line, I know it's impossible. Which doesn't mean at all that the claim is wrong: if you can't point specific line with detailed geographical coordinates between French-speaking and Spanish-speaking parts of Europe, does it mean that there are no such parts to distinguish?


Bad analogy. In this case we haven't even defined what French and Spanish-speakers are. The problem is not that we don't know where exactly to draw a line given a specific set of criteria that don't quite match every case in reality so much as that we have *absolutely no criteria whatsoever*.

I'm not disputing that certain composers and works are less popular than other composers and works. I'm disputing that this popularity is indicative of any hard line in the sand beyond which few will venture. Schoenberg's music is more listened to today than it ever has been at any point in the past.


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> Uh more like the atonalists love to attack those against atonal music. There is nothing wrong with disliking atonal music.


Nobody has said that there is.

However, when people make claims along the lines of "all atonal music sounds the same", I feel compelled to issue a correction; for much the same reason as I would if somebody claimed that Beethven was born in Bulgaria in 1932, worked as a sheep farmer, and is best known for his 187 concertos for alphorn.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Wait....intelligence?


Naw. Shucks, we all know that all that is required is love, passionate feelings, and sincerely believing the emotions you have to express are of deep interest to others.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> In fact, both were quite popular while still living. Beethoven was widely regarded as Europe's leading composer for the last quarter century of his life.


This point of argument is by now, after the Nth repetition with emphasis on "popular" as the dip-stick of good and great, worn out past effete, and it is more than lopsided.

We need the lists of the composers also nearly as or as popular from the same time -- many of which whose music we no longer find interesting, a number of others I'd think many now know zip-nada about at all -- because otherwise, as presented, Beethoven's popularity could have been a sort of collective goof, or sport, coming from the general population,or like winning at roulette because you've got a myriad of chips spread out on so many of the different numbers on the table


----------



## Sid James

Joke answer to "most avoided musical era": Opera. Oops that's genre. Okay...

But my serious answer is *Gothic era*. Hardly got any of that on disc and my listening mileage isn't great there. I think I've got some Dufay and I'm familiar with some other composers of that Franco-Flemish type. Heard some others like Ockeghem too, but not that much. I suppose the closer we get to now my interest and coverage of eras gets stronger, esp. from around late Classical era (either side of 1800) to mid-late 20th century. Will I rectify this? Probably given time but its no great priority right now. I've been working my way back in terms of warhorses of each era. Up to Classical era now, will get to Baroque shortly. More Bach and Handel up for grabs!


----------



## Mahlerian

ahammel said:


> However, when people make claims along the lines of "all atonal music sounds the same", I feel compelled to issue a correction; for much the same reason as I would if somebody claimed that Beethven was born in Bulgaria in 1932, worked as a sheep farmer, and is best known for his 187 concertos for alphorn.


Are you criticizing my *opinion*? That's the way I feel, and it's the reason why Beethoven is the worst composer of all time. I mean, who writes for _alphorn_?!?! lol.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Are you criticizing my *opinion*? That's the way I feel, and it's the reason why Beethoven is the worst composer of all time. I mean, who writes for _alphorn_?!?! lol.


Uh...Mozart's daddy?


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> Are you criticizing my *opinion*? That's the way I feel, and it's the reason why Beethoven is the worst composer of all time. I mean, who writes for _alphorn_?!?! lol.


Any way, Alpenhorn is just soooo démodée, passé, like, seriously uncool, even.

_Now, Tibetan mountain horn and Tibetan singing bowls, and then you're talkin'_


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I wonder how many of that 10% (approximately) who avoid "Gothic" music have actually listened to Medieval Music in any degree of depth akin to that of those who have suggested that they avoided Atonal Modernism or Minimalism, or Avant Garde Contemporary?


----------



## KenOC

arpeggio said:


> It appears to us that the anti-atonalists want to suppress atonal music. Many of the preceding remarks imply this. You only want to have discussions with people who like tonal music and dislike atonal music? Interesting delimma. Everyone I know of who likes atonal music also likes tonal music. It sounds like you want to ban all discussions concerning atonal music.


Seems quite different to me. People who prefer tonal music seem quite happy to discuss atonal music. Of course their opinions might be different from yours! Certainly I see no interest in "suppressing" modernist music or discussion of it! Though in fact, serious discussions of modernist music seem quite rare outside of these wrangles. Not sure why that is. Perhaps the fans of this music should request a new forum?

Above all, criticism of atonal music is not an attack on "us." I hope the difference is obvious. But if somebody blames a dislike of the music on some deficiency in the listener (as seems distressingly common) they might well expect some pushback.


----------



## scratchgolf

Mahlerian said:


> Are you criticizing my *opinion*? That's the way I feel, and it's the reason why Beethoven is the worst composer of all time. I mean, who writes for _alphorn_?!?! lol.


I'm certain Vivaldi wrote a concerto for Alphorn. After all, how could he miss an instrument?


----------



## brotagonist

Sid James said:


> *Gothic era*. Hardly got any of that on disc and my listening mileage isn't great there.


Other than Dowland, I have not heard any instrumental music from the era, but the Minnesänger and Troubadours/Trouvères were quite interesting. I can recommend albums by Ensemble Perceval, Sequentia, Ensemble für Frühe Musik Augsburg, Studio der Frühen Musik and composers such as Neidhart von Reuental, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Jaufre Rudel, Piere Vidal and others.


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## hpowders

Yes. Vivaldi did write for Alphorn: The concerto in E flat ("Ricola Rustica").


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

...serious discussions of modernist music seem quite rare outside of these wrangles.

True. Outside of the momentary fanboy obsessions with Ligeti and Frank Zappa (and someguy's occasional lists of composers that almost nobody has heard of...) it is rare to come upon any in-depth discussion of Modern or Contemporary composers. I started a thread some years back on Modern/Contemporary composers that pops up again and again from time to time... and I suspect quite honestly that others would be interested in hearing about Modern/Contemporary composers that others like (and why) along with examples of their work... without the obligatory argument that this or that composer doesn't/shouldn't qualify as Modern/Contemporary.

http://www.talkclassical.com/11807-exploring-modern-contemporary-music.html


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Seems quite different to me. People who prefer tonal music seem quite happy to discuss atonal music.


Having nothing to say and saying it repeatedly in the exact same words is not discussion.



KenOC said:


> Though in fact, serious discussions of modernist music seem quite rare outside of these wrangles. Not sure why that is. Perhaps the fans of this music should request a new forum?


Actually, that's not true. Discussion of contemporary works is not at all infrequent. Here is a discussion of recordings of Messiaen works. The composer guestbook for Takemitsu was recently revived, as were those for Gubaidulina and Nono. Nørgård's isn't bad either.

A call for 20th century string quartets along the lines of Bartok and Shostakovich yielded diverse responses. Likewise, over in the Opera forum (practically a world unto itself), there's an ongoing thread for contemporary works.

But once again the main problem is that there's no reason to make any such distinction. Modernist composers are composers who wrote music. Some of it was good, some of it was bad. It all lies within the same tradition as Bach, Beethoven, and Berlioz.


----------



## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I wonder how many of that 10% (approximately) who avoid "Gothic" music have actually listened to Medieval Music in any degree of depth akin to that of those who have suggested that they avoided Atonal Modernism or Minimalism, or Avant Garde Contemporary?


Already, some legal gambling store outlet (place your bets on this game, that event) have already calculated the odds, and are probably ready and happy to take your money on a bet about that


----------



## dgee

I'm going to double-like what Mahlerian has said just above and reiterate that "modernist music" needn't be ring-fenced for it to be discussed on here, or anywhere else or listened to. I love heaps of modernist music and all sorts of other stuff too but to me it's just music and I don't feel any need to partition it off arbitrarily from other styles or eras


----------



## ahammel

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I wonder how many of that 10% (approximately) who avoid "Gothic" music have actually listened to Medieval Music in any degree of depth akin to that of those who have suggested that they avoided Atonal Modernism or Minimalism, or Avant Garde Contemporary?


Not me, certainly, outside of a bit of Hildegard von Bingen.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, that's not true. Discussion of contemporary works is not at all infrequent. Here is a discussion of recordings of Messiaen works. The composer guestbook for Takemitsu was recently revived, as were those for Gubaidulina and Nono. Nørgård's isn't bad either.
> 
> A call for 20th century string quartets along the lines of Bartok and Shostakovich yielded diverse responses.


True, I should have excepted the guestbooks! Some others you mention, though, would hardly quality as "modernist" in the views of some here. More likely a phrase I saw used the other day, with an almost-audible sniff: "Mere extensions of the 19th century."


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Some others you mention, though, would hardly qualify as "modernist" in the views of some here. More likely a phrase I saw used the other day, with an almost-audible sniff: "Mere extensions of the 19th century."

What guy would actually say such a thing?!


----------



## Blake

PetrB said:


> Any way, Alpenhorn is just soooo démodée, passé, like, seriously uncool, even.
> 
> _Now, Tibetan mountain horn and Tibetan singing bowls, and then you're talkin'_


Funny you mention that as I'm listening to Klaus Wiese play Tibetan singing bowls. He was a master of ambience.


----------



## arpeggio

*Why?*

As long as people insist that I have a problem with people who dislike atonal music, I will repeat that I do not. People have a right to listen to whatever music they want to.

What I do not understand is why some members are compelled to constantly remind us that they dislike atonal music and keep repeating the same reasons. There reasons are no different than those presented by Henry Pleasant's in his book _The Agony of Modern Music_ in 1955. The first sentence in his book is, "Serious music is a dead art". I secured a copy and I am reading it.

I asked why members have been so repetitive and there appears to have been only one response to my inquiry:



neoshredder said:


> My musical tastes can help those with similar interests and which styles of music to avoid.


Really? Well my friends do not need me to protect them from anything. Do you really believe that your friends are that helpless?

There have been some responses from people who dislike atonal music but have no problems with the people who like it. That is good.

I have had too many experiences with individuals whose objective is to suppress atonal music. That is one of the points of Pleasant's book. Sometimes they succeed. I really do not want to see that happen here.


----------



## neoshredder

Uh that's not what I meant. More like I like to share with those that like the same stuff I do. If they don't like it, that is fine as well. I just don't like people telling me what I should and should not say on modern music. I'm not trying to suppress atonal music. But I don't like people suppressing my opinions either.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Uh that's not what I meant. More like I like to share with those that like the same stuff I do. If they don't like it, that is fine as well. I just don't like people telling me what I should and should not say on modern music. I'm not trying to suppress atonal music. But I don't like people suppressing my opinions either.


Well, if you're going to be so selfish in your dispersion of opinions, regardless of whose toes you might step on, then expect to be confronted. Because that's exactly what you're asking for, regardless if you're conscious of it or not.


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> Well, if you're going to be so selfish in your dispersion of opinions, regardless of whose toes you might step on, then expect to be confronted. Because that's exactly what you're asking for, regardless if you're conscious of it or not.


I don't understand. How can expressing an opinion on music be "stepping on somebody's toes"? It's talking about the music, not about people. Why should somebody be offended if another person doesn't like the music they like? Still, it does seem to happen!


----------



## neoshredder

See. Why should that be a problem? I'm criticizing that style of music. Not anyone that is making it. I respect people that make music in all styles. It's just I occasionally like to express what my tastes are. This thread was a perfect example for that. I don't like being singled out. I feel like I've been unfairly treated for this even though others expressed dislike for atonal as well. You're just going to have to accept I have a different opinion than yours and I'm not afraid to share it.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> I don't understand. How can expressing an opinion on music be "stepping on somebody's toes"? It's talking about the music, not about people. Why should somebody be offended if another person doesn't like the music they like? Still, it does seem to happen!


Oh, man. Have you been following along in this thread or what? I'm talking about his specific opinions that he's been making, and it's obviously stepped on a few peoples' toes if you haven't noticed.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> See. Why should that be a problem? I'm criticizing that style of music. Not anyone that is making it. I respect people that make music in all styles. It's just I occasionally like to express what my tastes are. This thread was a perfect example for that. I don't like being singled out. I feel like I've been unfairly treated for this even though others expressed dislike for atonal as well. You're just going to accept I have a different opinion than yours and I'm not afraid to share it.


Whatever, dude. I think I'm going to watch paint dry now.


----------



## PetrB

Vesuvius said:


> Funny you mention that as I'm listening to Klaus Wiese play Tibetan singing bowls. He was a master of ambience.


I was commenting on a shift of taste, of which I am either also a fashion victim or "with the current program."

The Tibetan singing bowl, an accident of metallurgy insofar as their acoustic properties go, the original goal to merely make a utilitarian vessel, is an amazing instrument.

There are no consistently tuned sets that I know of, either


----------



## ahammel

neoshredder said:


> See. Why should that be a problem? I'm criticizing that style of music. Not anyone that is making it.


Regardless, if you're going to offer criticism of the music (as opposed to describing your reactions to it), you're going to have to be prepared for other people to disagree with you, sometimes very strongly.

There's no excuse for being uncivil about it, of course.


----------



## PetrB

Vesuvius said:


> Oh, man. Have you been following along in this thread or what? I'm talking about his specific opinions that he's been making, and it's obviously stepped on a few peoples' toes if you haven't noticed.


Both the patently disingenuous as well as the truly naive and unaware are found in comments littered on just about any of the internet fora you can name. Part and parcel of the territory: some who are inclined to one or the other are near obsessively persistent in posting.

Short of at least one expert behaviorist shrink as a mod, both are hard to conclusively prove, including posts not meant to be either which just appear to be.

I'd suggest finding some degree of genuine detachment for yourself insofar as not letting those sorts of dynamics jerk your chain or get to you in any other way.


----------



## Blake

PetrB said:


> Both the patently disingenuous as well as the truly naive and unaware are found in comments littered on just about every internet fora you can name. Part and parcel of the territory: some who are inclined to one or the other are near obsessively persistent in posting.
> 
> Short of at least one expert behaviourlist shrink as a mod, both are hard to conclusively prove, including posts not meant to be either which just appear to be.
> 
> *I'd suggest finding some degree of genuine detachment for yourself insofar as not letting those sorts of dynamics jerk your chain or get to you in any other way.*


Words of wisdom. Detachment is a beautiful thing.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> The Tibetan singing bowl, an accident of metallurgy insofar as their acoustic properties go, the original goal to merely make a utilitarian vessel, is an amazing instrument.


Takemitsu's "From Me Flows what You Call Time," a so-called percussion concerto, uses several metal bowls that seem semi-tuned. I think they have flat places that can be struck for different tones (saw it on TV once). A beautiful piece! Do you know if these are the same thing?


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Both the patently disingenuous as well as the truly naive and unaware are found in comments littered on just about every internet fora you can name.


Wonder which one I am. I have spent a lot of time on this and other forums and can't remember ever being offended by somebody else's opinion of music I prefer. Why should I be? Their comments may help me form an opinion of them, of course, but they have nothing to do with me.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Takemitsu's "From Me Flows what You Call Time," a so-called percussion concerto, uses several metal bowls that seem semi-tuned. I think they have flat places that can be struck for different tones (saw it on TV once). A beautiful piece! Do you know if these are the same thing?


Tibetan singing bowls:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Tibetan+singing+bowls&client=firefox-a&hs=jgk&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4U3KUqqxKuWe2wWa44HACA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=536

Have a clear pitch, but not necessarily in tune with any particular scale or tuning system.

Japanese metal percussion instruments are of a variety of which I am near wholly ignorant, but they have similar to the tibetan bowls, again pitched but not specifically. I recall one large-ish bowl, played by rubbing the edge with a stick, ala one tone production method used with the Tibetan bowls, but made of stone. Hard rocks, somewhat hewn for general high-low, or as found, are also struck against each other, or tapped with mallets. I believe Takemitsu 'preferred' instruments native to Japan when he used them in his scores -- but don't take that as any way fully informed 

Drum, bowl or gong, striking the instrument in different places will result in differences in pitch, whether specific or non-specific pitch.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Wonder which one I am. I have spent a lot of time on this and other forums and can't remember ever being offended by somebody else's opinion of music I prefer. Why should I be? Their comments may help me form an opinion of them, of course, but they have nothing to do with me.


I think the post to which you refer has nothing much specific to do with anyone -- maybe I should have better said the town-meeting style, now a norm, which allows everyone an equal say (to let them feel equal in the community, and ergo, their opinion is of equal value to others) takes its toll in allowing those with nothing to say, at all, to say it repeatedly and waste everyone's time -- and as others have pointed out, that often really has nothing to do with discussion or furthering discussion of the topic at hand.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Tibetan singing bowls:


Thanks! Those are quite different from those used in the Takemitsu piece (which BTW I recommend). Those bowls can be seen here, at about 8:00.


----------



## Guest

Well I for one am glad that no one has voted against the Villa-Lobos era. I just love "How Will the Wolf Survive".

But seriously, would the Sex Pistols be considered atonal?

Oops, wrong thread. Carry on!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

neoshredder said:


> See. Why should that be a problem? I'm criticizing that style of music. Not anyone that is making it. I respect people that make music in all styles. It's just I occasionally like to express what my tastes are. This thread was a perfect example for that. I don't like being singled out. I feel like I've been unfairly treated for this even though others expressed dislike for atonal as well. You're just going to have to accept I have a different opinion than yours and I'm not afraid to share it.


I know this might be a comparison that could end up sparking some controversy...but I suppose it's like saying it is alright criticising a culture and not the people who take part in that culture in an effort to cover up one's remarks that could be considered demeaning to the large groups of people that one is supposedly not criticising.....

People and their ideas and followers fit together. I would not speak ill of a genre of film to someone who is an avid fan of the genre because they stick to what they like with their heart. Likes and dislikes, one's preferences add to their personality. Speaking negatively about what they like very much when they are in the room is like a criticism to things that add to their personality. However, it isn't impossible to have a polite debate about whatever they are a fan of in recognition of this. A well formed opposing argument is very likely to open up to a brilliant debate, each side standing by their opinion and very knowledgable about it.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Thanks! Those are quite different from those used in the Takemitsu piece (which BTW I recommend). Those bowls can be seen here, at about 8:00.


Thanks. I've bookmarked the piece, just because. As per the bells, ?????. There is a plethora of variety, from ancient to contemporary. I'd suggest posting in the instrumental / instruments / percussion section. Surely at least one or more individuals there?

Bells, sigh, even the smallest and simplest have an overwhelming complexity of overtones, making the crudest of them somehow truly fascinating to me.

Best regards.


----------



## PetrB

BPS said:


> Well I for one am glad that no one has voted against the Villa-Lobos era. I just love "How Will the Wolf Survive".
> 
> But seriously, would the Sex Pistols be considered atonal?


I'm sure at least one person in the room would comment they were not playing or singing in tune, and another one person would comment that even within the simple format of pop music, that was 'not your grandma's tonality anymore" (a TC colleague's phrase I instantly loved and admired at first sight 

Carry on. 
Next week ~ nitpicking over the non-seeable and inaudible elements (which excludes the obvious silence bits) of music.


----------



## neoshredder

Cultures and styles of music are different. I don't agree with that comparison. But yes some people maybe get passionate about their style preference. I don't do that though. Which is why I guess I'm surprised when someone goes after me for expressing my dislike for that style. I don't like having to sugar coat my comments for the few that do take it personally. Hence the term politically correct things to say rather than how I really feel about that style.


----------



## violadude

neoshredder said:


> See. Why should that be a problem? I'm criticizing that style of music. Not anyone that is making it. I respect people that make music in all styles. It's just I occasionally like to express what my tastes are. This thread was a perfect example for that. I don't like being singled out. I feel like I've been unfairly treated for this even though others expressed dislike for atonal as well. You're just going to have to accept I have a different opinion than yours and I'm not afraid to share it.


Except you aren't really offering criticism of a musical style. You mostly just say "Haha modern music sucks, most people hate it gawd tonality is way better" That's not really criticism, or useful criticism anyway.

Slightly paraphrased quote there, of course.


----------



## neoshredder

violadude said:


> Except you aren't really offering criticism of a musical style. You mostly just say "Haha modern music sucks, most people hate it gawd tonality is way better" That's not really criticism, or useful criticism anyway.
> 
> Slightly paraphrased quote there, of course.


Except I didn't say it like that. But that sounds funny your way of me speaking. I lol'd.


----------



## violadude

neoshredder said:


> Except I didn't say it like that. But that sounds funny your way of me speaking. I lol'd.


Thanks. I was trying to make it funny. Glad you found it amusing.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

PetrB said:


> I'd suggest finding some degree of genuine detachment for yourself insofar as not letting those sorts of dynamics...get to you in any other way.


I think this is an important point. I agree that it is desirable to try to find some detachment (a place for reflection?) when in discussion with people about music (or substitute any other topic here). The trouble is, it's an ideal and ideals can't always be met. Everyone has the propensity to be emotionally affected by the dynamics of a relationship even one as virtual as a discussion online. Toes, to paraphrase the earlier discussion, are going to get stood on.

Fortunately it is possible sometimes to backtrack from a confrontation and begin dialogue again. Which is good, because when it does, there's a lot that can be learnt from the musical expertise and experience of people on this forum.


----------



## neoshredder

violadude said:


> Thanks. I was trying to make it funny. Glad you found it amusing.


Alright maybe I've gotten carried away with my criticisms for atonal music. I will try to avoid such conflicting issues in the future.


----------



## ArtMusic

KenOC said:


> I don't understand. How can expressing an opinion on music be "stepping on somebody's toes"? It's talking about the music, not about people. Why should somebody be offended if another person doesn't like the music they like? Still, it does seem to happen!


_Some_ do think vehemently that it is "stepping on somebody's toes" especially when it comes to avant-garde, extreme modernism. More often than not, _some_ do resort to attacking the listeners, not the music, as being somehow deficient, whereas the listeners are usually saying such much music aren't for them. There are examples in this very thread. Honestly, who really cares, if some minority feels their passion are disliked by a majority? The music does not disappear any more or any less. That's what I don't get.


----------



## Guest

Well, I'm going to guess that you _do_ get it.

Imagine someone calling your mom a ****. And doing it over and over again. What would you care? She's not, is she?

No harm, no foul?


----------



## Chrythes

Well I voted for classical. The only valid reason is because IT SUCKS. WRATH.
But truly, maybe I am just underexposed to it. I seldom listen to modern music as well, but I prefer it to classical only on the basis of diversity and unpredictability.

Edit: the third word is novelty.


----------



## aszkid

Chrythes said:


> Well I voted for classical. The only valid reason is because IT SUCKS. WRATH.
> But truly, maybe I am just underexposed to it. I seldom listen to modern music as well, but I prefer it to classical only on the basis of diversity and unpredictability.
> 
> Edit: the third word is novelty.


I understand that, and being myself a bit classical-classical period reticent, take a look at what this reddit user has to say about the common views of the typical classical composer:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1sii5s/_/cdy86jz

So yes, even as the most commonly observed predictable and galante composer, Haydn has a bunch of surprises in his repertoire!


----------



## ahammel

aszkid said:


> So yes, even as the most commonly observed predictable and galante composer, Haydn has a bunch of surprises in his repertoire!


I'm reading Rosen's _The Classical Style_ at the moment. One of the more interesting claims is that many of Haydn's "surprises" are things he inherited from the previous generation of composers, and that his innovations were along the lines of finding ways to do surprising things in a balanced symmetrical way. He looks at the trick of opening a piece in the "wrong" key in detail.


----------



## arpeggio

*Easy*



KenOC said:


> I don't understand. How can expressing an opinion on music be "stepping on somebody's toes"? It's talking about the music, not about people. Why should somebody be offended if another person doesn't like the music they like? Still, it does seem to happen!


Easy. If I submitted a post ranting and raving about the music I dislike, if I am careless with the tone, I could easily offend others. There have been many times I have made stupid statements that I have regretted. I have doubts about my last post. I had succeeded in destroying my reputation in another forum. Even though I am trying to be more careful, one of my recent failed posts in this very thread was deleted.


----------



## Blake

ArtMusic said:


> _Some_ do think vehemently that it is "stepping on somebody's toes" especially when it comes to avant-garde, extreme modernism. More often than not, _some_ do resort to attacking the listeners, not the music, as being somehow deficient, whereas the listeners are usually saying such much music aren't for them. There are examples in this very thread. Honestly, who really cares, if some minority feels their passion are disliked by a majority? The music does not disappear any more or any less. That's what I don't get.


I don't find anyone doing that here. I don't know why this issue seems to be eluding people. I'm not offended by anyone not liking what I like, and I'm usually down for any intelligent debate. I don't have any particular musical style that I latch my identity on. What gets under my skin is people who are so inconsiderate of others that they spout their useless negativity about something they really don't understand.

I love and respect everyone's trip in this world, but I don't tolerate selfishness too well. Maybe that's a fault of mine.


----------



## Blake

I am detaching now.


----------



## neoshredder

Selfish? Speaking your mind is selfish? I'm trying to encourage others to speak their mind. This topic is only a big deal because it's about modernism. A very sensitive topic I guess.


----------



## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Selfish? Speaking your mind is selfish? I'm trying to encourage others to speak their mind. *This topic is only a big deal because it's about modernism. A very sensitive topic I guess.*


No, I love every single one of these eras. It's your useless spouting of negativity that has irked me. I would be saying the same things if you were talking about Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Medieval, Renaissance... I highly enjoy them all, but I don't allow any one to define my "personality."

I'm not offended, and I'm not defending any genre. I'm speaking to your inclination to disperse useless negativity.


----------



## Blancrocher

Vesuvius said:


> No, I love every single one of these eras. It's your useless spouting of negativity that has irked me. I would be saying the same things if you were talking about Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Medieval, Renaissance... I highly enjoy them all, but I don't allow any one to define my "personality."
> 
> I'm not offended, and I'm not defending any genre. I'm speaking to your inclination to disperse useless negativity.


Why so negative about negativity? It can be very amusing, as any stand-up comedian will tell you.

*p.s.* Mind you, I detest most stand-up comedy, truth be told.


----------



## Blake

It's a reckoning.


----------



## neoshredder

I don't know what exactly I said that irked you. But it is common for all the modernists to join up against anyone that talks bad about modernism. No other era gets these kinds of aggressive reactions.


----------



## Blake

I am a meat-popsickle.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> I had Prokofiev, Kodaly, and Bach as my first exposures and introductions to classical, before I entered kindergarten. In first grade, piano lessons began: Bartok, Bach, Schumann, and some lightly bitonal contemporary music. That 'Baptism' I suppose made a huge difference in what I have later quite readily taken in and liked / loved.
> 
> None of what you claim is difficult to like or 'revulsive' was so to me, and for some others, initiated only with the older music, coming to the more contemporary held no such barriers or reservations, making what you found repellent an easy step in for them....
> 
> I don't think there is any real accounting for the why of it, but some polarities of differing degrees of type are to be found with various individuals. I don't even know if any of that is worth looking into....
> 
> To me, William Schuman was old style musical procedures with new harmony very deftly set in the old-fashioned symphonic format (A fine composer, far too little appreciated and played, IMO, perhaps an 'equal' or even better than Shostakovich?) Most of it is tonal or 'tonal-reference-ish -- i.e. when he 'went serial' it is his personal usage of that methodology.
> 
> I actually get a vicarious kick when someone becomes a novice enthusiast of this repertoire: it reminds me of my initial tremendous excitement and pleasure about this music, my picking up the mighty fine sixth symphony, the Ormandy recording which came into the catalogue I believe in the mid-late '60s (yes, I was a youngish guy when that one was released on record).
> 
> I took in Schuman as readily and in much the same way as I had already taken in Hindemith. Decades later, I still get listening pleasure, occasionally, from both composer's music, while it also sounds clearly and near extremely "old-style / old-fashioned" both in form and harmonic practices. It is all about point of reference, what one has become accustomed to, and length of time with 'all that.'
> 
> But this 'alien' / 'alienation' business eludes me, perhaps because of my early formative background? At any rate, as the old saw goes, "The way is one; the paths are many."
> 
> I'm happy to hear from someone who has recently gotten to this music, or more rightly to whom this music has spoken, and can only add that you are right, sometimes, in that whether repellent or just foreign to your tastes it is a commitment to repeated listening to get well familiar with the lay of the land, either a format you are unused to, and / or its vocabulary as well. You are right too, that the rewards are great.
> 
> I am really pleased for you that you found something there: I would also maintain that some part of you recognized there was something of interest and value there from first introduction, ergo -- you were unafraid enough and motivated to pursue it. Whether that is innate (you can't take a compliment on that) or sheer pluck to persevere (take a bow) I'm happy that someone of another stripe is reporting good experiences with what was first new, strange and even _revulsive_ at the outset of the venture.
> 
> I think in the doing with the Schuman and the Menin, you have for yourself opened a door leading to a gigantic branch of the musical edifice known collectively as 'the rep,' and _you are the richer for it for a lifetime. You have also further developed your listening skills and habits in a way which will only enhance and deepen your pleasure and appreciation of the older repertoire -- in a permanent and unalterable way._
> 
> I can only hope others side-step the false storms stirred up by fans, not composers, about 'tonal / atonal,' that they get a little gritty and persevere in giving some of this rep a chance by occasional repeated listening and find there some of the riches awaiting to be added to their personal musical wealth.


I believe in keeping an open mind. The first time I heard Schuman's tenth symphony, it just sounded like noise. Now, I find it irresistible and play it several times a week.
I hope to experience other musical epiphanies from music composed during the last 40 years or so and if I don't, it won't be for lack of trying.


----------



## neoshredder

I guess my job is done here assuming the insults are over.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Vote for one! Which one doesn't make it to your favorite listening media?


KenOC, when you started this thread did you have any idea that it would continue for so long and inflame so much emotion from so many? It's kind of fun!


----------



## GreenMamba

KenOC has been around long enough to know where this thread might end up.


----------



## arpeggio

*Irking*



neoshredder said:


> I don't know what exactly I said that irked you. But it is common for all the modernists to join up against anyone that talks bad about modernism. No other era gets these kinds of aggressive reactions.


I was much more aggressive in expressing my opinions in another forum and in the end it got me into a lot of trouble.

No one can tell you what you have said to irk others. You will have to figure that out for yourself.

Wish you luck.


----------



## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> I believe Takemitsu 'preferred' instruments native to Japan when he used them in his scores -- but don't take that as any way fully informed


If you mean "traditional" instruments, yes. He rarely (never?) used other Asian countries' traditional instruments in his scores. Actually, he didn't use traditional Japanese instruments as frequently as some people think. It was mostly confined to a few pieces.


----------



## Copperears

Getting back to atonalism and serialism.... if you look at Wikipedia's (long) lists of composers for various eras, you find that after the beginning of the 20th century, there is an absolute EXPLOSION in the sheer number of composers listed, many of whom I'm sure none of you have heard of, or heard, before.

I think part of the problem is that it's "safe" to like Beethoven, to accept the pre-defined canon passed down with the few, identified Greats; you don't have to do your own work, you can listen and say yes, this is genius, because I've been told so. Kind of like the Great Books tradition in literature.

It's far more difficult to make your own path, through a massive nest of unknown composers, all doing different things that the framework you've been inculcated with to understand the "good" from the "bad" fails to serve. So you end up with NO(h) idea of what to listen to, and an overwhelming sense that there's a lot of it, and no guide post.

It's like a vacation in the Sahael with no footprints to suggest a path.

Far easier to resort to, "everyone likes a fifth of Beethoven!" and leave it at that. The forum is full every day of "who's the best? what's the best recording? what should I listen to? where should I start?" -- the sheer mass of the possible proves daunting, and so there is relief and happiness derived from any authoritative prescription.

There are those of us, though, who'd rather find our own way; we are musical anarchists, ready to embrace it all, and make up our own rules for what matters and what doesn't, and if that proves a threat to others' sense of orderliness, purpose and structure in the world, so be it! 

This I think is the risk that atonality and serialism poses.

As world culture becomes more visible, with the likes of Youtube making Mongolian folk song available to kids in Passaic, this is only going to become more complicated.

So, ultimately, we need an educational system that encourages freedom and individual initiative, worldwide, instead of a totalitarian state slave machine that produces workers educated only enough to be temporarily sufficient for a slot in a megacorporation for a few years, until they can be replaced cheaply by rubber-stamped, cheaply manufactured equivalents. Or robots.

That's all that's at stake.


----------



## Guest

neoshredder said:


> I guess my job is done here assuming the insults are over.


What exactly was your job here?

Here are the consequences I can think of. Some actual, some possible, some probably impossible or at least unlikely but possibly intended:

People feel bad that their favorite music is being traduced.

People want to talk about music, not about the people who listen to music.

People avoid listening to the things you say are bad.

People stop liking what you say is bad.

People who like what you dislike want to say something in defense of what you have attacked.

People who conclude that you are a jerk attack you personally. (There's been practically none of this, but it continues to be perceived. Or claimed to have been perceived. _I_ haven't seen it, anyway. Put it that way.)

Everyone probably feels better once they've vented. But it's only a temporary feeling. Very shortly, you will feel bad again and have to vent again.

On another forum, a member said that Dvorak's music was shallow and predictable. Period. I said that I thought that that was the verbal equivalent of hawking a loogie. It provides some temporary relief for the hawker but doesn't do anyone else any good at all. Only _temporary_ relief, too. Soon Offenbach will form in that person's throat. And Gliere. And Einaudi. And Rieu. (I know this, because this poster has indeed hawked up all of those folk, or folk like them. It never stops.)

None of those people have written any music that I would want to defend musically, except for Dvorak, of course. And I did. And what I wrote sounded very much like the kinds of things I've written in response to your posts, neoshredder. So for me, at least, it's not about modernism, per se. Nor is it about you, specifically. Far as I know, you're a perfectly nice guy, kind to animals and small children. (Hey! That's starting to sound like me, now. We have so much in common!)


----------



## KenOC

Jerome said:


> KenOC, when you started this thread did you have any idea that it would continue for so long and inflame so much emotion from so many? It's kind of fun!


Please be aware, the moderators have assigned me a post quota. This thread will be very helpful in my end-of-month bonus.


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## scratchgolf

Copperears said:


> I think part of the problem is that it's "safe" to like Beethoven, to accept the pre-defined canon passed down with the few, identified Greats; you don't have to do your own work, you can listen and say yes, this is genius, because I've been told so. Kind of like the Great Books tradition in literature.


I've left these discussions alone, for the most part. The tie that binds is a love of Classical Music. I've seen the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, and Vivaldi reduced to "entry level music" and dismissed as such. I recognize this game, and I've seen it in many aspects of life. I've seen people on the golf course play with muscle back blades, although their game is certainly not suited for them. They simply want to fit in and be looked upon as a player. Humans are very judgmental by nature and even when you join the club, there will be smaller factions to deal with. My initial attraction to Beethoven was absolutely founded in public opinion, but my continued love of his music was not because he's labeled a genius. It's because I believe he was a genius and find his music to be wonderful. I also love Vivaldi but the overwhelming vibe I feel is that he's considered the "Pizza" of the Classical genre and eventually people's palettes will change. I feel that being genuine to myself and enjoying what I enjoy is far more important than being labeled as a rookie.


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## ahammel

Mahlerian said:


> If you mean "traditional" instruments, yes. He rarely (never?) used other Asian countries' traditional instruments in his scores. Actually, he didn't use traditional Japanese instruments as frequently as some people think. It was mostly confined to a few pieces.


Takemitsu was very strongly averse to "nationalistic" music early in his career. I believe the whole Second World War thing put him off it a bit.

When he did start using traditional Japanese music it was more often in terms of practice (pentatonic scale, shō chords) than instrumentation.


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## Mahlerian

ahammel said:


> Takemitsu was very strongly averse to "nationalistic" music early in his career. I believe the whole Second World War thing put him off it a bit.


Yes, he actually destroyed some early piano pieces when he discovered that he had made use of traditional scales in them. Of course, his "Two Lentos" (his first piece to ever be publicly performed, later revised as "Litany", which is a significant improvement) actually retains some of that influence.


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## Copperears

scratchgolf said:


> I've left these discussions alone, for the most part. The tie that binds is a love of Classical Music. I've seen the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, and Vivaldi reduced to "entry level music" and dismissed as such. I recognize this game, and I've seen it in many aspects of life. I've seen people on the golf course play with muscle back blades, although their game is certainly not suited for them. They simply want to fit in and be looked upon as a player. Humans are very judgmental by nature and even when you join the club, there will be smaller factions to deal with. My initial attraction to Beethoven was absolutely founded in public opinion, but my continued love of his music was not because he's labeled a genius. It's because I believe he was a genius and find his music to be wonderful. I also love Vivaldi but the overwhelming vibe I feel is that he's considered the "Pizza" of the Classical genre and eventually people's palettes will change. I feel that being genuine to myself and enjoying what I enjoy is far more important than being labeled as a rookie.


Yes, neither am I the type who, with world-weary expertise, casts aside Beethoven so I can claim to favor Langaard (a name I've never heard of until end of last year). I'll still listen to Beethoven's fifth symphony, along with everything else I enjoy. There is no-one I care about keeping score, measuring whether the net I've cast is wide enough, or deep enough.

I do think, though, it's good to start somewhere, and not just stay there because all your neighbors claim you'll never find in Chengdu what you have in Peoria. Everyone judges their own adventurousness for themselves, and there is no single measure. There are those who live their lives entirely in Peoria, and I feel neither superiority, envy or pity about them.

Think for yourself, and try not to be a carbon copy, is all; it's just more interesting. When everyone around you is expostulating about ceviche, go have a good McDonald's burger and fries. And vice versa.


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## Blake

Beethoven still remains in my top 3 composers of all time. He's the "entry-level, mid-level, and expert-level."


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## scratchgolf

Vesuvius said:


> Beethoven still remains in my top 3 composers of all time. He's the "entry-level, mid-level, and expert-level."


I look at it like this. I absolutely love Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, and Mozart. I'm not looking for anyone to replace them but if you told me now that 5-10 other composers could join them.........where do I sign?


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## Sid James

arpeggio said:


> ...What I do not understand is why some members are compelled to constantly remind us that they dislike atonal music and keep repeating the same reasons. There reasons are no different than those presented by Henry Pleasant's in his book _The Agony of Modern Music_ in 1955. The first sentence in his book is, "Serious music is a dead art". I secured a copy and I am reading it....


That's a book I've read, and although it has to be taken with a grain of salt or two, there are aspects of his analysis which I agree with. Some of it I think stands up today, with some adjustments and hindsight added. I won't go into detail here in order not to derail the thread but I will be interested to hear what you say once you've read it.


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## KenOC

scratchgolf said:


> I look at it like this. I absolutely love Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, and Mozart. I'm not looking for anyone to replace them but if you told me now that 5-10 other composers could join them.........where do I sign?


The average age of the composers you mention is 265 years, with the youngest at 205 years. If you're waiting for another 10-15 to join them, well, it may require some patience at this point!


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## ahammel

scratchgolf said:


> I look at it like this. I absolutely love Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, and Mozart. I'm not looking for anyone to replace them but if you told me now that 5-10 other composers could join them.........where do I sign?


Why not 50 or 100?


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## Blake

ahammel said:


> Why not 50 or 100?


Well, I'd be open to 7 billion if the whole world were great composers. Add in some aliens, the sounds of the solar systems and galaxies. The whole Universe is one big symphony, if you can see it that way.


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## scratchgolf

ahammel said:


> Why not 50 or 100?


I'm trying to be realistic here. There is a fine, yet definitive line between like and love. I like Buffalo Wings. I love not having heartburn. I'm sure I could enjoy the works of 50 composers but to truly love their output? The mind is willing.


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## guy

KenOC said:


> The average age of the composers you mention is 265 years, with the youngest at 205 years. If you're waiting for another 10-15 to join them, well, it may require some patience at this point!


And all lived and died in a 129 year period. What happened?!


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## Mahlerian

guy said:


> And all lived and died in a 129 year period. What happened?!


A shift in aesthetics? It seems far more likely as an explanation than the idea that any semblance of musical talent suddenly drained from the majority of the human race...


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## guy

Mahlerian said:


> A shift in aesthetics? It seems far more likely as an explanation than the idea that any semblance of musical talent suddenly drained from the majority of the human race...


I'd agree completely. But then I'd be ignoring Philip Glass, Gersh-- oh wait you said majority. Ok then, never mind.


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## Mahlerian

guy said:


> I'd agree completely. But then I'd be ignoring Philip Glass, Gersh-- oh wait you said majority. Ok then, never mind.


Gershwin was very interested in modern trends. His Porgy and Bess is said to be influenced primarily by Wozzeck, and he was friends with Schoenberg. Glass has in the past been critical of his modernist predecessors, but has softened his views at this point and now is quite complementary of the best of them.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Gershwin was very interested in modern trends. His Porgy and Bess is said to be influenced primarily by Wozzeck, and he was friends with Schoenberg. Glass has in the past been critical of his modernist predecessors, but has softened his views at this point and now is quite complementary of the best of them.


Likewise Adams, despite his apparent troubles with Kirchner and serialism in general at school, seems quite fond of Schoenberg. But he's always loathe to criticize.


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## Neo Romanza

Mahlerian said:


> Gershwin was very interested in modern trends. His Porgy and Bess is said to be influenced primarily by Wozzeck, and he was friends with Schoenberg. Glass has in the past been critical of his modernist predecessors, but has softened his views at this point and now is quite complementary of the best of them.


Of course, Delius composed the first all-Black opera, _Koanga_, twenty something years prior to Gershwin's _Porgy & Bess_.  It would be interesting to find out if Gershwin, in fact, knew this work at all prior to _Porgy & Bess'_ completion.


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## PetrB

guy said:


> And all lived and died in a 129 year period. What happened?!


Later composers continued to find new twists 'n' turns on and around music interesting, a lot of the public did not.

I would not underestimate the effect of two world wars on the public at large as having an affect on 'where they like to go' when they reach to the fine arts for entertainment. They go also for solace, other comfortable familiarity, and a lot which would take anyone back to 'before the world went global with war' -- after an upheaval like those wars, all the unwanted and accelerated changes, it makes a kind of sense that the fine arts consumers are generally -- post 1900 to present -- pretty damned conservative, preferring the older to the newer.


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## Guest

We keep saying 1900 for a trend that started around 1800.

To our peril.

Nothing new happened in 1900 in regards to the distrust of new music. Even more pointed, none of the usual suspects cited as the reason audiences started turning away from new music in the twentieth century had even been written yet. That was for the teens and twenties. And how long d'ya suppose a piece written in 1923 would take to be well-known enough to cause people to turn away from "modern" music? (Not every piece gets the Parisian treatment of instant notoriety, you know!)

The debate between which is better, older or newer, is a nineteenth century debate. It had a hundred years of momentum behind it before the twentieth century even began. And the twentieth century had a decade or more before any of the "avant garde/atonal" music that is falsely credited with turning audiences away was even written. The distrust of new music is a nineteenth century distrust. It had a hundred years of momentum behind it before the twentieth century even began. And the new music that is identified as having started the distrust was not written until a decade or more into the century.

Both the distrust and the turning away are ideologically fueled, not experientially fueled. That is, the conclusion that "modern" music is crap is not caused by having listened to a lot of "modern" music. It precedes the listening thus guaranteeing that the experience will be a negative one. Dating everything about audience response to 1900 just plays into the narrative that modern music of the twentieth century is bad. That something bad happened to music in the twentieth century, and audiences simply reacted naturally to that badness.

But the reaction pre-dates the music. Simple history tells us that. Changing the 9 to an 8 in our conversation (thus aligning ourselves with the historical record) will go a long ways to breaking the back of the false narrative about avant garde music in the twentieth century.

And we do want to break its back, don't we?


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## PetrB

some guy said:


> We keep saying 1900 for a trend that started around 1800.


Yes, but that then forces mention and recognition of a demographic shift to a growing audience of the petit bourgeois who rapidly became the majority audiences and the driving economic force, and who also began to command the critical posts in journalism... can't have that, because before then it was all "elitist privileged snobs, many titled aristos" who pretty much paid for and dictated -- if you will -- the general taste in art music.

To then allude to or conclude that _*it really went downhill, fast, when this new segment of the population came into the picture, became the predominating audience and driving and dictating economic force is just downright politically incorrect*_


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## Guest

Well, fortunately, the audiences in the 18th century were much more mixed than just "elitist privileged snobs."

There were concerts just for them, just as now there are concerts that are, practically, just for elitist privileged petit bourgeois. But that's never been the whole story.

So I think we're safe on that front!

The public concerts were just that, public. And the driving notion was collegiality. And the typical form of a concert was the miscellany. The typical expectation was that you were going to hear something new. Another expectation was that you were going to have to sit through all sorts of things (miscellany) that were not necessarily your cuppa. And you were fine with that.

The notion that classical music was an elitist thing--the notion _of_ classical music in the first place--comes from the bourgeois audiences, not from the nobility. Not surprisingly.


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