# The Relative Value of Musical Compositions



## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

On Wednesday of this week, I went to a concert of new works by various little known British composers. Once piece required a CD of radio-tuning noise to be played in the background whilst the ensemble played some reasonably dissonant chords in the gaps. 

It suddenly struck me that the music I was listening to was rubbish. Unmitigated pretentious, meaningless ****. I then asked myself why this deserved the title of 'art music' when (for example) 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd (which has far more depth both musically, architecturally and programatically) was confined to 'pop'. 

I've never believed 'classical' to be a genre - just the most artistically interesting music of its time - but, 'The Wall' will live on long after that radio tunings piece has died out and yet somehow the radio piece is classical and the Pink Floyd is not.


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## David C Coleman (Nov 23, 2007)

Well I think there's been a general sanitising and de-sensitising attitude to most of the art forms which seemed to start in the mid-twentieth century, when day I say, pop music started to gain momentum in most societies relieving the inaccessibility of modern "art" music of the time.
Sorry, I don't think there will be another Mozart, Beethoven or any of the other so called "greats", because the present society is generally geared toward commercialism and profit and NOT through artistic creativity. 
That doesn't mean to say there are not clever people out there, ther are! but I think the golden age of classical music is behind us..Doubtless someone will disagree!!...


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

David C Coleman said:


> Sorry, I don't think there will be another Mozart, Beethoven or any of the other so called "greats", because the present society is generally geared toward commercialism and profit and NOT through artistic creativity.
> That doesn't mean to say there are not clever people out there, ther are! but I think the golden age of classical music is behind us..Doubtless someone will disagree!!...


Well, regardless of whether one likes the music or not I don't think that contemporary classical music is about commercialism. Quite the contrary I think. Those composers of old cared a lot more about the public's response to their music than most contemporary composers. I don't think that the composer of Bach's example was exactly trying to please the listener.


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

Just to clarify, I love contemporary music. Boulez, Birtwistle, Ferneyhough, Finnissy etc.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Bach said:


> Just to clarify, I love contemporary music. Boulez, Birtwistle, Ferneyhough, Finnissy etc.


I am in total agreement with your original post. I think the difference between art music and popular music is attitude. Just because someone is approaching the organization of sounds with the attitude of its being a high art form doesn't necessarily make it so.

You will probably agree however that the more popular the pop, generally the less artistic it is. The Wall was (and is still) very popular, but not in the same sense as whatever pop diva happens to be showing her navel currently. Pink Floyd have always been a far more artistic form of rock or pop. And there are many others too, hence the term _art rock_ that many people find pretentious -- but I don't. That is no more pretentious than _art music._


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## hdk132 (Mar 18, 2009)

Bach said:


> It suddenly struck me that the music I was listening to was rubbish. Unmitigated pretentious, meaningless ****. I then asked myself why this deserved the title of 'art music' when (for example) 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd (which has far more depth both musically, architecturally and programatically) was confined to 'pop'.
> 
> I've never believed 'classical' to be a genre - just the most artistically interesting music of its time - but, 'The Wall' will live on long after that radio tunings piece has died out and yet somehow the radio piece is classical and the Pink Floyd is not.


I can answer your piece from a "by definition" standpoint: "art music" is defined as classical music (what's the real term, historic european music???), artistic jazz, and _avante-garde music_. So basically, as long as its wacko, its technically art music.

I do agree with you: I find that in the hyper-modern trend music is going from being emotional to just being a competition over who can be the wierdest. I'm just waiting for someone to claim emotinality in a concerto for blowing-into-glass-bottles with banging-on-garbage-cans orchestra.

In stuff like Schoenburg that I don't find emotion in, I figure that its me not understanding a-tonalism/modalism. But in people that think they are cool because they think of random ways to make _noise_ and then call it _music_--no thanks.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Don't you think the situation is confused by simply living in the present? There's always been bad art of all kinds, but as history proceeds, most of it just gets left behind. Take a look around any junk shop and you'll see how many really bad old paintings have been made, and nobody wants them now.

I don't know any hard facts on the matter, but it seems likely to me that the same is true in music, and that vast tracts of bad music from the past have simply been forgotten. But here in the present the water is seriously muddy, with the best contemporary rock music rubbing shoulders with the worst contemporary 'art-music '. All this stuff hasn't gone through the historical filtering process yet. What I'm suggesting is that even if we were living 100/150/200 years ago, we'd still be saying similar things about contemporary art, and rubbishing a lot of it. It wouldn't take the form of 'Pink Floyd versus radio-tuning-noise' of course, but there'd be (and indeed _were_) contemporary equivalents.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Bach said:


> 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd (which has far more depth both musically, architecturally and programatically) was confined to 'pop'.


'The Wall' is outrageously pretentious and altogether pretty shallow. Pink Floyd, amongst many other prog-rock groups, really had/have ideas above their station. Best to leave the sophisticated stuff to contemporary classical composers.

Regarding the radio-tuning noise: I do concede that there are loads of charlatans in the acousmatic music world. As Stravinsky said, most art is bad art. Still... Pink Floyd?


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

It was an example - When I said The Wall, I meant <insert good pop album here> .. A Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder or Beatles if you prefer..


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> Best to leave the sophisticated stuff to contemporary classical composers.


I think there are at least two difficulties with that approach to the arts in general:

The first concerns accepting that 'contemporary classical composers' inevitably know best. I have no great love for Pink Floyd myself, but it seems to me that to ring-fence a particular group of artists, and maintain that they, and only they, should attempt 'sophisticated stuff' (whatever that means) would produce a system guaranteed to stifle the progress of art.

The second is that the approach in general has such a poor track record, art-historically speaking. In the visual arts, if 'sophisticated stuff' had been left to those who claimed to know best (or whatever the painterly equivalent of 'contemporary classical composers' might be), we'd have had no Impressionism, no Cezanne, no Matisse, no abstract painting ... and on and on. I suppose there are similar parallels in musical history.

If you're an artist, you do what you can (whether attempting the sophisticated or otherwise), and hope for the best. The historical test is, basically, and crudely: will it survive? If Pink Floyd's Wall is still standing 100 years from now, it must have _some_ quality that's proved valuable to people.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Ian Anderson (best known as the maniacal spinning spitting frenentic often one-legged, but still somehow graceful flute player / lead singer of Jethro Tull) has a fun and interesting persepctive on this topic. He has toured extensively playing as a guest with local orhcestras around the world and has written a song "A Raft of Penguins" about the experience, poking a bit of good natured fun at the prejudices orchestras can have for pop musicians, the raft of penguins being the sea of tuxedoed musicians who found Anderson's music a bit more complicated than they were expecting . . .

A raft of penguins on a frozen sea.
Expectant faces look down on me.
Shuffle uneasy. 
The whistler plays.
Counting eleven, they begin to pray. _(the song is in 11/8 time, at least in places)_

Tenuous but clinging, the missing link
Joins us, closer than we might think.
Some half remembered coarse jungle drum 
A naked heart-beat, trill and hum.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Weston said:


> Tenuous but clinging, the missing link
> Joins us, closer than we might think.
> Some half remembered coarse jungle drum
> A naked heart-beat, trill and hum.


There's more than a smack of truth in that.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Bach said:


> It suddenly struck me that the music I was listening to was rubbish. Unmitigated pretentious, meaningless ****.


It's excelent that you can distinguish the good contemporary music from the ****, and to be honest, there is a lot of **** out there!


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I think there are at least two difficulties with that approach to the arts in general:
> 
> The first concerns accepting that 'contemporary classical composers' inevitably know best. I have no great love for Pink Floyd myself, but it seems to me that to ring-fence a particular group of artists, and maintain that they, and only they, should attempt 'sophisticated stuff' (whatever that means) would produce a system guaranteed to stifle the progress of art.
> 
> ...


By 'contemporary classical composers' I mean those who have studied in depth the various styles, approaches and methods relevant to the current musical climate. There's that old adage that says one can only break the rules if one knows what they are. I'm not sure about the artists you quote, but I know that, for example, Picasso was highly trained in traditional and technical styles before he became really innovative. And we know that Debussy could jump through the academic/traditional hoops when he had to, and the Second Viennese School were all highly versed in counterpoint etc.

These things are important. Studying music, absorbing its spirit, learning its technique increases and refines one's appreciation of music. Anyone who does this thoroughly and over a number of years is in a better position to know what's best than someone who hasn't.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> These things are important. Studying music, absorbing its spirit, learning its technique increases and refines one's appreciation of music. Anyone who does this thoroughly and over a number of years is in a better position to know what's best than someone who hasn't.


I agree that this is likely to be a helpful general position provided no radical breakthroughs are imminent. This is how academies seem to operate - at least, in the visual arts. But once that general approach is elevated into a dogma, there's a serious risk that it will overlook or even condemn the genuinely inspired new work that fails to conform. Cezanne is a good example, because in the standard academic terms of his day (established by those who had studied painting, learned its techniques, etc) he was a clumsy draughtsman and a bad painter. It wasn't understood that he was effectively reinventing painting. There's no shortage of examples. It's always possible in any art that the next major leap will be made from an unlikely source that will not conform to expected standards, and one has to remain open to the possibility of that, while of course (not minimising the difficulty of this!) doing one's best not to be so open as to resemble a dustbin.

Reverting now to Pink Floyd: one simply cannot know in advance (and neither can they) what the outcome of their efforts might be until they've tried, regardless of whether their credentials to date conform to currently-held principles. It may be thought probable that the outcome will be a mess; we may even be tempted to say 'I told you so', afterwards. But surely we mustn't tell them not to try?


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Reverting now to Pink Floyd: one simply cannot know in advance (and neither can they) what the outcome of their efforts might be until they've tried, regardless of whether their credentials to date conform to currently-held principles. It may be thought probable that the outcome will be a mess; we may even be tempted to say 'I told you so', afterwards. But surely we mustn't tell them not to try?


I think what's really relevant here, is that Pink Floyd are not part of the tradition of 'high' or 'fine' art (by art I mean the arts in general). Hence, their criteria is fundamentally different, that is to say, inferior, from classical music.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> I think what's really relevant here, is that Pink Floyd are not part of the tradition of 'high' or 'fine' art (by art I mean the arts in general). Hence, their criteria is fundamentally different, that is to say, inferior, from classical music.


That's pretty well exactly what the members of the Paris _Salon_ (who certainly knew a great deal about established kinds of painting) said about Cezanne; it's a pattern repeated over and over. As I said in an earlier post: historically, the track record of that approach isn't good, when it comes to recognising new artistic paradigms.

Incidentally, I would have agreed entirely with your post if you'd merely said 'Hence, their criteria are fundamentally different from those of classical music.' It's the bit in parenthesis that worries me - that assumption that the 'other' criteria are automatically 'inferior' - that's where the danger lies. That's what may give rise to the missing of the genuinely innovative and meaningful, so that the baby goes out with the bathwater.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> That's pretty well exactly what the members of the Paris _Salon_ (who certainly knew a great deal about established kinds of painting) said about Cezanne; it's a pattern repeated over and over. As I said in an earlier post: historically, the track record of that approach isn't good, when it comes to recognising new artistic paradigms.


That's all very well, but can you point out an instance in _musical_ history where something that was at the time considered cheap and popular (indeed, has come from a tradition of pop/rock music) is thought of by posterity and later generations to be something of great value?

And you can't seriously claim that the artistic criteria of pop and rock is or might ever be considered tantamount to that of classical!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> That's all very well, but can you point out an instance in _musical_ history where something that was at the time considered cheap and popular (indeed, has come from a tradition of pop/rock music) is thought of by posterity and later generations to be something of great value?


Let me break that down a bit: I'm worried about accepting that expression about 'cheap and popular'. That's the view from within the ringfence of Established Opinion, and it's the reliability of that view in certain cases, which I'm questioning. (Not _dismissing_, please note; merely questioning.) So the question in that form seems loaded.

But having stated my unease, I'll freely admit that I can't give comparable musical examples because I don't have the same kind of background in musical history as I do in the visual arts; I'm generalising from my knowledge of visual art history. Perhaps you can persuade me that there aren't any musical parallels? (I'd be utterly amazed if there weren't! These are general principles of cultural history and paradigm shifts that we're dealing with, here.)


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Perhaps you can persuade me that there aren't any musical parallels? (I'd be utterly amazed if there weren't! These are general principles of cultural history and paradigm shifts that we're dealing with, here.)


Well, it's much harder with music, because the music has to be written down or recorded in some way.

Light music (Offenbach and that ilk) is still considered as such. Pop and rock today has its roots in various forms of folk music, including blues: needless to say, this has never been written down. Perhaps the Beatles have got closest to becoming considered more as high art: Berio, for instance, praised them. But I think that's about as close as it has or is going to get for pop/rock music; _close_ being the preferable word.

Most the musicology surrounding pop and rock is essentially watered-down sociology, since it's a social phenomenon almost more than a musical one. That's why I've hardly ever seen musicological literature that discusses the music for too long: it's over in one paragraph, before they start talking about the interesting stuff like what clothes the group/person wore, what their attitude was, who their audience were etc.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> And you can't seriously claim that the artistic criteria of pop and rock is or might ever be considered tantamount to that of classical!


Yes, you can. One need only look to jazz for this. Rock/pop is sure to follow. Or not. We really can never know.


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## hdk132 (Mar 18, 2009)

Rock/pop chord progressions make Mozart look complex, and if you take the lyrics out the whole thing is essentially an A and B phrase alternating until the words run out. People don't interpret rock/pop music, and as far as I know there is no dynamics/articulation/nuances aside from potentially a guitar trill--suggesting that the expression does not lie in the music.

I don't have the credentials to insult the lyrics of rock/pop from an artistic bias, so you'll have to go to a poetry forum for that


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> Most the musicology surrounding pop and rock is essentially watered-down sociology, since it's a social phenomenon almost more than a musical one.


Do pop and rock have a monopoly on this sociological aspect? I've always felt that there was a great deal of 'social' baggage mixed up in classical music too (just as there is in the visual arts). For many people there are self-esteem issues that are involved in the music they purport to admire, and I think that's as commonly found among classical listeners as pop/rock. (I'm not certain that _any_ of us are entirely free of it, and I include myself in that.) I think we should try to separate that stuff out and consider just the musical response as far as we can (though I'm aware that may be difficult).



> That's why I've hardly ever seen musicological literature that discusses the music for too long: it's over in one paragraph, before they start talking about the interesting stuff like what clothes the group/person wore, what their attitude was, who their audience were etc.


But it's the admittedly bad stuff that's like that - which indeed, as you say, is more about sociology than music. But there are exceptions: there is, for example, a vast body of musicological (and poetry-orientated) literature about Bob Dylan. Lengthy and very scholarly analyses of sources; detailed commentary on the musical phrasing of lines, etc. There are shelves and shelves of that sort of stuff. Now it may be that after detailed reading of all that material, the case for Dylan as a serious great (intuitive) artist _outside the mainstream_ remains unconvincing - but my point is that it can't be dismissed out of hand: that depth of seriousness is there.

I have no idea whether there are serious (musical) analyses of Pink Floyd's _Wall_. Does anyone know if there are?


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## purple99 (Apr 8, 2008)

The aesthetics of music - deciding what the good stuff is, making value judgments about artistic noise - used to be easy. Some rich guy, e.g. Frederick the Great, would lay down the law. He'd employ, say, JS Bach or CPE Bach or Quantz, and pay them cash to make a noise. His courtiers and sycophants would then run about saying how "marvellous!" it was. Stalin did something similar, as did Hitler, as did the Catholic church. Taste or aesthetic judgment was driven by class, money and power. Those who resisted the trend could find themselves in trouble.

Today, people have more freedom to make up their own minds - both producers and consumers of art - and some hanker for the good old days of aesthetic authoritarianism. It's hard to decide what's good or bad art. It means listening, thinking, then holding an opinion which someone else may disagree with. You may be asked to explain your reasoning. It's so much easier to take refuge in flabby liberalism - post-modern claims that there's no meaningful distinction between high and low art - or to demand that a Top Person tells you what to think.

Popularity's no good - the herd notoriously gets it wrong. Money's no good - plenty of fine artists make not a cent from their art, and numerous charlatans are showered with cash. The academy's not much better (for the reasons Elgarian gives). 

All that's left imo are two questions: "What's this composer trying to achieve?" and "Was he successful?" The same questions can be put to a novelist, a painter, a poet, any artist. All you have is the goal and the extent to which that goal is achieved.

Of course some musicians are such charlatans their only goal is to make a bl*ody awful noise. Or they have hidden goals, e.g. they pretend to be aiming to produce high art when, in fact, their real goal is to make a pile of money, or to get on the cover of ‘BBC Music Magazine’, or to impress a pretty girl. It's up to those who are interested in art to expose such people and, ideally, throw cabbages at them when they appear on stage.


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## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> That's all very well, but can you point out an instance in _musical_ history where something that was at the time considered cheap and popular (indeed, has come from a tradition of pop/rock music) is thought of by posterity and later generations to be something of great value?


Well Haydn's widdow is said to have wall-papered the house (to keep warm) with his scores after his death,she was so poor. I guess these manuscripts would be worth much more than a roll of Dulux floral print now, though!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> And you can't seriously claim that the artistic criteria of pop and rock is or might ever be considered tantamount to that of classical!


I missed this comment earlier for some reason, but it's worth going back to it. That's pretty much the point I'm making, actually: the criteria are indeed not the same. If something genuine and new is to emerge from pop/rock, then it will almost certainly _not _ comply with the criteria laid down by the classical establishment at any given time. (That's the point about paradigm shifts; that's what I was explaining about Cezanne and the Paris _Salon_.)

Also, it's this business of drawing lines and saying 'good on this side, rubbish on that side' that gets us into these troubles. Life isn't like that, and I don't think art is either. There might be some quantum jumps, but on the whole things are blurrier than we might like. In any sphere of art, there's a continuous spectrum (maybe several parallel spectrums) with debatable greatness at one end and debatable tat at the other, and it can get very messy in the middle, because always doubt will remain about any art-focused conclusions we draw.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

post-minimalist said:


> Well Haydn's widdow is said to have wall-papered the house (to keep warm) with his scores after his death,she was so poor. I guess these manuscripts would be worth much more than a roll of Dulux floral print now, though!


Missing the point as ever...


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> Do pop and rock have a monopoly on this sociological aspect? I've always felt that there was a great deal of 'social' baggage mixed up in classical music too (just as there is in the visual arts). For many people there are self-esteem issues that are involved in the music they purport to admire, and I think that's as commonly found among classical listeners as pop/rock. (I'm not certain that _any_ of us are entirely free of it, and I include myself in that.) I think we should try to separate that stuff out and consider just the musical response as far as we can (though I'm aware that may be difficult).


You're missing the point. I'm not saying there isn't social baggage with classical music. The difference is that the social baggage of classical music happens by accident, or has occurred incidentally, whereas it is intrinsic to the culture of pop: how these so-called artists comport themselves, what clothes they wear etc.



Elgarian said:


> But it's the admittedly bad stuff that's like that - which indeed, as you say, is more about sociology than music. But there are exceptions: there is, for example, a vast body of musicological (and poetry-orientated) literature about Bob Dylan. Lengthy and very scholarly analyses of sources; detailed commentary on the musical phrasing of lines, etc. There are shelves and shelves of that sort of stuff. Now it may be that after detailed reading of all that material, the case for Dylan as a serious great (intuitive) artist _outside the mainstream_ remains unconvincing - but my point is that it can't be dismissed out of hand: that depth of seriousness is there.
> 
> I have no idea whether there are serious (musical) analyses of Pink Floyd's _Wall_. Does anyone know if there are?


I'll take your word for it about Bob Dylan. Unfortunately he was a mediocre musician, and his 'poetry' doesn't warrant serious attention. I'd genuinely be interested to find out how people can sustain a reasonably long study of his music, when a few sentences per song would suffice.

I'm not sure about The Wall. I'm sure there'll be some nerds around who consider it to be to cleverest thing ever. The initiated, however, would be embarrassed by its quasi-symphonic delusions of grandeur and 'programmatic' nature. Seriously though, if people want a set of songs which follow a programme, just go to Schubert. Not arrogant charlatans whose futile attempts at something 'sophisticated' just results in something mortifying and inept.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I missed this comment earlier for some reason, but it's worth going back to it. That's pretty much the point I'm making, actually: the criteria are indeed not the same. If something genuine and new is to emerge from pop/rock, then it will almost certainly _not _ comply with the criteria laid down by the classical establishment


Who, pray, is the 'classical music establishment'? If something genuinely new comes from pop/rock, it also will certainly not conform to the criteria of pop/rock.



Elgarian said:


> Also, it's this business of drawing lines and saying 'good on this side, rubbish on that side' that gets us into these troubles. Life isn't like that, and I don't think art is either.


If you want to believe in moral and aesthetic relativism, that's up to you. I, on the other hand, think that, despite not being able to _prove_ this in a manner that the dogmatic rationalists would like, murder is inherently wrong and that, for example, J.S. Bach is inherently superior to Westlife.

I'm not sure how we got on to the the topic of newness. Suffice to say, if you were to compare the best of today's contemporary composers, with the supposed best of rock, you would see that the latter spew out clichés and banalities, whilst the former, being part of a very ancient tradition, takes something and make it their own, personalise it, make it original, as well of great technical worth.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> The difference is that the social baggage of classical music happens by accident, or has occurred incidentally, whereas it is intrinsic to the culture of pop: how these so-called artists comport themselves, what clothes they wear etc.


But that's the view from within the ringfence, don't you see? If you design the fence so as to exclude all alternative views, then those are inevitably the conclusions you'll reach.

For example - here I am defending at least the possibility (the _possibility_, not the certainty) that great art can arise from popular culture, and yet I haven't once mentioned the way pop artists comport themselves, nor the clothes they wear. These aspects may seem intrinsic to those within the ringfence, and I suppose that for a lot of pop/rock, they _are_; but they aren't universal, in fact, once one starts exploring more carefully.



> I'll take your word for it about Bob Dylan. Unfortunately he was a mediocre musician, and his 'poetry' doesn't warrant serious attention.


That does sound very much like the kind of thing a _Salon_ painter might have said about Cezanne, and very much makes my point about the dangers inherent in that kind of rigid critical stance.

I don't want to get distracted from our main point (it's hard enough keeping track of this already), but I feel I should point out that his 'poetry' ('lyrical writing' might be a better description) actually _does_ get significant serious scholarly attention, and indeed some of his use of language is remarkably sensitive and expressive. I'm surprised you don't respond to that - but of course I don't know what kind of poetry you normally read. My _personal_ opinion is that it varies widely in quality, from lyrics of breathtaking insight and beauty, to expressions that are curiously banal. The paradox of that is part of the fascination. You don't say on what grounds you dismiss his lyrical writing, so I can't say much more.



> I'd genuinely be interested to find out how people can sustain a reasonably long study of his music, when a few sentences per song would suffice.


As I said, there is no shortage of published material that demonstrates how it can be done.



> Not arrogant charlatans whose futile attempts at something 'sophisticated' just results in something mortifying and inept.


You're just letting off a bit of steam here, yes?


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> Who, pray, is the 'classical music establishment'?


I didn't know what else to call it - you would know perhaps better than I what it should be called. I mean the body of opinion within the classical music ringfence, who decide what is and is not acceptable as good music: the people you referred to at the beginning of this discussion.



> If something genuinely new comes from pop/rock, it also will certainly not conform to the criteria of pop/rock.


I think that's correct, yes.



> If you want to believe in moral and aesthetic relativism, that's up to you. I, on the other hand, think that, despite not being able to _prove_ this in a manner that the dogmatic rationalists would like, murder is inherently wrong and that, for example, J.S. Bach is inherently superior to Westlife.


You misunderstand my position entirely. I'm not a relativist. I believe (as you do) that there really is truth out there to be found, but that our understanding of those truths at any moment is at best imperfect, and at worst completely wrong. We see through a glass darkly, to coin a phrase. Our history is littered with unhappy consequences whenever one rigidly held limited view of the truth has been pursued at all costs. Art history is no exception.

It's not easy to find an acceptable way of proceeding. For me, it seems best to retain what I might describe as a resistive open mind. My personal aesthetic model, for example, has changed immensely (and has made me much the richer, I think) over the years, in consequence.



> I'm not sure how we got on to the the topic of newness.


It was inherent in how we began. If you recall, the question was whether Pink Floyd should have left the sophisticated stuff to 'the people who know best'. At the time they wrote the Wall, it was 'new'. No one could know, in advance, whether they would succeed - unless of course you adopt the 'establishment' view that nothing of value _could_ emerge from pop/rock culture. It was that view that I was questioning, because it automatically excludes the possibility of the truly new being recognised, in places that lie outside the ringfence.


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2009)

Bach said:


> On Wednesday of this week, I went to a concert of new works by various little known British composers. Once piece required a CD of radio-tuning noise to be played in the background whilst the ensemble played some reasonably dissonant chords in the gaps.
> 
> It suddenly struck me that the music I was listening to was rubbish. Unmitigated pretentious, meaningless ****.


Not to derail the fascinatin' side issue that's taken over, but I was also fascinated by the responses to this comment, none of which noticed (or cared?) that only one person on this board went to this concert and heard this piece: "Bach." So we only know about this piece from "Bach"s perspective, a perspective that's notably lacking in balance and calm reasonableness! I hasten to add that I too _might_ have had the same response to this piece had I too attended this concert. But I didn't. And so, without at least a neutral, descriptive account of this piece (and even then...!), we none of us are able, logically, to agree or disagree with "Bach"s assessment of this, nor with any of the conclusions he derived from this assessment.



Bach said:


> I've never believed 'classical' to be a genre - just the most artistically interesting music of its time


Well, that will cause some problems. Treating 'classical' as a term of approbation rather than description must mean that you are constantly bewildered (or just pissed off) by inept "classical music" and artistically interesting rock or jazz. (I was amazed at how many people here have conflated rock and pop. Can you really do that? And also amazed that only Pink Floyd and the Beatles and Bob Dylan and the like have gotten thrown into a discussion of artistic merit--surely better examples would be things like King Crimson, the Boredoms, Doctor Nerve, and Nurse With Wound on the "rock" side and things like Sonny Sharruck, Last Exit, Peter Broetzman, Ornette Coleman, and Anthony Braxton on the jazz side.)


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> For example - here I am defending at least the possibility (the _possibility_, not the certainty)


I'm in a hurry, so I'll just rebut this now. This argument is fallacy since it cannot be falsified.

'Unicorns have not existed yet, but there is the possibility of them existing in the future'.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> This argument is fallacy since it cannot be falsified.
> 'Unicorns have not existed yet, but there is the possibility of them existing in the future'.


You seem to be confusing an argument with a statement here. I wasn't _arguing_ anything, just there; I was simply restating my basic position which you know already (i.e. that I believe it to be possible for great art to arise from within popular culture), but only as a preliminary to making my point about clothing etc.

I may of course be wrong in my belief, but it hardly seems comparable with belief in unicorns. Let's not get distracted by such a non-productive trivial side issue. We'll get nowhere at that rate.


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## hdk132 (Mar 18, 2009)

Elgarian said:


> For many people there are self-esteem issues that are involved in the music they purport to admire, and I think that's as commonly found among classical listeners as pop/rock.


Sorry for being extremely late-reaction, but I would like to point out a study that found that classical music listeners generally have high self esteem and those who listen to metal generally have low self esteem. I wonder about those who do both...

About this whole pop culture to great art thing: Sibelius has roots in Scandinavian folk songs. One of Bach's Goldberg variations is a mixture of two folk melodies. There must be many more examples, but I don't know them. The thing is, these exceptions are somewhat insignificant--by this I mean folk songs did not define Sibelius's or Bach's art. I don't think that there has been any large-scale pop to art growths.


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## mueske (Jan 14, 2009)

hdk132 said:


> Sorry for being extremely late-reaction, but I would like to point out a study that found that classical music listeners generally have high self esteem and those who listen to metal generally have low self esteem. I wonder about those who do both...
> 
> About this whole pop culture to great art thing: Sibelius has roots in Scandinavian folk songs. One of Bach's Goldberg variations is a mixture of two folk melodies. There must be many more examples, but I don't know them. The thing is, these exceptions are somewhat insignificant--by this I mean folk songs did not define Sibelius's or Bach's art. I don't think that there has been any large-scale pop to art growths.


Tchaikovsky's works are full of Russian folk songs, yet it's still very much his own music. Even if you know the folk song at hand, the identity of the composer is still within the piece, if anything, it adds up the amount of identity in a piece.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

hdk132 said:


> The thing is, these exceptions are somewhat insignificant--by this I mean folk songs did not define Sibelius's or Bach's art. I don't think that there has been any large-scale pop to art growths.


I think that's a different branch of the discussion, concerning the degree to which popular culture might have influenced classical composers, and that's an interesting question too, of course.

But the main point I've been addressing has been to indicate the dangers implicit in Herzeleide's suggestion that popular culture was inherently incapable of producing art of value, and that any attempt by popular artists to do so should be discouraged. ("Pink Floyd, amongst many other prog-rock groups, really had/have ideas above their station. Best to leave the sophisticated stuff to contemporary classical composers".)


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## Gorm Less (Dec 11, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> ... the main point I've been addressing has been to indicate the dangers implicit in Herzeleide's suggestion that popular culture was inherently incapable of producing art of value, and that any attempt by popular artists to do so should be discouraged. ("Pink Floyd, amongst many other prog-rock groups, really had/have ideas above their station. Best to leave the sophisticated stuff to contemporary classical composers".)


Let me try to get this straight. I see from the above that you are proposing the theory that popular music culture may be capable of producing "high art" in a musical sense, but you have no historical evidence to support it, as you openly admitted earlier in this thread when you wrote:



> I'll freely admit that I can't give comparable musical examples because I don't have the same kind of background in musical history as I do in the visual arts; I'm generalising from my knowledge of visual art history. Perhaps you can persuade me that there aren't any musical parallels?


If you have no evidence to back up your theory why are you still pushing it?

I have tried to follow this thread but I have to say that I find it confusing and uninformative. It looks as if "Bach" has abandoned it, and I am not surprised given his somewhat unguarded comment at the beginning that he does not regard classical music as a genre, but merely an indicator of artistic quality, which "some guy" has so deliciously savaged.

As for the debate between you and Herzeleide, I find all this quite tedious and sterile. First of all, I do not accept that classical music is the only music which has "value". While pop/rock music is generally nothing like as sophisticated in formal structure as most classical music, this does not mean that it has little or no value. Pop music generally (and "Rock" music specifically in the case of Pink-Floyd) clearly has value, if by that is meant that it satisfies the needs of a sizeable market. In terms of satisfying a market need, pop/rock music is far and away more "valuable" than all of classical put together. If either of you is interpreting "value" to mean something different from that, I would like to know what it is and how one measures it.

Secondly, I find very puzzling the notion that quality rock albums like "The Wall" might become a classic, or generate a new classical style, in the usual sense applied to classical music. I think you are both barking up the wrong tree here - one of you in proposing the possibility and the other arguing against it - as it must be extremely doubtful that Pink-Floyd ever envisaged this, or any other of their albums, ever becoming a classic in this sense. Rather, it is far more likely that they hoped that their works would become "classics" purely in the musical sphere in which they operated and in which they generally excelled, namely "prog rock", and not in any wider market than that.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> But that's the view from within the ringfence, don't you see? If you design the fence so as to exclude all alternative views, then those are inevitably the conclusions you'll reach.


'Punk', 'goths', 'emos' etc. are all fashions which denote music tastes. People who listen to classical music could be wearing anything, but from the people I see at concerts and recitals that I attend, it's basically variations on default, non-clique clothing. There's no ringfence involved here, and I would appreciate it if you would be more explicit about your accusations.



Elgarian said:


> and yet I haven't once mentioned the way pop artists comport themselves, nor the clothes they wear. These aspects may seem intrinsic to those within the ringfence, and I suppose that for a lot of pop/rock, they _are_; but they aren't universal, in fact, once one starts exploring more carefully.


Please tell us the fruits of your more careful exploration. 
My point was that such social and fashion-related things are intrinsic to much of pop and rock, and that this is reflected in the scholarship, in compensation for the dearth of things to say about the music.



Elgarian said:


> That does sound very much like the kind of thing a _Salon_ painter might have said about Cezanne, and very much makes my point about the dangers inherent in that kind of rigid critical stance.


You've already said this. And then you said that you'd be surprised if there wasn't a similar case in music. I pointed out that there wasn't. One isolated case in an art different from music is not sufficient enough criteria to suppose that it will ever occur in music.



Elgarian said:


> I don't want to get distracted from our main point (it's hard enough keeping track of this already), but I feel I should point out that his 'poetry' ('lyrical writing' might be a better description) actually _does_ get significant serious scholarly attention, and indeed some of his use of language is remarkably sensitive and expressive. I'm surprised you don't respond to that - but of course I don't know what kind of poetry you normally read. My _personal_ opinion is that it varies widely in quality, from lyrics of breathtaking insight and beauty, to expressions that are curiously banal. The paradox of that is part of the fascination. You don't say on what grounds you dismiss his lyrical writing, so I can't say much more.
> 
> As I said, there is no shortage of published material that demonstrates how it can be done.


I still don't think much of his 'poetry'. Anyway, you keep on deviating from the point of music.

If you want a poet and composer who was great at both, I suggest Guillaume de Machaut, unanimously regarded by scholars as the greatest French poet of his time, and putatively the greatest composer.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> I didn't know what else to call it - you would know perhaps better than I what it should be called. I mean the body of opinion within the classical music ringfence, who decide what is and is not acceptable as good music: the people you referred to at the beginning of this discussion.


There's disagreement amongst the people I describe.



Elgarian said:


> unless of course you adopt the 'establishment' view that nothing of value _could_ emerge from pop/rock culture. It was that view that I was questioning, because it automatically excludes the possibility of the truly new being recognised, in places that lie outside the ringfence.


I haven't adopted any view. I formulated my opinion (as I tend to do) independent of authorities. I've no idea what academics/performers/composers think of Pink Floyd. There's no such ringfence; rather a group of people who spent enough time studying, thinking about and performing music to formulate reasonable ideas about it. Please don't mention Cezanne again.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> You seem to be confusing an argument with a statement here. I wasn't _arguing_ anything, just there; I was simply restating my basic position which you know already (i.e. that I believe it to be possible for great art to arise from within popular culture), but only as a preliminary to making my point about clothing etc.
> 
> I may of course be wrong in my belief, but it hardly seems comparable with belief in unicorns. Let's not get distracted by such a non-productive trivial side issue. We'll get nowhere at that rate.


You were arguing, i.e. defending, your 'basic position'. 

It's comparable to unicorns, because they, like pop music that goes on to be considered high art, have never existed.

No one knows what will happen in the future. My position was based on inductive inference - observing what was the case in the past, and supposing this will carry on. To talk about things that might possibly happen without any (relevant) empirical evidence from history is worthless conjecture.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Gorm Less said:


> As for the debate between you and Herzeleide, I find all this quite tedious and sterile.


Why would someone willingly read and prepare a detailed and lengthy response to something he considers 'tedious and sterile'?


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Sensing the growing tone in this thread (too common in this forum these days, sadly), of narrowness, intolerance and hostility (it's a bit much to see my rather mild observations distorted into 'accusations', for example); and recognising the fact that there seems to be so little common ground as to make any further exploration pointless, I'll leave it to others to contribute from this point on.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Elgarian said:


> (it's a bit much to see my rather mild observations distorted into 'accusations', for example);


You were accusing me of, to paraphrase 'designing the fence so as to exclude all alternative views'. 

No hostility meant or implied by this, so it's sad to see you abandon this thread.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Gorm Less said:


> Secondly, I find very puzzling the notion that quality rock albums like "The Wall" might become a classic, or generate a new classical style, in the usual sense applied to classical music. I think you are both barking up the wrong tree here - one of you in proposing the possibility and the other arguing against it - as it must be extremely doubtful that Pink-Floyd ever envisaged this, or any other of their albums, ever becoming a classic in this sense. Rather, it is far more likely that they hoped that their works would become "classics" purely in the musical sphere in which they operated and in which they generally excelled, namely "prog rock", and not in any wider market than that.


The discussion was about the potential reception of their music, regardless of whether they envisaged it being received or perceived in that way or not.


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## Gorm Less (Dec 11, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> The discussion was about the potential reception of their music, regardless of whether they envisaged it being received or perceived in that way or not.


I agree with your comment. I was not suggesting otherwise, but this does not change the validity of my observations.

To summarise, "Bach" suggested that "The Wall" will live on due to its quality even though it is not classical music, which feature is normally deemed to be a pre-requisite for long-lasting fame. I did not have any problem with that particular comment. It was his suggestion that classical music is not a genre separate from popular music which I found strange, a comment which "some guy" has since picked up on. There followed a discussion between you and "Elgarian" on whether music like "The Wall" could ever become a part of the classical canon, with you arguing that this it is not possible given the rudimentary nature of P-F's material, and "Elgarian" arguing that this conclusion should not be automatically presumed since such things have happened previously in the visual arts, with new schools emerging from artists who did fit into existing paradigms.

My comment on all this is that, as fas as I know, there was no pretense on the part of P-F that their material might one day form part of the classical canon, as normally understood, nor any desire on the part of their audiences that this situation might one day come about. As a P-F fan myself, the majority of people who turn up these days to tribute band P-F concerts would, in my estimation, very probably not bother to do so if other concert items included, say, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Brahms Symphony No 4, Elgar's Cello Concerto, Webern's Op 28 String Quartet, or similar. This does not mean that such fans necessarily dislike traditional classical music, only that the two markets are separate and they do not want their listening experiences mixed up. This is likely to continue to be the case as there is no evidence yet, even after 30 years following its production, that "The Wall" will one day reach the classical concert stage.

I would suggest that if "The Wall" does live on it will do so as a piece of classical "prog rock", nothing more and nothing less. It will not somehow change its spots to become a sub-genre of classical music as normally understood. To this extent all your (touchy) discussions have been a waste of time as they miss the point by a mile.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Gorm Less said:


> It will not somehow change its spots to become a sub-genre of classical music as normally understood.


Glad we agree.



Gorm Less said:


> To this extent all your (touchy) discussions have been a waste of time as they miss the point by a mile.


You can include yourself in this waste of time.


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## Gorm Less (Dec 11, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> You can include yourself in this waste of time.


Oh alright then, thanks. Glad to be of assistance.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Gorm Less said:


> Oh alright then, thanks. Glad to be of assistance.


Your post was of no assistance, Gorm Less. Although you reach the same conclusion that I do, the way that you arrive at this conclusion is totally mistaken.

You seem to be under the impression -correct me if I'm mistaken- that, providing the two markets of classical and prog-rock music (i.e. Pink Floyd) are mixed up, this will effect a transference of Pink Floyd's music into, as you put it, the 'classical concert stage'. Such a view is not cognizant of how contemporary classical music works, and how music that would have to be considered new classical music (i.e. contemporary classical) finds its way into concerts. This occurs in many ways. In the UK at least, scores can be sent (the fact that classical music is primarily a literate art, as opposed to the primarily oral rock and pop -a distinction made by Taruskin- is another fact that militates against its introduction to the 'classical concert stage') to institutions, some of which might be holding a competition with the prospect of the piece being performed by, say, the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This might be something like the SPNM, or it may be the London Sinfonietta. Either way, the ultimate authority on whether it gets performed -regardless of whether a potential audience listens to it on CD before- will be, in the case of a competition, a panel of judges who normally consist of composers, conductors, experienced performers or musicologists with special interest in contemporary music; or, more autocratically, it might be just one conductor who reads the scores and makes the decision. So whether an audience would like Pink Floyd's music to be introduced to the 'classical concert stage', their opinion is nugatory (it's a moot point whether they want their listening experiences 'mixed up') because the ultimate authority on the matter is not the audience.

Now, supposing -as I was tacitly earlier- that a Pink Floyd CD is submitted to one of these authorities. The music, as I have stated, does not or would not fill the criteria which one can gauge from extensive listening to and study of contemporary classical music, and an understanding of the western classical tradition - things that the educated and experienced people who decide whether it sees the light of day on the 'classical concert stage' would understand. Now, I don't think you've wasted you time voicing a mistaken opinion, Gorm. After all, making mistakes is one of the ways in which we learn new things.


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## Gorm Less (Dec 11, 2008)

Herzeleide said:


> Your post was of no assistance, Gorm Less. Although you reach the same conclusion that I do, the way that you arrive at this conclusion is totally mistaken.
> 
> .... You seem to be under the impression -correct me if I'm mistaken- that, providing the two markets of classical and prog-rock music (i.e. Pink Floyd) are mixed up, this will effect a transference of Pink Floyd's music into, as you put it, the 'classical concert stage'. Now, I don't think you've wasted you time voicing a mistaken opinion, Gorm. After all, making mistakes is one of the ways in which we learn new things.


I am definitely NOT under the impression, as you allege, that if the two markets of classical and prog-rock music are somehow mixed up this will transform Pink Floyd's music into the 'classical concert stage'. I know sufficient economics that markets which are separate cannot be forged together by artificial means.

I am astonished that you have so misconstrued my earlier post even to suggest this as a possibility. Indeed, I thought it was perfectly clear that I was saying exactly the opposite, which I illustrated by my view that P-F fans would not welcome a mixed concert of P-F music and classical music (contemporary or otherwise), if ever an attempt were to be made to stage such an affair.

Thus, after sorting out your misunderstanding of my earlier post, it would appear that we are in fact broadly united in our view on this matter, both methodologically and in our conclusion that there is virtually no chance of "The Wall" ever becoming part of the contemporary classical music scene, now or at any future time. In fact, there is more chance that pigs will fly.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

Gorm Less said:


> if ever an attempt were to be made to stage such an affair.


My point was that an attempt never would be made, so it's pointless supposing that it would.


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