# A conundrum (may or may not be wrapped in an enigma)



## Guest (Sep 4, 2014)

Here's something that has puzzled me for several years.

Many people report as having to put in a lot of work to listen to classical music. It can be, as was recently stated, exhausting. OK. So far so comprehensible. 

But there are two other things that are not: these reports come on classical music forums, reported by classical music fans. That's one puzzle. Fans reporting the thing they're fanatical about as being a task, as tedious, as requiring a great deal of effort. I don't go on other threads, but do golf fans have forums where a noticable contingent report golf as taking a lot of effort, as being tedious, as being a chore? Do movie fans go onto movie forums to talk about how much work it is to sit through an entire movie? Maybe they do. I don't know. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I doubt it.

That's one puzzle. Here's the other one, the question to which I would be interested in hearing answers to: if it's such a chore, if it requires so much effort, if it is something that is difficult to concentrate on, then why do you keep doing it? 

I'm thinking that perhaps concentrating on the why you keep doing it will perhaps decrease the incidence of these strange reports of how difficult classical music is to listen to. Perhaps, that is, decrease the sense that the whole business is a great effort that is just barely worth it. It must be worth it, or you'd not keep doing it, eh? But if it's worth it, or so I would think, then it will not seem like a chore but like a great joy. Only.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I'm with you - it would puzzle me why someone would carry on with a pastime that was regarded as being tedious

For me, classical music is a tremendous joy. I do have (a very small percentage) of CDs that I find challenging to listen to - I keep them because I know my musical tastes have changed and I expect that I may like them in the future, but I don't put up with tedium or listening as a chore


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Headphone Hermit said:


> For me, classical music is a tremendous joy. I do have (a very small percentage) of CDs that I find challenging to listen to - I keep them because I know my musical tastes have changed and I expect that I may like them in the future, but I don't put up with tedium or listening as a chore


You took the words out of my mouth. _Challenging_ is the key word, works and composers that take repeated listens are a challenge, it's part of the fun to finally understand a difficult piece of music after multiple listens. It's a pleasure to finally have a difficult symphony finally click with you. It took "work", but it's work that you enjoy.

I love film, film theory, analysis, everything about it. Particularly Italian neorealism and old cinema in general, I do admit that some of the films that I love today were a bit tedious to get through upon first viewing. Italian neorealism isn't something you just watch and _get_ nor are the films from a director like Yasujirō Ozu or Akira Kurosawa.

_Bicycle Thieves_ (1948, Vittorio De Sica) is among my favorite Italian films. However, it was definitely a bit of a task to fully appreciate and understand it. Ultimately, *understanding* it was why I came to appreciate it so much. It enabled my appreciation for it, I suppose.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Seems a bit deranged, sure. It's a joy for me. That's precisely why I take time out of my day, and money out of my pocket, to engage in this stuff.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

I've never felt that listening to Classical music is a chore. I can understand a poseur feeling this way, because their love is superficial. A genuine love for Classical music embraces challenges.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I can't speak for others, and I don't recall exact words used by members when they discuss difficult music. I have struggled with certain music (modern) so I can give my thoughts on the process (learning to enjoy works) and my reactions. I wouldn't probably characterize the process as exhausting, tedious, or barely worth it. I would say the process was difficult and often took much longer than I expected. Sometimes it was frustrating. Sometimes it seemed hopeless. 

The reason I keep trying is simple. Years ago when I first seriously explored classical music, I was continually stunned by the beauty of hearing great new works - Dvorak's cello concerto, Bach's double violin concerto, Mahler's 1st symphony, etc. Each discovery was a wonderful moment that I cherished. After listening to much Baroque through Romantic music, I branched out. Renaissance and opera/vocal came without effort, but not modern. I hit a wall. Listening was not enjoyable. So I had a choice. Just don't listen to modern music or try to learn to enjoy it. I craved the experience of exploring and enjoying new works, and here I had 100 years or so of works that remained seemingly out of reach. I chose to "work" to learn to enjoy these works (or at least some of them). The result has been a success in that many works previously unpleasant (or worse) now are wonderful. The process is still on-going.

So yes, it was difficult or hard to learn to enjoy some of the music. I have no problem with that. Perhaps my greatest joys in life, physics and sports, were similar. Learning physics was amazingly hard and frustrating at times, and for me, not a complete success (I'm an experimentalist so some theory remains beyond me). But physics is simply the most beautiful, wonderful, thing ever imagined. Learning specific aspects of sports (say a fade away jump shot off a spin) was also quite difficult and frustrating at times. There's nothing quite like a breakthrough in physics, sports, or music. When I first realized that I loved Berg's violin concerto after years of being mystified at how others thought it was enjoyable, I felt a great thrill, and of course, now I can simply enjoy the work. Of course the "struggle" was worth it.

So perhaps the problem is with the words chosen to describe the process. Yes, it's hard (for some of us). Yes it can be frustrating. But the reward can be a vastly greater positive than any negative contained in the process.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Some things that are fun require work.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Active listening, e.g. while following a score, identifying pieces of the form, modulations, thematic development... this can be challenging. Not tedious, mind you, just challenging (and rewarding), and it takes focus. Passive listening, simply listening to enjoy the music, letting it wash over you, is different. And background listening, where you don't care if your attention wanders from the music, but you have the music there to catch your attention should it wander from whatever else you were doing, is also different.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I don't see anything puzzling about it. Most of the things I enjoy require some effort.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This question obliquely reminds me of a lot of other conversations.... (EDIT: I don't mean this post to describe "some guy" or anyone else in particular. I don't have any special insight into anyone here!) 

If someone here says she doesn't like, say, Xenakis or Schoenberg or Lachenmann, that person will endure some scorn. Likely enough she'll either already be defensive about it or she'll become defensive about it soon. So she might decide to take steps to rid herself of that scorn, such as by listening to that music more until she learns to like it. 

Perhaps now the story is, even if she learns to like it, her cultural inferiority is already determined by her initial reaction. She might as well accept it and not even try. 

This reminds me of the issue with regard to recommendations. As I perceive it, a very common implicit attitude is, "You'll never get here, don't even start." If you don't already know about Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, you're destined for permanent cultural inferiority, you should just stick to top-40 pop. 

Perhaps these cultural hierarchies shouldn't exist, but that is a windmill at which I will not bother tilting. Instead, what I think we need to realize more generally is that there are life cycles, people begin at different places, and people are fluid. 

Some people grow up surrounded by classical music, theater, literature - other people grow up surrounded by cattle and alfalfa fields. Perhaps the former really are superior. I'll grant that for argument's sake. But even they will at some point not have heard of some work that they're supposed to know; even they at some point will not enjoy something that they're supposed to enjoy. Those "some points" will come later for the latter, should they become interested in elite culture, but at every stage they're "improving." 

So I'm not who I was ten years ago, and ten years from now, should I have the luck to be alive and healthy, I'll be yet someone else. Right now I'm working on becoming who I would like to be in ten years. I've managed to make myself into someone who knows a few hundred of the most famous works in the western musical canon, who enjoys everything from Byzantine chant to George Crumb, and we'll see what I manage to do from here! 

So I guess we have to accept that people make efforts, particularly people who are newer to something than we are, and that through their efforts they may eventually achieve something like cultural equality with us. The good news, however, is that there will always be other people who don't make that effort, and/or creative new ways of pretending to culturally superiority. 

Again, I know that a lot of people insists that they don't think any thoughts along these lines, and that even fewer of us like to discuss this kind of thing candidly, but this is how I see it, and I think I'm not alone.


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2014)

some guy said:


> Fans reporting the thing they're fanatical about as being a task, as tedious, as requiring a great deal of effort. [...] if it's such a chore, if it requires so much effort, if it is something that is difficult to concentrate on, then why do you keep doing it?


Tedious? I've not come across 'fans' who say this. I've come across listeners who might call themselves fans who are only into one variety and, perhaps they are students, report that they find it an effort and tedious to try the unfamiliar and, as others have said, the challenging.

I did English Literature at college. I enjoyed my three years, but some of what I had to study was tedious, or worse. Had there been a 'Talk English' website back in the late 70s, I daresay I'd have spent time on it voting on polls such as Pope v Dryden and Hardy v Hopkins and lamenting that I had to wade through the novels of Henry James (_very _tedious to me at the time).


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

some guy said:


> Many people report as having to put in a lot of work to listen to classical music. It can be, as was recently stated, exhausting.... That's one puzzle. Fans reporting the thing they're fanatical about as being a task, as tedious, as requiring a great deal of effort.... Here's the other one, the question to which I would be interested in hearing answers to: if it's such a chore, if it requires so much effort, if it is something that is difficult to concentrate on, then why do you keep doing it? ...It must be worth it, or you'd not keep doing it, eh? But if it's worth it, or so I would think, then it will not seem like a chore but like a great joy.


I share your amazement 

I don't find listening to classical music exhausting. It is time-consuming and it takes dedication and commitment to _actively_ listen, but that doesn't stop me from listening. Even when I am not listening actively, I am listening. I have called this the shotgun approach: put the music on repeat and keep on listening until it starts to sound familiar. This is no substitute for active listening, but it builds a foundation of familiarity that assists me in a subsequent active listening session with the piece. Active listening certainly does require some effort! One needs to set aside time to do nothing but listen. I don't see this as a task or chore, however; rather, it is a great pleasure. It is such a pleasure, indeed, that I have been hooked for many decades, have spent a small fortune on LPs and CDs, and have invested countless hours pursuing this pleasurable hobby. No, I really don't think you've been reading my posts, when you come to these conclusions about the kind of classical music fan I am.

I was similarly amused, befuddled and dismayed by many of the comments in the Concentration thread from yesterday. Many of my fellow fans admitted to boredom, an inability to stay awake while listening, etc. What? How can you be bored? If classical music bores you, why do you listen? And if you do want to listen, are you not able to decide to stay alert? What forces control you, that you are unable to keep yourself from losing consciousness?


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

some guy said:


> Many people report as having to put in a lot of work to listen to classical music. It can be, as was recently stated, exhausting. OK. So far so comprehensible.
> 
> But there are two other things that are not: these reports come on classical music forums, reported by classical music fans. That's one puzzle. Fans reporting the thing they're fanatical about as being a task, as tedious, as requiring a great deal of effort.


I must have missed these posts. At least, I cannot recall anyone describing what they love to do as tedious.

But aren't these two different things? Something that is considered work and requires effort does not necessarily have to be tedious. It's perfectly reasonable to love something that requires one to put work and effort into it. However, nobody wants to do something they consider tedious. Unless, perhaps, it leads them to something they enjoy. But even then, they don't want to do the tedious part, they just have to in order to get to the enjoyable part.

Some people like to workout because they like it. Other hate it but do it anyway because they love the buzzing post-workout feeling.

I'm sure many people have read Proust's entire _Recherche_ only to to be able to say that they've done it, not because they've enjoyed reading it. Which is fine. I mean, why not? They presented themselves with a challenge, they persevered, and now they feel good about themselves for having achieved it. So what?

As to classical music, I presume there is also an enjoyment in being knowledgeable not just about the music one particularly likes, but about classical music in general. This may include music that one loathes. But having confronted oneself with such music, having understood it and being knowledgeable about it can be very satisfying too, I guess.

Having said that, I would think that the great majority of one's listening is pleasure-oriented. If not, that'd be worrisome.


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2014)

science said:


> If someone here says she doesn't like, say, Xenakis or Schoenberg or Lachenmann, that person will endure some scorn.


No. If that person says that Xenakis, Schoenberg, or Lachenmann is crap, that will generate some discussion. And the saying (and the way it's said) may cause some scorn. And rightfully so. But not liking? No. The most that will happen there is that there may be some curiosity about why one would take the time to say that they don't like something.



science said:


> Likely enough she'll either already be defensive about it


This isn't anything like special insight is it? 



science said:


> This reminds me of the issue with regard to recommendations. As I perceive it, a very common implicit attitude is, "You'll never get here, don't even start."


Nope. Not even implicitly is anyone saying this. There may be places where this is said, explicitly or implicitly. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this on TC, though. In fact, I don't remember seeing this on any classical music board anywhere. Not even ***** at the *** site has ever said this. Or even implied it.



science said:


> If you don't already know about Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, you're destined for permanent cultural inferiority


No, you're not.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

some guy said:


> But there are two other things that are not: these reports come on classical music forums, reported by classical music fans. That's one puzzle. Fans reporting the thing they're fanatical about as being a task, as tedious, as requiring a great deal of effort. I don't go on other threads, but do golf fans have forums where a noticable contingent report golf as taking a lot of effort, as being tedious, as being a chore? Do movie fans go onto movie forums to talk about how much work it is to sit through an entire movie? Maybe they do. I don't know. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I doubt it.


I frequent a hiking forum focused on a particular mountain range in the U.S., and many of the contributors to the forum have climbed or are currently aspiring to climb a complete list of the highest mountains in the range. Remarks such as "I knocked those three off at the same time so that I never have to go back up that damned trail again," are pretty common. This always made me wonder - and other less-polite members have explicitly asked - Why the %[email protected]* did you do it in he first place then?; No one has a gun to your head. But you are probably right, no one is likely to find golf or movies that much of a chore.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I don't listen as often as I did when I was a kid. That way the music stays fresh when I do listen. I would never listen simply as a time-filler because I have nothing else to do. Then listening would be a chore. Wow! Hope it never comes to that!


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I once met a(n American) person who stated that he only does things on his free time that give him immediate pleasure, i.e. require no effort to learn to be appreciated. He went on to say that he did not even understand why someone would bother with those strange "acquired taste" things.

This speech has been one of the strangest and most baffling things I've ever heard in my life. So, we should eat sugar and butter, watch cartoons and gossip in the social media, then?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> No. If that person says that Xenakis, Schoenberg, or Lachenmann is crap, that will generate some discussion. And the saying (and the way it's said) may cause some scorn. And rightfully so. But not liking? No. The most that will happen there is that there may be some curiosity about why one would take the time to say that they don't like something.
> 
> This isn't anything like special insight is it?
> 
> ...


Well, we see these things rather differently.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Taking a bit of effort and being a tedious chore are very different things. I think some guy was referring to the latter. Because in something that is truly a passion, even the effort can be a pleasure... part of the journey, so to speak. And unless you have some sort of a demigod intellect, it will take nearly everyone getting into classical some effort to really appreciate and understand. But like I said, that is also a pleasure. Jumping into the 'unknown'... I love it.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Xaltotun said:


> I once met a(n American) person who stated that he only does things on his free time that give him immediate pleasure, i.e. require no effort to learn to be appreciated. He went on to say that he did not even understand why someone would bother with those strange "acquired taste" things.
> 
> This speech has been one of the strangest and most baffling things I've ever heard in my life. So, we should eat sugar and butter, watch cartoons and gossip in the social media, then?


Some folks must live on an isolated island. There's a whole world out there; for better or worse, most folks are not particularly interested in new challenges. They want to go to work, then come home and ENJOY their lives. Nothing strange or baffling about it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> Here's something that has puzzled me for several years.
> 
> Many people report as having to put in a lot of work to listen to classical music. It can be, as was recently stated, exhausting. OK. So far so comprehensible.
> 
> ...


I think this is over generalisation. We should correctly break it down into genres/periods of classical music, then this would be a far easier question to discuss. For example, Mozart and the beautiful peiord he belonged to versus listening to contemporary sounds/music, or even atonal materials composed by Schoenberg. So it varies. And it will always vary as far as how much effort people put in. Mozart might take effort but it's the relative reward and effort that makes the key difference. People invest the time and money in Mozart and fruits are great. Investing in Schoenberg, many find it less rewarding. That's a fact.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> People invest the time and money in Mozart and fruits are great. Investing in Schoenberg, many find it less rewarding. *That's a fact.*


Hmm, that's a *fact*?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Hmm, that's a *fact*?


Statistical fact, I meant (sorry for not clarifying) which explains why many listeners prefer Stravinsky than Schoenberg.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Statistics cannot be trusted. Because usually it's not statistically everyone.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Statistical fact, I meant (sorry for not clarifying) which explains why many listeners prefer Stravinsky than Schoenberg.


Actually, I think most people don't listen to Schoenberg enough to have any significant opinion on his music.

Many listeners can't stand Stravinsky, either.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xaltotun said:


> I once met a(n American) person who stated that he only does things on his free time that give him immediate pleasure, i.e. require no effort to learn to be appreciated. He went on to say that he did not even understand why someone would bother with those strange "acquired taste" things.
> 
> This speech has been one of the strangest and most baffling things I've ever heard in my life. So, we should eat sugar and butter, watch cartoons and gossip in the social media, then?


Ah, but you left out sex, drugs, gun play, cow tipping, and other assorted violence and mayhem! - all beloved American pastimes.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I've never understood what was 'difficult' about any music.

Your ears work the same regardless of what genre of music you are listening to.

Ditto "accessible music," I mean, is there some biological condition where your ears of a sudden stop taking in sound? 

Or... could it just be that those listeners who have 'difficulty' or 'have to work so hard' are laboring under and against the weight and the walls of their preconceptions of what is harmony, what is form, what is music? 

There is a radical thought, i.e. maybe it is the listener and not the music! :devil::tiphat:


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

PetrB said:


> I've never understood what was 'difficult' about any music.
> 
> Your ears work the same regardless of what genre of music you are listening to.
> 
> ...


PetrB, I don't think that's entirely fair. In theory, I think you're right, but I don't think it's that easy to separate the listener and the music. We listeners are affected by culture, media, outside factors, a big snowball of influences. I believe that the music, i.e. the composers are not in a vacuum either. They too are affected by the composers that came before them, the previous harmonies of the last generations of composers. Whether they decide to take tradition and incorporate it into their music (Bartok) or whether they decide to move forward and make a clean break with the past (Boulez). They nevertheless are still affected by the harmonies and forms of the past (which are what form most people's preconceptions). I think you're technically right, but it just isn't that simple. Just my two cents. 

From Bartok article on Wikipedia:

Bartók became first acquainted with Debussy's music in 1907 and regarded his music highly. In an interview in 1939 Bartók said:

_Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities. In that, he was just as important as Beethoven, who revealed to us the possibilities of progressive form, or as Bach, who showed us the transcendent significance of counterpoint. Now, what I am always asking myself is this: is it possible to make a synthesis of these three great masters, a living synthesis that will be valid for our time? (Moreux 1953, 92)_

I definitely understand how certain things are difficult. I fully admit that Schoenberg is more difficult to me than a Mozart symphony, it doesn't make any one of those two better nor lesser (I know you're not saying that). If anything, the work that took more time to appreciate are the ones that usually end up as someone's favorite.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If I can enjoy Schönberg's piano concerto, then ANYONE can learn to appreciate him. You don't have to love him. Nothing wrong with "peaceful coexistence".


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Actually, I think most people don't listen to Schoenberg enough to have any significant opinion on his music.

How many times does one need to listen to Schoenberg... or any composer for that matter... before they may have a significant opinion as to whether they like it or not?


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Total _non sequitur_: I very much appreciate (read: seriously, thoroughly enjoying) how this _meta-thread_ has evolved into a discussion of Schoenberg, the definition of a "fact," American pastimes, and statistics.

Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up. So great.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Actually, I think most people don't listen to Schoenberg enough to have any significant opinion on his music.
> 
> How many times does one need to listen to Schoenberg... or any composer for that matter... before they may have a significant opinion as to whether they like it or not?


Sometimes repeated listening can give one greater understanding and liking of music. (Not always, unfortunately, but sometimes!)
Example: Bach's Prelude in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier. The first time I listened, this was just a pattern repeated with different notes (admittedly, it technically is), but after a few more hearings Bach's harmonic creativity became clear.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, I think most people don't listen to Schoenberg enough to have any significant opinion on his music.


"One should try everything once, except incest and folk-dancing." --Arnold Bax

Since Arnold never tried these even once (or at least one of them hopefully) we can assume his opinion is not "significant".


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> How many times does one need to listen to Schoenberg... or any composer for that matter... before they may have a significant opinion as to whether they like it or not?


That's a redirection from the original point. Of course one is fully entitled to judge whether someone likes something or not with only the barest of exposure.

The original statement Artmusic made was "Investing in Schoenberg, many find it less rewarding." And he followed this up with "which explains why many listeners prefer Stravinsky than Schoenberg."

Well, perhaps, except that:

A) people don't spend all that much time with Stravinsky's music outside of the major three ballets.
B) likewise, most people are only familiar with Verklarte Nacht and _maybe_ the Chamber Symphony out of Schoenberg's works, if even that.
C) Schoenberg's 12-tone works are more often played, recorded, and heard than those of Stravinsky.

People with so little experience (and very little understanding) of an entire idiom are not in a position to judge whether or not they would be able to reap aesthetic rewards from the music if they were to come to understand it better. I personally feel less able to judge the music of pre-Baroque composers compared to those such as yourself with far more exposure and awareness of the idiom.

If someone can't recall any melodies from Schoenberg, or if they think that there are no melodies there to be recalled, then of course their opinion on how good the music is is unhelpful as aesthetic evaluation, valid though it is as personal opinion. It has little to do with the substance of the work. I've heard people say they don't like Schoenberg, and that he wrote no tonal works (or even more insidiously, that he was unable to!). This only tells me that they don't know Schoenberg. It tells me nothing about whether they would appreciate the music if they were to listen and understand it.

I wouldn't feel comfortable judging something that I didn't feel I understood at least a little bit. I have problems with the structure of some of Sibelius's symphonies. They seem odd, abrupt, misshapen. But the Sibelius works I do love (Symphonies 4, 5, and 7, the String Quartet, Luonnatar, and a few others) seem so well crafted to me, and his admirers are fervent enough about the merits of works like the Third and Sixth that I feel there might be some perspective they have that I don't. I think there is something about those two works in particular that makes them truly "Sibelian". It is perhaps that exact thing that draws others in yet leaves me utterly cold.

For Schoenberg, I know well why I love this music, which seems to me so delicate, so alive (down to the merest detail of texture), so passionate, but strikes others as cold and intellectual. I imagine that it is perhaps those same qualities that cause our disparate reactions: the variety of harmony, the way every single line is individual in the extreme, and the constant development that allows no literal repetition but is always giving birth to new forms. These things constitute Schoenberg's "intellectualism" for others and his "beauty" for me (that and the sheer wealth of lyrical melody in his works).

Is any given listener entitled to dislike Schoenberg after 30-40 minutes (or seconds) of his music and then never return? Of course. But that's not a good basis for an aesthetic evaluation of his work.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> "One should try everything once, except incest and folk-dancing." --Arnold Bax
> 
> Since Arnold never tried these even once (or at least one of them hopefully) we can assume his opinion is not "significant".


Of course it's useless noise. This is really just a humorous statement more than something to follow, haha... come on.

Edit: Like waking up from a hazy dream... I realized you were most probably, definitely joking. I think I'll go back to the drawing board to sort some things out.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

With regard to an artist of the stature of Schoenberg, the first question I feel I should address to myself is not whether I personally enjoy or appreciate or whatever his art, but why so many other people more knowledgeable than I have done so for so long.

I tell my students the same thing about literature. I don't care whether they enjoy Homer or Shakespeare or Hemingway. That's not something they can easily arrange for themselves one way or the other anyway. All they have to do is understand it and understand why it has meant so much to people in the past. That's enough work for one lifetime anyway. Should they succeed at that, they will surely derive much greater - more profound, thorough, and lasting - pleasure than they would get from any initial enjoyment.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'll add more, again taking off from an analogy to literature.

I admire Dostoyevsky's technique very much: _Crime and Punishment_ in particular is one of the most well-crafted novels of its size that I've ever read, and _The Brothers Karamazov_ has some brilliant - superlatively brilliant - passages and a very clever design. But he is disgustingly bigoted, determinedly antirational, and hostile to basic humanistic values like freedom.

Similarly, the Homer of the _Odyssey_ was in my opinion the first really great storyteller in western history, but his values are repulsive. I don't want to enjoy reading about the deeds of these "heroes."

Orwell, on the other hand, has wonderful insights and ideas, but his fiction is (here as everywhere IMVHO) not quite world-class.

Bradbury's _Fahrenheit 451_ is just a mess with very few virtues to redeem its many flaws.

In all these cases, I don't mind if my students or more knowledgeable disagree with me! But I expect myself and them to understand why these texts have been important to so many people for so long.

So that's the attitude I take to music, except in this case I have no kind of expertise at all, I'm purely a student.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> The original statement Artmusic made was "Investing in Schoenberg, many find it less rewarding." And he followed this up with "which explains why many listeners prefer Stravinsky than Schoenberg."
> 
> Well, perhaps, except that:
> 
> ...


That might well be true about Stravinsky's ballets. But what matters though is the relatively popularity of Stravisky's few pieces that carries his name more successfully as far as posterity is concerned.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> That might well be true about Stravinsky's ballets. But what matters though is the relatively popularity of Stravisky's few pieces that carries his name more successfully as far as posterity is concerned.


But is this out of choice based on familiarity with a significant portion of the oeuvres of both Stravinsky and Schoenberg, or is it simply based on minor exposure to either composer outside of their few most popular works?

How many people here, at a classical music site, have listened to Les Noces, which is one of the masterpieces of Stravinsky's early Russian period? How many have acquainted themselves with Schoenberg's take on Viennese street music in the march from the Serenade, op. 24 (complete with guitar and mandolin)?

If the latter, as I have said, then there really is no basis for a comparison of the type you're making. In any event, both composers are surviving just fine with posterity.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Answering the OP: I would say most of that people are just beginners in classical music, full of enthusiasm and that want to know all the repertoire "now". Since in most cases it doesn't work in that way, i.e., your taste and musical part of the brain need maduration, they get frustrated and write things like that. I would recommend them to relax a little and just let the thing flow in its natural _tempo_... (pun intended )


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Ah, but you left out sex, drugs, gun play, cow tipping, and other assorted violence and mayhem! - all beloved American pastimes.


Well, you gotta find _something_ as a substitute for the fun and thrills of beating people near to death, and sometimes actual death, over their allegiance to one soccer team over another


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