# Boulez composed some great great music!



## Mandryka

In most classical music, orchestration is often there to clothe the polyphony. In Boulez, the orchestration _is _the polyphony.

Unlike most classical music, the form in Boulez isn't a sequence of ideas interrelated by a scheme. The form is like a proliferation of important instants related to each other by a sort of poetic inevitability.

Although he may owe these ideas to Debussy -- it was reading Barraque on Debussy which made me think of Boulez in fact -- I would say that he's a more successful composer than Debussy.

Listen, for example, to Don from Pli selon Pli






Pli selon Pli is an early piece, but I think you have the same level of inspiration at various instants all through his career, in Explosante Fixe for example (and normally I'm not keen on either flute or concertos, but I like this!)






The other thing I would add is that he had a gift of making _accessible _music, partly because it's so sensual, libidinous, visceral, passionate.


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## CnC Bartok

Pli selon pli was the first piece by Boulez I ever heard/had (on a three-sided LP!!! Side four was wonderfully blank, I kid you not.) 

I certainly cannot disagree here. When I first heard it, there was something weirdly wonderful about the combination of movement and big blocks of sound, and that strangely detached human voice.

Fear not, now he's dead, I don't reckon Boulez will end up forgotten.....


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## millionrainbows

This is the music of being. Music not manipulated by the mind, but sound in the now. No narrative. The mind exists in "time", but time is a fabrication of the mind. Time is not real. The past does not exist; the future does not yet exist. This is obvious to everyone. All we can do is exist in the now, and listen, moment by moment.


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## Manxfeeder

I can't believe I avoided Boulez's music until a couple years ago, particularly his orchestral music. I also can't believe I avoided his conducting, either.


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## millionrainbows

Man has been living under illusions for centuries. Perhaps it will wake up to now, maybe. The great floods are upon us.


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## starthrower

Manxfeeder said:


> I can't believe I avoided Boulez's music until a couple years ago, particularly his orchestral music. I also can't believe I avoided his conducting, either.











A great set to explore. I bought it a couple years ago.


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## CnC Bartok

......so did I. Couldn't agree more!

(Actually, especially for the Schoenberg concerto CD...)


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## Phil loves classical

For me, his later stuff like Repons was easier on the ears than Structures and Le Marteau Sans Maitre.


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## millionrainbows

A remarkably small output, but seeing as his model was Webern, that's hardly surprising. Be sure to hear the early Domaine Musical recordings.










Hardcore collectors should also look for Boulez on the Ades label.


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## starthrower

Explosante-Fixe contains some wonderful writing for flute. A very colorful piece. I just listened to the DG recording.


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## millionrainbows

I call it a "Boulez ensemble" when it is for plucked strings, metallic sounds, and winds, such as flute, vibraphone, harp, guitar, pizz violins, percussion, etc. Very "Eastern" sounding. Takemitsu imitates this ensemble in some of his works, like "A Flock Descends..." Also, I've heard it in Zappa, Civilization Phase III, and also on this Gidon Kremer disc:


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## Manxfeeder

starthrower said:


> A great set to explore. I bought it a couple years ago.


I did also. Someone threw in Barenboim's Boulez recording in the box also. That was nice.


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## tdc

Mandryka said:


> I would say that he's a more successful composer than Debussy.


You could say it, but you would be wrong.

_PLi Selon pli _has a great beginning and ending it is all the stuff in the middle I find harmonically repulsive. To each their own.


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## Janspe

The orchestral _Notations_ - based on his own very early piano pieces, but much expanded and rethought in the orchestral setting - is (for me at least) one of _the_ greatest orchestral pieces of all time. Absolutely essential!


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> Although he may owe these ideas to Debussy -- it was reading Barraque on Debussy which made me think of Boulez in fact -- I would say that he's a more successful composer than Debussy.


A "great, great" composer who is "more successful than Debussy" might reasonably be expected to take his place among the handful of great, great composers (as opposed to the merely great ones) who are acknowledged, respected, loved, purchased and listened to by a majority of classical music devotees.

Bets?


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## Lisztian

I like his music more and more. Was listening to Derive 2 yesterday: what a riot of colour!


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> A "great, great" composer who is "more successful than Debussy" might reasonably be expected to take his place among the handful of great, great composers (as opposed to the merely great ones) who are acknowledged, respected, loved, purchased and listened to by a majority of classical music devotees.
> 
> Bets?


What odds are you giving?


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## Red Terror

As a composer, Boulez will never get much respect in TC. Only a select few have an appreciation for the high avant-garde.


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## KenOC

Red Terror said:


> As a composer, Boulez will never get much respect in TC. Only a select few have an appreciation for the high avant-garde.


Well yes, of course. The elite are always in a minority, by definition. The rest of us can only throw ourselves on the ground and pour dirt on our heads. Rending garments is not strictly required, fortunate since that can be a bit expensive.


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## Red Terror

KenOC said:


> Well yes, of course. The elite are always in a minority, by definition. The rest of us can only throw ourselves on the ground and pour dirt on our heads. Rending garments is not strictly required, fortunate since that can be a bit expensive.


It's a well established fact that not many care for avant-garde music. Elitism is a ridiculous expression of pride. Wether rich or poor, we all eat, defecate, and die. Men are just men-dirt.


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## philoctetes

Red Terror said:


> It's a well established fact that not many care for avant-garde music. Elitism is a ridiculous expression of pride. Wether rich or poor, we all eat, defecate, and die. Men are just men-dirt.


Have you visited the AI thread?


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## Red Terror

philoctetes said:


> Have you visited the AI thread?


What of it? AI isn't going to save us. We lack the sanity to use technology in a responsible manner. If we lose control of AI, you can bet the first thing it'll do is get rid of unstable creatures-us.


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## Larkenfield

If sales are any indication, Boulez as a composer and conductor has a way to go with about 1000 listings on US Amazon while under the listing of 'Debussy', there are over 8000 results.

Nevertheless, I thought the Boulez composition of _Pli selon pli _worth hearing and one of his better efforts despite writing for a soloist who's vocalizing little more than half the time, having to just stand there waiting and sometimes appearing to have been forgotten in the overall scheme of things while he focuses on the orchestra.

The point has been raised many times before, but if Boulez hadn't been so intellectually hardheaded, such a pain in the *** and condescending toward other composers in order to elevate himself, such as being dismissive of anything by Shostakovich-what a mistake _that_ was, IMO-he might not have made as many enemies and have a wider audience. But I do believe that he had good intentions overall, stimulating to progressive modernism, and some of his avante-garde works will survive. His orchestration is outstanding in_ Pli_ and I was more than impressed with the timbre and colors he achieved.


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## Mandryka

Q


Woodduck said:


> A "great, great" composer who is "more successful than Debussy" might reasonably be expected to take his place among the handful of great, great composers (as opposed to the merely great ones) who are acknowledged, respected, loved, purchased and listened to by a majority of classical music devotees.
> 
> Bets?


One possibly relevant issue is this. Some, most, of the really great music by Boulez is for non standard ensembles. It's not for solo piano, it's not an opera for a regular opera orchestra, a piece a regular symphony orchestra can have a go at. Boulez uses cimbaloms, vibraphones, maybe a couple of pianos, electrictronics, gamelan etc etc. This makes it more troublesome to perform.


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## Guest

I agree with the OP. I've always liked his music but it took me until maybe 2014 to really explore the bulk of his compositions. Since reading biographies, interviews and articles by and about Boulez I've discovered a lot more about the man behind the music as well and what a positive force he has been in music in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Orchestration plays a vital role in his music and I think one of the most prominent early examples of this is actually in Éclat, a piece focussing primarily on the attack and decay of musical instruments, spatialisation and balance. I would argue that it was in writing this piece he developed his style of orchestration. Pli selon pli is a colossal work which _does_ provide a good example of his orchestrational style, but I would say it provides a good insight into other aspects of his music and his interests at the time as well: improvisation, form, vocal writing etc. and it's kind of the culmination of everything that he was thinking about in his early period of composition in the 40s and 50s.

Btw I'm very glad to see such an interesting discussion of the quality of Boulez's music rather than a discussion of whether he is simply popular enough or mainstream enough to be considered 'great' (as if popularity equals greatness or whatever).


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## mmsbls

Red Terror said:


> As a composer, Boulez will never get much respect in TC. Only a select few have an appreciation for the high avant-garde.


I think this view is perhaps more pessimistic than need be. In TC composer polls by Nereffid, Boulez was liked by over 30% of TC members. Maybe a bit more than a "select few." It's true that Boulez is liked significantly less than many other composers are, but both Gesualdo and Josquin fall in the same 30-40% bin. I would say that only a modest percentage of TC members appreciate modern or Renaissance composers.


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> ... I would say that only a modest percentage of TC members appreciate modern or Renaissance composers.


Can you define what you mean by "modern composers"?


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## Mandryka

For me Boulez much more than Debussy represents a hope for _true _music. I know that, by his culture, his training, his origins, his interests, Boulez admired and maybe enjoyed the music of the past. But I think in his best music he transcended this aspect of character. He _felt _ the uneasiness of the times he lived in, our times. The chiaroscuro of his music is like a light glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, a hope that the fear may end.


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## Mandryka

mmsbls said:


> I think this view is perhaps more pessimistic than need be. In TC composer polls by Nereffid, Boulez was liked by over 30% of TC members. Maybe a bit more than a "select few." It's true that Boulez is liked significantly less than many other composers are, but both Gesualdo and Josquin fall in the same 30-40% bin. I would say that only a modest percentage of TC members appreciate modern or Renaissance composers.


zzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz


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## Mandryka

KenOC said:


> Can you define what you mean by "modern composers"?


zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz


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## Mandryka

KenOC said:


> Well yes, of course. The elite are always in a minority, by definition. The rest of us can only throw ourselves on the ground and pour dirt on our heads. Rending garments is not strictly required, fortunate since that can be a bit expensive.


zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz


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## Mandryka

shirime said:


> I agree with the OP. I've always liked his music but it took me until maybe 2014 to really explore the bulk of his compositions. Since reading biographies, interviews and articles by and about Boulez I've discovered a lot more about the man behind the music as well and what a positive force he has been in music in the 20th and 21st centuries.
> 
> Orchestration plays a vital role in his music and I think one of the most prominent early examples of this is actually in Éclat, a piece focussing primarily on the attack and decay of musical instruments, spatialisation and balance. I would argue that it was in writing this piece he developed his style of orchestration. Pli selon pli is a colossal work which _does_ provide a good example of his orchestrational style, but I would say it provides a good insight into other aspects of his music and his interests at the time as well: improvisation, form, vocal writing etc. and it's kind of the culmination of everything that he was thinking about in his early period of composition in the 40s and 50s.
> 
> Btw I'm very glad to see such an interesting discussion of the quality of Boulez's music rather than a discussion of whether he is simply popular enough or mainstream enough to be considered 'great' (as if popularity equals greatness or whatever).


Which do you prefer, Eclat or the unfinished Eclat/Multiples?


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## Guest

Mandryka said:


> Which do you prefer, Eclat or the unfinished Eclat/Multiples?


I actually prefer Éclat on its own to tell you the truth. Multiples on its own sounds more like a section from a bigger work, but I enjoy it a lot. However, I would only listen to Multiples preceded by Éclat!

Goddam, the Boulez problem is even more complex than the Bruckner problem....

I aspire to one day edit a complete Boulez Edition for UE that addresses and catalogues all these incomplete versions and revisions!


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## Guest

Mandryka said:


> zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz


Interestingly enough, Boulez thought similarity of the opinion that somehow his music is 'elitist.' Well, actually he was rather surprised that it was suggested his music is elitist because he personally aimed to dismantle such a reaction against contemporary music through greater exposure, programming and performance contexts designed to make contemporary music approachable for music lovers.


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## starthrower

Seems as though so many threads end up in a pissing match. Is the magnitude of perceived greatness the end all of this forum?


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## Jacck

within the 20th century alone, I would rate Boulez somewhere between place 10-20. Ahead of him are Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Hindemith, Schnittke, Ligeti, Janáček, Martinů, Enescu..... History teaches us, that less than 10 greatest composers survive and become part of the standard pantheon. Boulez will be forgotten....


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## Enthusiast

I am among those who found Boulez interesting but challenging until a few years ago when, to my amazement, his music began to sound very approachable. I think it happened when I went back to him from listening to (and enjoying) more recent (or younger) composers. This opening out of meaning leaves me convinced his music is assured a high place in our estimation but my earlier lack of understanding tells me that there is little to be done to help those who don't want to explore what he offers. They should keep an open mind and an appreciative mindset (asking what _is _good in this?) and try. But it is easier - even if it is so much duller - to give an opinion or a judgement based on _its _failure to penetrate their minds.


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## Xisten267

Enthusiast said:


> I am among those who found Boulez interesting but challenging until a few years ago when, to my amazement, his music began to sound very approachable. I think it happened when I went back to him from listening to (and enjoying) more recent (or younger) composers. This opening out of meaning leaves me convinced his music is assured a high place in our estimation but my earlier lack of understanding tells me that there is little to be done to help those who don't want to explore what he offers. They should keep an open mind and an appreciative mindset (asking what _is _good in this?) and try. But it is easier - even if it is so much duller - to give an opinion or a judgement based on _its _failure to penetrate their minds.


I think that this is a great post for me as for the moment I fail miserably to understand the music of Boulez. Acquired taste is needed to enjoy it, I suppose. I hope that one day I have this epiphany that you had so that I can be able to rediscover and actually like his compositions (and those of some other modern/contemporary classical composers aswell).


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## Dimace

Manxfeeder said:


> I can't believe I avoided Boulez's music until a couple years ago, particularly his orchestral music. * I also can't believe I avoided his conducting, either*.


*As a conductor the Frenchman was SUPER*. Not only very nice Mahler (you know better) but also Liszt. (with Daniel, the 2 concertos were SUPER!!) As a composer I personally understand NOTHING of his music. Maybe all these things he has composed are masterpieces and in the future would find a place in the Pantheon of the great composers. Personally I don't bet a single dollar to this scenario.


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## Dimace

Allerius said:


> I think that this is a great post for me as for the moment I fail miserably to understand the music of Boulez. Acquired taste is needed to enjoy it, I suppose. I hope that one day I have this epiphany that you had so that I can be able to rediscover and actually like his compositions (and those of some other modern/contemporary classical composers aswell).


Don't worry! You will never find this epiphany. You can continue listening your* good MUSIC *and leave the epiphanies for the people want to torture their ears and nerves searching in vain for it. I just started with Pierre and Gustav's Symphonies and in another life I will look for the modern epiphanies from an unknown musical God...


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## Mandryka

Woodduck said:


> A "great, great" composer who is "more successful than Debussy" might reasonably be expected to take his place among the handful of great, great composers (as opposed to the merely great ones) who are acknowledged, respected, loved, purchased and listened to by a majority of classical music devotees.
> 
> Bets?


Do you think it's unlikely that "a majority of classical music devotees" will come to appreciate it? If so, I wonder why?

I went to listen to Eclat today -- I didn't realise that there were so many recordings! And that's for a relatively difficult piece I think. I very much enjoyed this one


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## mbhaub

I find Boulez's music interesting, sometimes fascinating. It evokes mental images that are often frightening or mysterious. What I do not find in it - any of it - is beauty. Could he write a tune? Is that asking too much? Just a nice, memorable melody? That wasn't his goal I suppose. Have you looked at any of his scores? It's so utterly complex that it will never become mainstream. It is certainly beyond the ability of amateurs. When I hear music like this a remark by Mahler comes to mind: "It may be interesting, but is it beautiful?". Maybe it's just my IQ isn't high enough to appreciate his music - or that of many others of his generation. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms....Boulez will never join that pantheon.


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## Mandryka

mbhaub said:


> I find Boulez's music interesting, sometimes fascinating. It evokes mental images that are often frightening or mysterious. What I do not find in it - any of it - is beauty. Could he write a tune? Is that asking too much? Just a nice, memorable melody? That wasn't his goal I suppose. Have you looked at any of his scores? It's so utterly complex that it will never become mainstream. It is certainly beyond the ability of amateurs. When I hear music like this a remark by Mahler comes to mind: "It may be interesting, but is it beautiful?". Maybe it's just my IQ isn't high enough to appreciate his music - or that of many others of his generation. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms....Boulez will never join that pantheon.


I just think it's astonishing to say that the music isn't beautiful, I mean, it just is! If I didn't know better, I'd think that you hadn't in fact listened to any of it.

As far as complexity goes, I don't know if what you say is true, and anyway I don't care about it any more than I care about complexity in a score by Josquin. Why should I? I'm not a musicologist. I just enjoy the music.

As far as memorable melody goes, listen to this setting of Mallarmé's _Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard_ Impossible, I think, to imagine a better setting of the poem. This setting is one of the reasons why I say that he was a more successful composer than Debussy.


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## Dimace

Mandryka said:


> I just think it's astonishing to say that the music isn't beautiful, I mean, it just is! If I didn't know better, I'd think that you hadn't in fact listened to any of it.
> 
> As far as complexity goes, I don't know if what you say is true, and anyway I don't care about it any more than I care about complexity in a score by Josquin. Why should I? I'm not a musicologist.* I just enjoy the music.
> *
> As far as memorable melody goes, listen to this setting of Mallarmé's _Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard_ Impossible, I think, to imagine a better setting of the poem. This setting is one of the reasons why I say that he was a more successful composer than Debussy.


I don't like this music, but your statement (with bold) is ALL THE MONEY! Music, after all, is a matter of taste.


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## Dimace

Enthusiast said:


> I am among those who found Boulez interesting but challenging until a few years ago when, to my amazement, his music began to sound very approachable. I think it happened when I went back to him from listening to (and enjoying) more recent (or younger) composers. This opening out of meaning leaves me convinced his music is assured a high place in our estimation but my earlier lack of understanding tells me that there is little to be done to help those who don't want to explore what he offers. They should keep an open mind and an appreciative mindset (asking what _is _good in this?) and try. But it is easier - even if it is so much duller - to give an opinion or a judgement based on _its _failure *to penetrate their minds.*


Something has penetrated into my mind... That's for sure. I have headache with Pierre's music. :lol:


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## Guest

I really love Boulez's music, he is my favourite composer, but most of the time i find his music more _exciting_ or _thrilling_ or _powerful_ rather than _beautiful_...........however, there are definitely moments in Messagesquisse, Dérive I and Notations pour orchestre that are definitely what I consider beautiful


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## Enthusiast

Allerius said:


> I think that this is a great post for me as for the moment I fail miserably to understand the music of Boulez. Acquired taste is needed to enjoy it, I suppose. I hope that one day I have this epiphany that you had so that I can be able to rediscover and actually like his compositions (and those of some other modern/contemporary classical composers aswell).


I think what happened for me was that a broad exploration of the contemporary - combined with a frustration with the more conventional contemporary music (which seemed again and again to short change me) - led to bigger and bigger patches of the jigsaw becoming "visible" to me. So I wasn't really trying or struggling so much as drifting or hanging around music that didn't immediately "make sense". And then slowly pieces started to talk to me. I was lucky in that I had bought quite a lot of contemporary CDs a few years ago when I was a manic purchaser but hadn't listened to them very often: they were at my fingertips when I was ready to explore them. Over the last couple of years they started to make sense and very much so - quite a deluge - this year. But it is still all new to me and, unlike some here, I am not an expert listener (as I perhaps am with much standard repertoire) in this field yet.


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## mbhaub

Mandryka said:


> I just think it's astonishing to say that the music isn't beautiful, I mean, it just is! If I didn't know better, I'd think that you hadn't in fact listened to any of it.


I actually have listened to it - ALL of it. I bought that 13-cd DG set when it came out. Perhaps we define "beauty" differently. Some people look at the Sonoran desert and see incredible beauty, others see a desolate wasteland. I do find a lot of Boulez (and his contemporaries) eerily beautiful, sometime frightening, thought-provoking. But there is nothing I would tap my toe to or sing in the shower. It has its fans, but the mainstream classical audiences will never embrace it. As a conductor, I really like his legacy. His Mahler is fine; I knew that 50 years ago when that complete Klagende Lied came out.


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## larold

_I do find a lot of Boulez (and his contemporaries) eerily beautiful, sometime frightening, thought-provoking. But there is nothing I would tap my toe to or sing in the shower. It has its fans, but the mainstream classical audiences will never embrace it._

In my opinion composers like Boulez are the reason for the steep worldwide decline in interest in classical music. People have tried for decades to blame these declines on all sorts of things -- rock music, television and visual arts, dumbing down of people, etc.

But the fact is what has declined the most in classical music in the past 50-100 years is the music itself. Ironically this has occurred during an era when conservatories and universities have cranked out more players and singers of high quality than anytime in history. The average community orchestra today is as good as the average Viennese orchestra that recorded for Vox in the 1950s.

There are more practitioners of music today than ever before yet there hasn't been a composer whose body of work compared to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart since Shostakovich died 1975. There hasn't been a worldwide classical hit album since the 1980s. There hasn't been a new opera enter the standard repertory since World War II. This is because the music being composed in modern times doesn't register with masses and doesn't create millions of new fans for the art form.

And this, sad to say, is because of the composers themselves who no longer have to satisfy audiences with their compositions. They can get jobs in colleges and at conservatories and don't need audiences. Beethoven and Brahms would never have composed anything if audiences rejected their music like audiences reject Boulez.

And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.

When I saw magazines like BBC Music and Gramophone put Boulez on their covers upon his death and dedicated pages inside to him and what a great musician he was, I knew classical music was dead.


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## Art Rock

larold said:


> There hasn't been a worldwide classical hit album since the 1980s.


The rest of your post is more opinion than fact, but this is simply wrong. The Zinman/Upshaw CD of Gorecki's 3d, released in 1992, topped the classical charts in Britain and the United States, selling more than a million copies.


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## larold

The Three Tenors albums came after the Gorecki and sold more, so I was wrong twice. 

There is no defending the music, however. It is the reason people have abandoned classical music. You don't see this in other art forms where hits come regularly, such as music theater.

An art form that abandons its audience (film has many similar characteristics) surely declines.


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## Manxfeeder

Art Rock said:


> The rest of your post is more opinion than fact, but this is simply wrong. The Zinman/Upshaw CD of Gorecki's 3d, released in 1992, topped the classical charts in Britain and the United States, selling more than a million copies.


Arvo Part has been pretty popular with the public, at least around the turn of the century. One CD had a comment by Wesley Snipes recommending it. Philip Glass has pretty much entered the mainstream, even being parodied on the Simpsons. I heard Brian Eno's ambient music in an airport. I don't think classical is as dead as some think.


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## Mandryka

Manxfeeder said:


> Arvo Part has been pretty popular with the public, at least around the turn of the century. One CD had a comment by Wesley Snipes recommending it. Philip Glass has pretty much entered the mainstream, even being parodied on the Simpsons. I heard Brian Eno's ambient music in an airport. I don't think classical is as dead as some think.


But Larold insists that anyone who's keen on modern music is either either a know-nothing or a sucker. And I like Boulez.

Gosh.


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## mmsbls

KenOC said:


> Can you define what you mean by "modern composers"?


My first thought is no )), but basically I meant composers similar to Boulez. I didn't want to use avant-garde, but I didn't want to include Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, etc.. Maybe I should have just said avant-gardeish?


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## Bluecrab

larold said:


> But the fact is what has declined the most in classical music in the past 50-100 years is the music itself.


That is by no means a fact. That is your opinion. You and several others around here would do well to bother to learn the difference between the two.


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## starthrower

What happened to Boulez music discussion? This thread started off great. Who cares about the classical top 40?


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## Red Terror

starthrower said:


> What happened to Boulez music discussion?


People happened.


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## Bluecrab

Mandryka said:


> But Larold insists that anyone who's keen on modern music is either either a know-nothing or a sucker.


It's a malady common among those who believe that no good music has been composed since 1791.


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## Mandryka

Bluecrab said:


> It's a malady common among those who believe that no good music has been composed since 1791.


I suppose when you let the public in, this is what happens.


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## mmsbls

shirime said:


> I really love Boulez's music, he is my favourite composer, but most of the time i find his music more _exciting_ or _thrilling_ or _powerful_ rather than _beautiful_...........however, there are definitely moments in Messagesquisse, Dérive I and Notations pour orchestre that are definitely what I consider beautiful


I once started a thread about people's views of beauty in music. I asked if people felt that all the works they liked they also found beautiful. Some said yes, others said no, and some said that stating a piece is beautiful has little meaning. Back then I belonged to the "All music I like I also find beautiful" group, but I have changed. Now I think there are works I like that I find exciting or intriguing but that I may not find beautiful.

When I first heard Anthemes II, I was immediately drawn in. I needed to hear how the music evolved. I was captivated. There are likely parts that I find beautiful as well. I think many of Boulez's works may strike me that way. Sur Incises was the first work I liked. I heard Boulez talk about the work as performers played brief sections. I loved the timbres and I loved how the music flittered about the ensemble.


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## Red Terror

Some of Boulez's music reminds me of birdsong—quite beautiful. One must keep a clear mind when listening to new music, otherwise one is sure to find it unpalatable. Repeated listening is necessary.

Ferneyhough's work was nearly inpenetrable at the onset. Subsequently, my ear grew accustomed to the music and began identifying patterns. I am now very fond of his works for string quartet & trios.


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> I suppose when you let the public in, this is what happens.


"Who cares if you listen?"

Babbitt says he never said it, but it's the thought that counts.


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## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> But Larold insists that anyone who's keen on modern music is either either a know-nothing or a sucker. And I like Boulez.
> 
> Gosh.


I believe he was referring to 'composers like Boulez'. Is it your belief that all modern music is composed by composers like Boulez?


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## Dimace

larold said:


> _I do find a lot of Boulez (and his contemporaries) eerily beautiful, sometime frightening, thought-provoking. But there is nothing I would tap my toe to or sing in the shower. It has its fans, but the mainstream classical audiences will never embrace it._
> 
> In my opinion composers like Boulez are the reason for the steep worldwide decline in interest in classical music. People have tried for decades to blame these declines on all sorts of things -- rock music, television and visual arts, dumbing down of people, etc.
> 
> But the fact is what has declined the most in classical music in the past 50-100 years is the music itself. Ironically this has occurred during an era when conservatories and universities have cranked out more players and singers of high quality than anytime in history. The average community orchestra today is as good as the average Viennese orchestra that recorded for Vox in the 1950s.
> 
> There are more practitioners of music today than ever before yet there hasn't been a composer whose body of work compared to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart since Shostakovich died 1975. There hasn't been a worldwide classical hit album since the 1980s. There hasn't been a new opera enter the standard repertory since World War II. This is because the music being composed in modern times doesn't register with masses and doesn't create millions of new fans for the art form.
> 
> And this, sad to say, is because of the composers themselves who no longer have to satisfy audiences with their compositions. They can get jobs in colleges and at conservatories and don't need audiences. Beethoven and Brahms would never have composed anything if audiences rejected their music like audiences reject Boulez.
> 
> And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.
> 
> When I saw magazines like BBC Music and Gramophone put Boulez on their covers upon his death and dedicated pages inside to him and what a great musician he was, I knew classical music was dead.


I could give you 1000 likes for this one.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Dimace said:


> I could give you 1000 likes for this one.


+ 1001 dislikes
Boulez is one of my modern heroes! There still are some threads on modern music here, that haven't been infected by conservative wise guys. Cheers to you all!


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## Phil loves classical

Jacck said:


> within the 20th century alone, I would rate Boulez somewhere between place 10-20. Ahead of him are Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Hindemith, Schnittke, Ligeti, Janáček, Martinů, Enescu..... History teaches us, that less than 10 greatest composers survive and become part of the standard pantheon. *Boulez will be forgotten....*


I doubt Boulez will be forgotten. His Marteau sans Maitre is a landmark piece of music, whether or not it is any good or not. It took 20 years before someone was able to crack the code. Makes you wonder what people thought they were listening to during those 20 years? It definitely requires a different way of listening than with Prokofiev, Stravinsky and others. It brought about a new subjectivism in music. I read some good reviews and some bad of that piece and of Repons, what he calls his masterpiece. I have mixed feelings, since I like to latch on to something more concrete. There is really no objective way of saying it is great music or bad, unlike the music of Bach through Stravinsky, whose music is more deliberately composed.


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## Lisztian

larold said:


> And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.
> 
> When I saw magazines like BBC Music and Gramophone put Boulez on their covers upon his death and dedicated pages inside to him and what a great musician he was, I knew classical music was dead.


Ooookayyyy......

And if I hear the phrase "since the death of Shostakovich" one more time...

Anyway, I re-listened to his _Figures, Doubles, Prismes_ last night before bed, and I too was baffled. Is it actually true that a high percentage of listeners, who are at least somewhat experienced with modern music, could listen to the whole thing and find none of it beautiful? I find that very hard to believe. It could just be a matter of 'different strokes,' but I was so struck by the music that I feel like there is much more of an audience for it than many think...


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> My first thought is no )), but basically I meant composers similar to Boulez. I didn't want to use avant-garde, but I didn't want to include Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, etc.. Maybe I should have just said avant-gardeish?


Many thanks for your measured reply. I have a perhaps different set of adjectives to describe this music, but will refrain from mentioning them out of common civility.


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## Mandryka

Il existe,an ax son. EMN. S, mon ex:nex


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## Jacck

Phil loves classical said:


> I doubt Boulez will be forgotten. His Marteau sans Maitre is a landmark piece of music, whether or not it is any good or not. It took 20 years before someone was able to crack the code. Makes you wonder what people thought they were listening to during those 20 years? It definitely requires a different way of listening than with Prokofiev, Stravinsky and others. It brought about a new subjectivism in music. I read some good reviews and some bad of that piece and of Repons, what he calls his masterpiece. I have mixed feelings, since I like to latch on to something more concrete. There is really no objective way of saying it is great music or bad, unlike the music of Bach through Stravinsky, whose music is more deliberately composed.


I am no musicologist and do not intend to become one, so I will not study notes and scores to see this supposed depth hidden away in the Marteau sans Maitre. All I can say is "do I enjoy listening to this music or not"? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. The MsM with its percussion rythms has a calming/relaxing effect on me. It sounds schoenbergian to me (similar to his violin concerto), but is even easier to listen to than schoenberg. Would I rate the MsM as one of the best compositions of the 20th century? Certainly not.


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## Enthusiast

mbhaub said:


> I find Boulez's music interesting, sometimes fascinating. It evokes mental images that are often frightening or mysterious. What I do not find in it - any of it - is beauty. Could he write a tune? Is that asking too much? Just a nice, memorable melody? That wasn't his goal I suppose. .............................. When I hear music like this a remark by Mahler comes to mind: "It may be interesting, but is it beautiful?". _*Maybe it's just my IQ isn't high enough to appreciate his music - or that of many others of his generation*_. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms....Boulez will never join that pantheon.


I wonder if something like your doubting of your own IQ is behind the reason why so many need to jump into any thread about Boulez - or any other "recent" avant garde - to say nothing but to rubbish his music? Boulez haters: does the enjoyment some of us find in this marvelous music somehow threaten your self esteem? Is that why you can't just move on and allow those of us who are hooked to explore what we know and enjoy with others who are interested?

As for the desire for tunes. Well, actually, why pick on Boulez? Bartok, for example, is now mainstream repertoire but much of his output is not really about tunes. Of course, if you don't get on with Bartok's great works then your views on Boulez are unlikely to be that positive. Even Shostakovich often managed without much in the way of a tune. I suspect that the issue is not, strictly speaking, tunes so much as a link to tonality? And, again, quite a lot of atonal music is these days firmly ensconced in the repertoire.

I hear Boulez as quite unique among composers (even the very contemporary) in that his music seems to me to "unwrap" differently to any other music. That unwrapping is the initial magical experience for me.


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## Jacck

Enthusiast said:


> Boulez haters: does the enjoyment some of us find in this marvelous music somehow threaten your self esteem? .


I would suspect that many people do not believe you when you say that you enjoy this music. They probably think that you are posers who claim to enjoy this noise to look intellectual and interesting :lol:


----------



## Enthusiast

larold said:


> In my opinion composers like Boulez are the reason for the steep worldwide decline in interest in classical music. People have tried for decades to blame these declines on all sorts of things -- rock music, television and visual arts, dumbing down of people, etc.
> 
> But the fact is what has declined the most in classical music in the past 50-100 years is the music itself. Ironically this has occurred during an era when conservatories and universities have cranked out more players and singers of high quality than anytime in history. The average community orchestra today is as good as the average Viennese orchestra that recorded for Vox in the 1950s.
> 
> There are more practitioners of music today than ever before yet there hasn't been a composer whose body of work compared to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart since Shostakovich died 1975. There hasn't been a worldwide classical hit album since the 1980s. There hasn't been a new opera enter the standard repertory since World War II. This is because the music being composed in modern times doesn't register with masses and doesn't create millions of new fans for the art form.
> 
> And this, sad to say, is because of the composers themselves who no longer have to satisfy audiences with their compositions. They can get jobs in colleges and at conservatories and don't need audiences. Beethoven and Brahms would never have composed anything if audiences rejected their music like audiences reject Boulez.
> 
> And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.
> 
> *When I saw magazines like BBC Music and Gramophone put Boulez on their covers upon his death and dedicated pages inside to him and what a great musician he was, I knew classical music was dead.*


What an awful and irritating post! To reply I must first bury the irritation I feel when someone uses the word "fact" to express an opinion, an irritation that grows when the opinion is so poorly founded and so inadequately justified! And just as I manage to overcome that irritation I reach you final sentence (the one I have highlighted) which is such a sadly blimpish comment, so out of touch with the musical world and yet so arrogant ... I just give up: I _am_ irritated!

Are you sure that CM has declined in popularity in the last "50-100 years"? This is your first premise and is probably wrong or, at least, inadequate. Then you reject a number of factors that are certainly relevant to the popularity of CM because, to you, it is obviously the fault of those who are actually keeping the tradition alive with new and fresh music - composers who inspire many of us (but you ignore that fact).

You see CM as dying with the openly populist Shostakovich - which is frankly laughable. It is a really strange thing when someone expresses such an ignorant opinion with all the appearance of pride! Whatever his merits, Shostakovich was hardly the most "important" composer of his lifetime let alone overall. He managed to put a personal, interesting, occasionally powerful and sometimes moving stamp on the mostly old ideas that he was forced to recycle. Your taste, though, is that of a Stalin: hardly a reliable role model. But many of us love music that builds on and continues the tradition of the greats who you mention.

That you just blithely ignore the obvious fact that many of us on this forum (and in this thread) love Boulez' music and many more are sufficiently interested and open eared to be trying to get to grips with it - that you ignore us is just plain arrogant. Couldn't it be that you are wrong and out of touch? And could it be that inwardly you know it, and that is why you feel driven to post such uncalled for drivel?


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## Gallus

Boulez is not a composer I'm particularly familiar with, but I've always enjoyed his second piano sonata. Very stimulating, even (dare I say it) beautiful...


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## Dimace

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> + 1001 dislikes
> Boulez is one of my modern heroes! There still are some threads on modern music here, that haven't been infected by conservative wise guys. Cheers to you all!


I don't disagree with you, my dear friend. As I have written few posts above, music is a matter of personal taste. No one will tell you what to listen and what to like or not. That should be at least disrespectful and meaningless. Cheers to beautiful Norway!


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## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> I would suspect that many people do not believe you when you say that you enjoy this music. They probably think that you are posers who claim to enjoy this noise to look intellectual and interesting :lol:


You may be right that they think that. But, maybe that says more about the drives behind their own tastes than about mine! Why would I bother? It's not like I know any of you in the "real world"!

Also, my taste has been changing and developing. I used to post quite a lot of the Amazon UK forum and anyone who remembers me from there some 7 years ago will find me openly admitting that I didn't like composers like Carter, Birtwistle and Boulez. But since then I have found I was wrong. More recently you can find me expressing myself (on this forum) as anti-Messiaen, a position I have recently changed as I seem to have found the key to _his_ music (a key I found through my enjoyment of the music of his student, George Benjamin). *I hope, though, that when I have said I don't like x or y that I have acknowledged (where true!) that many people whose taste I respect disagree with me and that I am the one who is at fault.*


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## Gallus

Also here's a nice bit of orchestration


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> I would suspect that many people do not believe you when you say that you enjoy this music. They probably think that you are posers who claim to enjoy this noise to look intellectual and interesting :lol:


That's very disrespectful, elitist and arrogant of them to come to that conclusion. To tell you the truth, years ago I used to be a little bit like that as well whenever someone mentioned they like composers such as Elgar, Sibelius and Brahms and I often implied my superiority of taste (Wagner! Richard Strauss! Debussy!) because I considered those composers 'bad' simply because I did not understand how to enjoy their music. Thankfully, I started to learn to appreciate the differences we all have and how personal our own tastes in music are and I have done my best to drop that disrespectful attitude.


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## Dimace

Enthusiast said:


> What an awful and irritating post! To reply I must first bury the irritation I feel when someone uses the word "fact" to express an opinion, an irritation that grows when the opinion is so poorly founded and so inadequately justified! And just as I manage to overcome that irritation I reach you final sentence (the one I have highlighted) which is such a sadly blimpish comment, so out of touch with the musical world and yet so arrogant ... I just give up: I _am_ irritated!
> 
> Are you sure that CM has declined in popularity in the last "50-100 years"? This is your first premise and is probably wrong or, at least, inadequate. Then you reject a number of factors that are certainly relevant to the popularity of CM because, to you, it is obviously the fault of those who are actually keeping the tradition alive with new and fresh music - composers who inspire many of us (but you ignore that fact).
> 
> You see CM as dying with the openly populist Shostakovich - which is frankly laughable. It is a really strange thing when someone expresses such an ignorant opinion with all the appearance of pride! Whatever his merits, Shostakovich was hardly the most "important" composer of his lifetime let alone overall. He managed to put a personal, interesting, occasionally powerful and sometimes moving stamp on the mostly old ideas that he was forced to recycle. Your taste, though, is that of a Stalin: hardly a reliable role model. But many of us love music that builds on and continues the tradition of the greats who you mention.
> 
> That you just blithely ignore the obvious fact that many of us on this forum (and in this thread) love Boulez' music and many more are sufficiently interested and open eared to be trying to get to grips with it - that you ignore us is just plain arrogant. Couldn't it be that you are wrong and out of touch? And could it be that inwardly you know it, and that is why you feel driven to post such uncalled for drivel?


I will tell you a real story, my dearest friend.

Some years before, the great Cyprien Katsaris, was in Belgium for some piano recitals. After one of them, gave an interview to Belgian TV, speaking about music and his record label. Among the others said something I found, that moment, unbelievable: ''I don't like the music of Valentin Alkan'' he said! Alkan considered one of the biggest piano virtuosos, many say he was better than Liszt. Liszt himself was afraid to performed for him, is said. Alkan has composed music ONLY for piano and of the highest standards of virtuosity. And now, another piano virtuoso, Cyprien, says publicly that rejects his music? Why not, I answer now! He is a great pianist but he is also a man with his preferences and taste. To be honest that was much better than the hypocrisy of many people who find everything ok only to be accepted form the others. Alkan, with or without Katsaris, has his friends and admirers. The same Pierre. Is it so important if ten fellow users dislike him? Not at all! Important is that YOU enjoy his music. After all ONLY the time can saw us if one music is good. Pierre died recently (2016?) Maybe after 100 years his music will be so important as Chopins or Scriabins. Maybe not. No one of us will be here to collect any bet has made...


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## Enthusiast

^^^ Thank you! I don't mind someone having different taste to mine. That is fine and inevitable. But when they want to say that my taste is the result of a delusion and that as a matter of fact the music I like is actually anti-music ... that is when they get my goat! 

And the real trouble is that this has been going on for quite some time on this forum. Whenever a discussion starts between people who enjoy or are at least interested in the avant garde the thread gets taken over by people going a long way beyond just saying "I don't like it myself" - they insist repeatedly that the music being discussed is verifiably awful and imply that those discussing it a pseudo-intellectuals with no real feel for music. It can get so bad that even discussing mainstream modern composers - particularly serialists - becomes impossible and if someone attempts to discuss something a little bit more "out there" they are rideculed in the same way that we used to ridecule the village idiot! It spoils this forum and limits its value.


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## larold

_Arvo Part has been pretty popular with the public, at least around the turn of the century. One CD had a comment by Wesley Snipes recommending it. Philip Glass has pretty much entered the mainstream, even being parodied on the Simpsons. I heard Brian Eno's ambient music in an airport. I don't think classical is as dead as some think. _

Yes and if you watch the American TV series "Mom" you'll note the theme song is Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla overture and they often play bits of Mozart during the show. I agree classical music hasn't been forgotten. I also agree it is still growing in the parts of the world still developing including Asia.

But not being dead and still being a factor in the arts are different things. In Toscanini, Heifetz and Bernstein's days people could tell you who were those people. Who do you think the average non-classical listener could identify today?

Find 10 casual classical music listeners around you and ask them to tell you what their five favorite pieces of Boulez are. Then ask them what they like about Part or Rautavarra or Adams or Glass -- the most well-known composers of our time.

Then I think you'll have a better idea of classical music's state.


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## Red Terror

Wesley Snipes? Isn’t he in prison?


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## Lisztian

"The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition.” - Charles Rosen.


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## Manxfeeder

Red Terror said:


> Wesley Snipes? Isn't he in prison?


Oops. I meant Michael Stipe. How did I come up with Wesley Snipes?


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## DeepR

Manxfeeder said:


> I heard Brian Eno's ambient music in an airport. I don't think classical is as dead as some think.


Since when is ambient music classical music? I'd say it isn't, but that doesn't necessarily make it "popular" music either. 
I'm just curious. I'm possibly the biggest fan of ambient music on this forum. So be careful now, if ambient music is in fact regarded as classical music, I'm going to spam this forum with music that many of us consider to be new age [email protected]


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## Enthusiast

shirime said:


> That's very disrespectful, elitist and arrogant of them to come to that conclusion. To tell you the truth, years ago I used to be a little bit like that as well whenever someone mentioned they like composers such as Elgar, Sibelius and Brahms and I often implied my superiority of taste (Wagner! Richard Strauss! Debussy!) because I considered those composers 'bad' simply because I did not understand how to enjoy their music. Thankfully, I started to learn to appreciate the differences we all have and how personal our own tastes in music are and I have done my best to drop that disrespectful attitude.


And growing up in the 60s loving classical music ... it was something I learned to hide as my friends saw it as an affectation.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Enthusiast said:


> I wonder if something like your doubting of your own IQ is behind the reason why so many need to jump into any thread about Boulez - or any other "recent" avant garde - to say nothing but to rubbish his music? Boulez haters: does the enjoyment some of us find in this marvelous music somehow threaten your self esteem? Is that why you can't just move on and allow those of us who are hooked to explore what we know and enjoy with others who are interested?
> 
> As for the desire for tunes. Well, actually, why pick on Boulez? *Bartok, for example, is now mainstream repertoire but much of his output is not really about tunes. Of course, if you don't get on with Bartok's great works then your views on Boulez are unlikely to be that positive.* Even Shostakovich often managed without much in the way of a tune. I suspect that the issue is not, strictly speaking, tunes so much as a link to tonality? And, again, quite a lot of atonal music is these days firmly ensconced in the repertoire.
> 
> I hear Boulez as quite unique among composers (even the very contemporary) in that his music seems to me to "unwrap" differently to any other music. That unwrapping is the initial magical experience for me.


Bartok's music uses conventional modern techniques, very systematic, and wide ranging and clever in the use of the techniques. That is why he is an acknowledged 20th century master, regardless of how his dissonance affects listeners. Boulez's music is not consistent even in its serialism. But that is not to say he isn't inspiring in some way. He did seem to inspire lots of DIY composers in the contemporary style.

Another thing I find interesting is how Boulez constantly revises his works. It may be that lack of inevitability of his music that may cause some to resist considering him a great composer, although he was innovative.


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## larold

_If I hear Shostakovich one more time … "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." - Charles Rosen._

I can tell you I tire of saying it as much as you tire of hearing it. And I tire of hearing Rosen's idiotic quote.

The reason for Shostakovich is he is the living benchmark -- the last great composer equivalent to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart who composed masterpieces in every idiom: symphony, chamber, solo instrumental, opera, song, concerto, you name it.

He appeared on the cover of Time magazine during World War II and the greatest conductors in history fought over who would direct the premiere of his silly "Leningrad" symphony, one of his worst compositions.

He died 1975, a full lifetime ago. Since him there hasn't been a single composer worldwide that equaled his output, fame or notoriety.

This is now almost 45 years, *an unprecedented dry spell in the history of classical music*.

Go back 45 years before Shostakovich and you had Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Edward Elgar, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Berg, Rachmaninoff and others.

45 years before that you had Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, Debussy and others.

45 years before that you had Schumann, Mendelssohn and others.

45 years before that you had Beethoven.

45 years before that Mozart and Haydn.

Then J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel.

Then Purcell and the Renaissance.

Then Gregorian chant that started it all.

What have we had in the last 45 years? No one that comes close to any of these composers in terms of writing masterpieces the classical music-listening audience clamors for. We have had a slew of mediocrities, none of whom have come close to the output of the greatest composers in history.

When I did my survey of greatest composers a decade ago the only one alive today that even registered in the top 100 was John Adams at No. 74 and Phillip Glass at No. 94. Adams' peers were Bax, Berg, Resphigi and Holst, pretty good company. Glass came in behind composers like CPE Bach, Busoni and Honneger and just ahead of Schutz and Victor Herbert so he wasn't exactly in steadfast company.

I think it may be possible that, over time in the future, these two or other composers could become what Mahler became in the late 20th century -- a composer whose image was rehabilitated by famous people and whose music, previously unplayed and not well thought of, was then played everywhere.

However, I don't think anyone alive today will be elevated to the level of a Dvorak, Haydn or even Berlioz or Bartok. For whatever reason I think that session of classical music history is in the past and has been greatly aided by the music of Boulez and others that simply didn't give a fig about what audiences wanted.


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## Dimace

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ Thank you! I don't mind someone having different taste to mine. That is fine and inevitable. But when they want to say that my taste is the result of a delusion and that as a matter of fact the music I like is actually anti-music ... that is when they get my goat!
> 
> And the real trouble is that this has been going on for quite some time on this forum. Whenever a discussion starts between people who enjoy or are at least interested in the avant garde the thread gets taken over by people going a long way beyond just saying "I don't like it myself" - they insist repeatedly that the music being discussed is verifiably awful and imply that those discussing it a pseudo-intellectuals with no real feel for music. It can get so bad that even discussing mainstream modern composers - particularly serialists - becomes impossible and if someone attempts to discuss something a little bit more "out there" they are rideculed in the same way that we used to ridecule the village idiot! It spoils this forum and limits its value.


Understood! I'm in this great forum since October and I don't know what happens or happened. My way, the German way and the way of Gentlemen is: 1. Say your opinion clearly with full respect for the opinion of the fellow user! 2. Never argue with other fellow users. It is very possible that they have right and you not! 3. We are here to have good time and speak about music. Personal issues have no place. Thanks a lot for the comment and the chance you gave to me to write something more important than the music:* The human relations! *


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## Manxfeeder

larold said:


> _
> But not being dead and still being a factor in the arts are different things. In Toscanini, Heifetz and Bernstein's days people could tell you who were those people. Who do you think the average non-classical listener could identify today?
> 
> Find 10 casual classical music listeners around you and ask them to tell you what their five favorite pieces of Boulez are. Then ask them what they like about Part or Rautavarra or Adams or Glass -- the most well-known composers of our time.
> 
> Then I think you'll have a better idea of classical music's state._


_

If I asked 10 casual classical music listeners, they would only know Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Beethoven. Casual classical listening seems to have ended with music before 1900. Even in the glory days of Toscanini, the most contemporary thing he performed was Respighi, with the occasional Barber Adagio.

And as to the average American identifying Toscanini, Heiftez, and Bernstein, back then, you couldn't help but know who they were, because they were everywhere. I remember Life Magazine in the '40s had Eric Leinsdorf promoting commercial products. Back then, classical music was a sign of sophistication, so it seem like the average person would listen for its cultural status more than their own musical preference. Plus, we only had three channels and PBS, so it was inevitable that you would encounter something classical. As a kid, interested in pop music, I watched several shows featuring the Harry Partch Ensemble and saw Bernstein's Mass twice. And I was a regular viewer of the Boston Pops. That's just what we did.

Today, classical music is still something which appeals to a certain type of person, not the general public, just like it always has. But it isn't dead. How many movie scores and commercials have had minimialist soundtracks? People will even listen to serialism if it is backing a horror movie. And where would Star Wars and Lord of the Rings be without their classical-influenced orchestration?

I think the average person will listen to classical music if it intersects with their lives in some meaningful way, like through the media. Classical composers/musicians just need to find ways to make that intersection._


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## Enthusiast

Give it a rest, Larold. You really do not know what you are talking about and just show yourself to be foolish. It is fine for you not to like recent music because it isn't like the music of earlier times. Its fine to be sad about it. But that's it - we have heard you. You have my sympathy (and probably that of others here as well).


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## Manxfeeder

DeepR said:


> Since when is ambient music classical music? I'd say it isn't, but that doesn't necessarily make it "popular" music either.
> I'm just curious. I'm possibly the biggest fan of ambient music on this forum. So be careful now, if ambient music is in fact regarded as classical music, I'm going to spam this forum with music that many of us consider to be new age [email protected]


Sorry I was unclear. I was drawing the distinction between music the average person chooses to listen to and music which requires less casual attention, what we call art music.


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## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> Bartok's music uses conventional modern techniques, very systematic, and wide ranging and clever in the use of the techniques. That is why he is an acknowledged 20th century master, regardless of how his dissonance affects listeners. Boulez's music is not consistent even in its serialism. But that is not to say he isn't inspiring in some way. He did seem to inspire lots of DIY composers in the contemporary style.


Can you spell this out a bit more for me please? I think I can hear that both Bartok and Boulez are "wide ranging" in the techniques they use. But I'm not following how one is more or less systematic or less consistent than the other.


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## Dimace

larold said:


> _If I hear Shostakovich one more time … "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." - Charles Rosen._
> 
> I can tell you I tire of saying it as much as you tire of hearing it. And I tire of hearing Rosen's idiotic quote.
> 
> The reason for Shostakovich is he is the living benchmark -- the last great composer equivalent to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart who composed masterpieces in every idiom: symphony, chamber, solo instrumental, opera, song, concerto, you name it.
> 
> He appeared on the cover of Time magazine during World War II and the greatest conductors in history fought over who would direct the premiere of his silly "Leningrad" symphony, one of his worst compositions.
> 
> He died 1975, a full lifetime ago. Since him there hasn't been a single composer worldwide that equaled his output, fame or notoriety.
> 
> This is now almost 45 years, *an unprecedented dry spell in the history of classical music*.
> 
> Go back 45 years before Shostakovich and you had Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Edward Elgar, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Berg, Rachmaninoff and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, Debussy and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Schumann, Mendelssohn and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Beethoven.
> 
> 45 years before that Mozart and Haydn.
> 
> Then J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel.
> 
> Then Purcell and the Renaissance.
> 
> Then Gregorian chant that started it all.
> 
> What have we had in the last 45 years? No one that comes close to any of these composers in terms of writing masterpieces the classical music-listening audience clamors for. We have had a slew of mediocrities, none of whom have come close to the output of the greatest composers in history.
> 
> When I did my survey of greatest composers a decade ago the only one alive today that even registered in the top 100 was John Adams at No. 74 and Phillip Glass at No. 94. Adams' peers were Bax, Berg, Resphigi and Holst, pretty good company. Glass came in behind composers like CPE Bach, Busoni and Honneger and just ahead of Schutz and Victor Herbert so he wasn't exactly in steadfast company.
> 
> I think it may be possible that, over time in the future, these two or other composers could become what Mahler became in the late 20th century -- a composer whose image was rehabilitated by famous people and whose music, previously unplayed and not well thought of, was then played everywhere.
> 
> However, I don't think anyone alive today will be elevated to the level of a Dvorak, Haydn or even Berlioz or Bartok. For whatever reason I think that session of classical music history is in the past and has been greatly aided by the music of Boulez and others that simply didn't give a fig about what audiences wanted.


I agree with you! I'm exactly like you: A deeply conservative music scholar and teacher. After Richard Strauss no one is good enough for me. No one! I have rejected also many other NO MODERN composers. (this is already known here) This is MY THESIS though. Nobody and nothing can assure me that I'm right. If you want my opinion, I have lost a lot of quality music with my manias for Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven and Co... I find GREAT that here are users who are listening different music than me. They are giving me a reason to explore new musical paths. For the moment, nothing in the world can make to like Pierre's music. Nothing. But also nothing can make me to be negative with fellow users like his music. Thanks a lot for your post!


----------



## Dimace

Lisztian said:


> "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." - Charles Rosen.


...and the death of literature. And of poetry. And of painting. And, and... FFF it, my good friend. There is no hope for the spirit nowadays.


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## Dimace

Manxfeeder said:


> If I asked 10 casual classical music listeners, they would only know Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Beethoven. Casual classical listening seems to have ended with music before 1900. Even in the glory days of Toscanini, the most contemporary thing he performed was Respighi, with the occasional Barber Adagio.
> 
> And as to the average American identifying Toscanini, Heiftez, and Bernstein, back then, you couldn't help but know who they were, because they were everywhere. * I remember Life Magazine in the '40s had Eric Leinsdorf promoting commercial products. * Back then, classical music was a sign of sophistication, so it seem like the average person would listen for its cultural status more than their own musical preference. Plus, we only had three channels and PBS, so it was inevitable that you would encounter something classical. As a kid, interested in pop music, I watched several shows featuring the Harry Partch Ensemble and saw Bernstein's Mass twice. And I was a regular viewer of the Boston Pops. That's just what we did.
> 
> Today, classical music is still something which appeals to a certain type of person, not the general public, just like it always has. But it isn't dead. How many movie scores and commercials have had minimialist soundtracks? People will even listen to serialism if it is backing a horror movie. And where would Star Wars and Lord of the Rings be without their classical-influenced orchestration?
> 
> I think the average person will listen to classical music if it intersects with their lives in some meaningful way, like through the media. Classical composers/musicians just need to find ways to make that intersection.


Das ist es mein Herr! JA! JA! JA!


----------



## Lisztian

larold said:


> _If I hear Shostakovich one more time … "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." - Charles Rosen._
> 
> I can tell you I tire of saying it as much as you tire of hearing it. And I tire of hearing Rosen's idiotic quote.
> 
> The reason for Shostakovich is he is the living benchmark -- the last great composer equivalent to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart who composed masterpieces in every idiom: symphony, chamber, solo instrumental, opera, song, concerto, you name it.
> 
> He appeared on the cover of Time magazine during World War II and the greatest conductors in history fought over who would direct the premiere of his silly "Leningrad" symphony, one of his worst compositions.
> 
> He died 1975, a full lifetime ago. Since him there hasn't been a single composer worldwide that equaled his output, fame or notoriety.
> 
> This is now almost 45 years, *an unprecedented dry spell in the history of classical music*.
> 
> Go back 45 years before Shostakovich and you had Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Edward Elgar, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Berg, Rachmaninoff and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, Debussy and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Schumann, Mendelssohn and others.
> 
> 45 years before that you had Beethoven.
> 
> 45 years before that Mozart and Haydn.
> 
> Then J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel.
> 
> Then Purcell and the Renaissance.
> 
> Then Gregorian chant that started it all.
> 
> What have we had in the last 45 years? No one that comes close to any of these composers in terms of writing masterpieces the classical music-listening audience clamors for. We have had a slew of mediocrities, none of whom have come close to the output of the greatest composers in history.
> 
> When I did my survey of greatest composers a decade ago the only one alive today that even registered in the top 100 was John Adams at No. 74 and Phillip Glass at No. 94. Adams' peers were Bax, Berg, Resphigi and Holst, pretty good company. Glass came in behind composers like CPE Bach, Busoni and Honneger and just ahead of Schutz and Victor Herbert so he wasn't exactly in steadfast company.
> 
> I think it may be possible that, over time in the future, these two or other composers could become what Mahler became in the late 20th century -- a composer whose image was rehabilitated by famous people and whose music, previously unplayed and not well thought of, was then played everywhere.
> 
> However, I don't think anyone alive today will be elevated to the level of a Dvorak, Haydn or even Berlioz or Bartok. For whatever reason I think that session of classical music history is in the past and has been greatly aided by the music of Boulez and others that simply didn't give a fig about what audiences wanted.


I think the 'dry spell' as far as the popularity of composers is largely because of the difference in the ways people hear music. With everything accessible at the click of the button these days what people listen to is dependent on the consumer and the influences of marketing. For people into classical music they have over 1000 years of music at their fingertips, and as far as contemporary music goes, contemporary classical music has to compete with hundreds of other genres, much of it written for instant appeal and money. I think it makes perfect sense that the complex music of contemporary composers -who for many people will take getting used to- would be a niche interest: especially if people are frequently being told the effort required isn't worth it (or if people choose it isn't worth it because they have so much other music to explore). In the past, what you heard was predicated on what was happening around you to a far greater extent, so a composer like Shostakovich had more of a ready-made market: especially as his music is quite accessible.

While I think the audience for contemporary composers is larger than you think, I agree it's still a niche...but it's a very enthusiastic niche indeed, and there is a lot of 'clamoring' for new works.


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## Manxfeeder

Dimace said:


> ...and the death of literature. And of poetry. And of painting. And, and... FFF it, my good friend. There is no hope for the spirit nowadays.


Try going into a bookstore and finding Derek Walcott's poetry on the shelves. But you will find several books on rock music. Yep, on the surface, it looks like a cultural wasteland.


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## starthrower

Manxfeeder said:


> Try going into a bookstore and finding Derek Walcott's poetry on the shelves. But you will find several books on rock music. Yep, on the surface, it looks like a cultural wasteland.


Stores like Barnes & Noble get me annoyed, but I guess they have to survive. The one near my house now sells more toys than books. It's a toy store and coffee shop. But I don't live in a very hip, progressive town so I can't expect much.


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## Guest

Manxfeeder said:


> If I asked 10 casual classical music listeners, they would only know Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Beethoven. Casual classical listening seems to have ended with music before 1900. Even in the glory days of Toscanini, the most contemporary thing he performed was Respighi, with the occasional Barber Adagio.
> 
> And as to the average American identifying Toscanini, Heiftez, and Bernstein, back then, you couldn't help but know who they were, because they were everywhere. I remember Life Magazine in the '40s had Eric Leinsdorf promoting commercial products. Back then, classical music was a sign of sophistication, so it seem like the average person would listen for its cultural status more than their own musical preference. Plus, we only had three channels and PBS, so it was inevitable that you would encounter something classical. As a kid, interested in pop music, I watched several shows featuring the Harry Partch Ensemble and saw Bernstein's Mass twice. And I was a regular viewer of the Boston Pops. That's just what we did.
> 
> Today, classical music is still something which appeals to a certain type of person, not the general public, just like it always has. But it isn't dead. How many movie scores and commercials have had minimialist soundtracks? People will even listen to serialism if it is backing a horror movie. And where would Star Wars and Lord of the Rings be without their classical-influenced orchestration?
> 
> I think the average person will listen to classical music if it intersects with their lives in some meaningful way, like through the media. Classical composers/musicians just need to find ways to make that intersection.


As an aside, I think the inundation of radio stations, TV channels, online streaming etc. statistically should mean that there isn't exactly one type of music or media that has an absolute majority of consumers. At least, at some stage when (or if) there is an even bigger transition to streaming and the freedom to choose what we consume, statistically it isn't really possible for a particular band, composer or style of music to have a fan base big enough to constitute any kind of majority of the population.


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## Enthusiast

It seems to me that more people these days rather than fewer are familiar with a fair bit of contemporary music. They can access it through streaming services, downloads and CDs/DVDs as well as in the concert hall. An amazing amount of contemporary music is available - including multiple accounts of many Boulez works (even at a time when the composer who was also one of the greatest conductors of his day so it must have been daunting to record one of his works) - and this would be be the case if it didn't pay the companies that make it available. That the _names _of composers don't make it into popular awareness these days doesn't mean very much on its own. So, I see a world where new music can be widely appreciated soon after it was premiered, where there are very gifted players queuing up to play it (and do so very well - not something that composers of the past could expect) and where there is a substantial fan base. Of course, CM is no longer a good way of exerting your social class as it used to be.

I t is sad for some CM fans that they quite simply cannot get into the best of the new - that it passes them by so that they are left uninvolved in developments - and perhaps (I'm not sure of this) this is more frequently the case than it used to be.


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## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> *I wonder if something like your doubting of your own IQ is behind the reason why so many need to jump into any thread about Boulez - or any other "recent" avant garde - to say nothing but to rubbish his music? Boulez haters: does the enjoyment some of us find in this marvelous music somehow threaten your self esteem?.*





Enthusiast said:


> What an awful and irritating post! To reply I must first bury the irritation I feel when someone uses the word "fact" to express an opinion, an irritation that grows when the opinion is so poorly founded and so inadequately justified! And just as I manage to overcome that irritation I reach you final sentence (the one I have highlighted) *which is such a sadly blimpish comment, so out of touch with the musical world and yet so arrogant ... I just give up: I am irritated!*
> 
> Are you sure that CM has declined in popularity in the last "50-100 years"? This is your first premise and is probably wrong or, at least, inadequate. Then you reject a number of factors that are certainly relevant to the popularity of CM because, to you, it is obviously the fault of those who are actually keeping the tradition alive with new and fresh music - composers who inspire many of us (but you ignore that fact).
> 
> You see CM as dying with the openly populist Shostakovich - which is frankly laughable. *It is a really strange thing when someone expresses such an ignorant opinion with all the appearance of pride!* Whatever his merits, Shostakovich was hardly the most "important" composer of his lifetime let alone overall. He managed to put a personal, interesting, occasionally powerful and sometimes moving stamp on the mostly old ideas that he was forced to recycle. *Your taste, though, is that of a Stalin: hardly a reliable role model.* But many of us love music that builds on and continues the tradition of the greats who you mention.
> 
> That you just blithely ignore the obvious fact that many of us on this forum (and in this thread) love Boulez' music and many more are sufficiently interested and open eared to be trying to get to grips with it -*that you ignore us is just plain arrogant. Couldn't it be that you are wrong and out of touch? And could it be that inwardly you know it, and that is why you feel driven to post such uncalled for drivel?*


All that uncalled-for personal invective. And you called me a thug.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> A "great, great" composer who is "more successful than Debussy" might reasonably be expected to take his place among the handful of great, great composers (as opposed to the merely great ones) who are acknowledged, respected, loved, purchased and listened to by a majority of classical music devotees.
> 
> Bets?


That's probably correct. 99% of Humanity is walking around in a state of unconsciousness, pursuing agendas and creating war, killing each other, starving, etc.

Anybody like Boulez who is in an awakened state of being (his creative aspect, anyway) will always be an "outsider" and not appreciated, even scorned.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Well yes, of course. The elite are always in a minority, by definition. The rest of us can only throw ourselves on the ground and pour dirt on our heads. Rending garments is not strictly required, fortunate since that can be a bit expensive.


Just do as you're told, and other people will take care of pouring dirt.


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## millionrainbows

Red Terror said:


> It's a well established fact that not many care for avant-garde music. Elitism is a ridiculous expression of pride. Wether rich or poor, we all eat, defecate, and die. Men are just men-dirt.


Not many people are conscious enough to even sit through a performance of 4'33", either. Yes, we all are men, and subject to all those things...and more.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Can you define what you mean by "modern composers"?


I think he means music that is not diatonic like Mozart and Beethoven are.


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## millionrainbows

Allerius said:


> I think that this is a great post for me as for the moment I fail miserably to understand the music of Boulez. Acquired taste is needed to enjoy it, I suppose. I hope that one day I have this epiphany that you had so that I can be able to rediscover and actually like his compositions (and those of some other modern/contemporary classical composers aswell).


No, it's more like an athlete's routine. You have to listen to Boulez frequently, and this gradually builds your perception up to the epiphanal region.


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## millionrainbows

"The Public" smells like a Whataburger with onions.


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## millionrainbows

larold said:


> _I do find a lot of Boulez (and his contemporaries) eerily beautiful, sometime frightening, thought-provoking. But there is nothing I would tap my toe to or sing in the shower. It has its fans, but the mainstream classical audiences will never embrace it._
> 
> In my opinion composers like Boulez are the reason for the steep worldwide decline in interest in classical music. People have tried for decades to blame these declines on all sorts of things -- rock music, television and visual arts, dumbing down of people, etc.


I think the decline is due to football and beer.


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## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> I would suspect that many people do not believe you when you say that you enjoy this music. They probably think that you are posers who claim to enjoy this noise to look intellectual and interesting :lol:


I doubt that, and I think Boulez listeners are sincere. 
I think dislike of Boulez manifests an inability to listen and be in the moment, and accept the music for what it is. These people oscillate between periods of consciousness and deep unconsciousness, but are never in the "now" moment of reality. They are in a thought construct they have created for themselves. Anything that threatens their thought/time narrative startles them, and repulses them.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> I think the decline is due to football and beer.


Specifically Bud Light. Dilly, dilly. Cancel that mead!


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## millionrainbows

"The death of classical music is not over yet, dirtbag." - Charles Bronson.


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## larold

_Give it a rest, Larold. You really do not know what you are talking about and just show yourself to be foolish. It is fine for you not to like recent music because it isn't like the music of earlier times._

I'll accept that to mean you don't agree and can't contest the point I made about the "45 year rule." I've never been called a fool previously and can't say I like it. However, you don't know what you're talking about saying I don't like "recent music."

I am a musician and I practice and perform every week of the year. I perform a very great deal of "recent" music in concert and solo. Most of this music is either strophic or written in sonata format ("olden") even though it was written today.

There is a lot of it I like and much that pleases me. But little I have heard, played or seen performed in concert can compare to the best of a previous age nor would I substitute it in any way for better stuff available from the past.

I would also add that a lot of the music people around here rave about has never appeared on any concert program in the geographic area where I live and there are many regional and local orchestras therein.

What I've learned over time is great music is played over and over to exhaustion and music some think great that never appears in concert, well, it isn't actually great but some people like it.

I didn't come to my conclusion about classical music from a perspective of ignorance or distance. I am immersed in it and listen to everything anyone tells me is worthwhile. When I compare most of it to what I know I simply can't come to a conclusion that much of it is very worthwhile. And there is simply no question there isn't a composer alive or recently deceased that compares to Shostakovich.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> I doubt that, and I think Boulez listeners are sincere.
> I think dislike of Boulez manifests an inability to listen and be in the moment, and accept the music for what it is. These people oscillate between periods of consciousness and deep unconsciousness, but are never in the "now" moment of reality. They are in a thought construct they have created for themselves. Anything that threatens their thought/time narrative startles them, and repulses them.


You mean that people who may have been listening to CM for decades, may have made many good decisions in their life to achieve success, may have raised reasonably good families with all the introspection, 'now' moments of reality and problem-solving that entails suddenly dumb down when it comes to deciding they don't like Boulez?


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## Larkenfield

Boulez knew how to capture a carefree indifference... to be free of everyday concerns and shopping lists.  To get something out of his music one needs to enjoy the razor-sharp attention, the precision (still French in subtle ways), the unpredictability, the colors, and the sense of freedom that is required to play it. What he did was a fresh start after a terrible war to get things moving again, and he truly wanted to sweep everything away that had come before. I don't blame him. Look how useless history was to prevent anything. He did it with enthusiasm. And he was stimulating and thought-provoking. It was a new beginning, a challenge to a new generation, and I think he deserves credit for that regardless of how one receives his work.


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## mmsbls

Let's discontinue comments about other members directly or indirectly and focus back on the OP. I understand that some have rather negative views about modern music (I used to have similar views), but this thread was started to discuss Boulez's "great music." Perhaps everyone could accept the thread's intent and restrict posts to that end.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> I think dislike of Boulez manifests an inability to listen and be in the moment, and accept the music for what it is. These people oscillate between periods of consciousness and deep unconsciousness, but are never in the "now" moment of reality...


Every time I read something like this, I expect the next sentence to begin, "I, on the other hand..." 

(sorry mmsbls, I was late reading your post!)


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## Bluecrab

Never mind. 15 characters... what a bizarre rule.


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## Mandryka

larold said:


> _Give it a rest, Larold. You really do not know what you are talking about and just show yourself to be foolish. It is fine for you not to like recent music because it isn't like the music of earlier times._
> 
> I'll accept that to mean you don't agree and can't contest the point I made about the "45 year rule." I've never been called a fool previously and can't say I like it. However, you don't know what you're talking about saying I don't like "recent music."
> 
> I am a musician and I practice and perform every week of the year. I perform a very great deal of "recent" music in concert and solo. Most of this music is either strophic or written in sonata format ("olden") even though it was written today.
> 
> There is a lot of it I like and much that pleases me. But little I have heard, played or seen performed in concert can compare to the best of a previous age nor would I substitute it in any way for better stuff available from the past.
> 
> I would also add that a lot of the music people around here rave about has never appeared on any concert program in the geographic area where I live and there are many regional and local orchestras therein.
> 
> What I've learned over time is great music is played over and over to exhaustion and music some think great that never appears in concert, well, it isn't actually great but some people like it.
> 
> I didn't come to my conclusion about classical music from a perspective of ignorance or distance. I am immersed in it and listen to everything anyone tells me is worthwhile. When I compare most of it to what I know I simply can't come to a conclusion that much of it is very worthwhile. And there is simply no question there isn't a composer alive or recently deceased that compares to Shostakovich.


I'm sure that someone with your experience and good judgement can hear the greatness of this, the shimmering timbres, the solemnity, the Dionysian liberty. No one, not even our Ken, could find this "inaccessible", though I wouldn't be surprised if some people here don't care to admit in public their appreciation of the avant garde.

It's one of the pieces I'd like to hear performed -- if you ever do it, let me know and if I can I'll come and see you.

It's another piece which I think surpasses anything I know by Debussy, though I'm sure he stood on Debussy's shoulders, as Bach stood on . . . Pachelbel's.






I must say that I've not yet come to appreciate his solo piano music.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> "The Public" smells like a Whataburger with onions.


As a member of the public, currently at a performance of Otello in Munich, I can assure you that I don't smell like that...rather, I smell like someone who has a cold and forgot to shower today and I'm rather sweaty. I'm keeping my distance from others.


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## Dimace

millionrainbows said:


> *I doubt that, and I think Boulez listeners are sincere.
> *I think dislike of Boulez manifests an inability to listen and be in the moment, and accept the music for what it is. These people oscillate between periods of consciousness and deep unconsciousness, but are never in the "now" moment of reality. They are in a thought construct they have created for themselves. Anything that threatens their thought/time narrative startles them, and repulses them.


I would like to comment the bolds only. Because, as a (also) psychologist I found it an exaggeration.

You mean, if I understood you correctly, that despite they don't like this music, they are pretending they do. If they are doing this intentionally (to provoke the others, or I don't understand with what other purpose) is something I can accept. If they are doing this unintentionally means that they don't know what they are doing and this is something I can NOT accept because saws character disorder.

What I believe, is that this music is like the insects are eating the Asiaten. For then is a very good and nutritious food (and indeed it is) For us is something makes us vomit.

We have to face this music as another culture. With open mind. With respect NOT FOR THE MUSIC (logically you can't respect something you ferociously rejects) but for THE LISTENERS. For me is also very useful, because I can acquire new knowledge, new musical experiences etc. This DIVERSITY is PRECIOUS! After all brings us all together! I enjoy it, I accept it, the same way the modern listeners are accepting my old mode music. Thanks a lot, my friend, for this post.


----------



## Enthusiast

larold said:


> _Give it a rest, Larold. You really do not know what you are talking about and just show yourself to be foolish. It is fine for you not to like recent music because it isn't like the music of earlier times._
> 
> I'll accept that to mean you don't agree and can't contest the point I made about the "45 year rule." I've never been called a fool previously and can't say I like it. However, you don't know what you're talking about saying I don't like "recent music."
> 
> I am a musician and I practice and perform every week of the year. I perform a very great deal of "recent" music in concert and solo. Most of this music is either strophic or written in sonata format ("olden") even though it was written today.
> 
> There is a lot of it I like and much that pleases me. But little I have heard, played or seen performed in concert can compare to the best of a previous age nor would I substitute it in any way for better stuff available from the past.
> 
> I would also add that a lot of the music people around here rave about has never appeared on any concert program in the geographic area where I live and there are many regional and local orchestras therein.
> 
> What I've learned over time is great music is played over and over to exhaustion and music some think great that never appears in concert, well, it isn't actually great but some people like it.
> 
> I didn't come to my conclusion about classical music from a perspective of ignorance or distance. I am immersed in it and listen to everything anyone tells me is worthwhile. When I compare most of it to what I know I simply can't come to a conclusion that much of it is very worthwhile. And there is simply no question there isn't a composer alive or recently deceased that compares to Shostakovich.


I don't have a problem with your "45 year rule" but I just don't agree with your low opinion of more recent composers. I think I made that pretty clear!

I hope I never said that you know nothing about music (did I?) but now I know your are a musician I regret a little more that you haven't managed to keep your ears open to the new.

i have defended your right to your opinion and taste but what I don't agree with is your lack of respect for others here - many of whom are also living deeply in the CM world in one way or another - and insisting that your analysis, based partly on your taste and partly on the views of the public (all the data going into your argument are your own subjective views or measurements of popularity), is the correct and true one. Even then I wouldn't worry too much - I know lots of people who think and reason in the way that you do - if it weren't for the fact that we who like some of the avant garde can't have a conversation about that music on this forum without being drowned out by the same rather valueless arguments that all start with the premise that all those other people in the thread are wrong. Why not remind us that you don't care for Boulez and move on to a thread about music you can contribute usefully about?


----------



## Mandryka

shirime said:


> As a member of the public, currently at a performance of Otello in Munich, I can assure you that I don't smell like that...rather, I smell like someone who has a cold and forgot to shower today and I'm rather sweaty. I'm keeping my distance from others.


This makes me think of a performance of Beckett's Fin de Partie I saw in Paris where the public really did smell of gigot d'agneau, it was rather nice.


----------



## Dimace

Enthusiast said:


> I don't have a problem with your "45 year rule" but I just don't agree with your low opinion of more recent composers. I think I made that pretty clear!
> 
> I hope I never said that you know nothing about music (did I?) but now I know your are a musician* I regret a little more that you haven't managed to keep your ears open to the new.
> *
> i have defended your right to your opinion and taste but what I don't agree with is your lack of respect for others here - many of whom are also living deeply in the CM world in one way or another - and insisting that your analysis, based partly on your taste and partly on the views of the public (all the data going into your argument are your own subjective views or measurements of popularity), is the correct and true one. Even then I wouldn't worry too much - I know lots of people who think and reason in the way that you do - if it weren't for the fact that we who like some of the avant garde can't have a conversation about that music on this forum without being drowned out by the same rather valueless arguments that all start with the premise that all those other people in the thread are wrong. Why not remind us that you don't care for Boulez and move on to a thread about music you can contribute usefully about?


-
Nice post! You are 100% wright! We have our ears close to this music. Can we teach our students such a music? You know the answer. Can we speak about this music? NO! Personally I have no idea what this music is. (for me isn't a music, to say the truth) But that's all. If I ever come to your home, (let us say you ignore my musical taste) I will seat with you and without any problem I will listen this music till to the end. Music is to bring people together, not to separate them.

% I don't know why I like this conversation. That because we try, by saying the truth, to find a way to be politely and respectfully together. Very nice!


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## larold

_Nice post! You are 100% wright!... That because we try, by saying the truth..._

I would say I'm glad this person supports your point of view and not mine.


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## Larkenfield

...............


----------



## Janspe

I started feeling an urgent need to listen to _Sur incises_ again, it's a tremendously exciting score. There's a great performance on YouTube by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, led by Matthias Pintscher... Recommended!


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## Guest

For people who aren't (yet) fans of early piano works (especially the sonatas) but enjoy other Boulez; I think the original version of Incises is a good place to start. It's short, snappy, virtuosic and for me it gives me the feeling of trying to catch something in the wind...it's pretty fun imo!


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## Mandryka

Janspe said:


> I started feeling an urgent need to listen to _Sur incises_ again, it's a tremendously exciting score. There's a great performance on YouTube by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, led by Matthias Pintscher... Recommended!


There is a concept which I think is really central to Boulez: delirium organised by rhythm, pulse.


----------



## Xisten267

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's more like an athlete's routine. You have to listen to Boulez frequently, and this gradually builds your perception up to the epiphanal region.


I assume that your epiphanal region is quite developed for you to give me such a tip. Thanks!


----------



## Lisztian

DaveM said:


> All that uncalled-for personal invective. And you called me a thug.


I mean, the guy did literally say that all of us expressing enthusiasm for Boulez were either know-nothings or suckers (read his first post again, the one you liked).


----------



## Lisztian

larold said:


> _Give it a rest, Larold. You really do not know what you are talking about and just show yourself to be foolish. It is fine for you not to like recent music because it isn't like the music of earlier times._
> 
> I'll accept that to mean you don't agree and can't contest the point I made about the "45 year rule." I've never been called a fool previously and can't say I like it. However, you don't know what you're talking about saying I don't like "recent music."
> 
> I am a musician and I practice and perform every week of the year. I perform a very great deal of "recent" music in concert and solo. Most of this music is either strophic or written in sonata format ("olden") even though it was written today.
> 
> There is a lot of it I like and much that pleases me. But little I have heard, played or seen performed in concert can compare to the best of a previous age nor would I substitute it in any way for better stuff available from the past.
> 
> I would also add that a lot of the music people around here rave about has never appeared on any concert program in the geographic area where I live and there are many regional and local orchestras therein.
> 
> What I've learned over time is great music is played over and over to exhaustion and music some think great that never appears in concert, well, it isn't actually great but some people like it.
> 
> I didn't come to my conclusion about classical music from a perspective of ignorance or distance. I am immersed in it and listen to everything anyone tells me is worthwhile. When I compare most of it to what I know I simply can't come to a conclusion that much of it is very worthwhile. And there is simply no question there isn't a composer alive or recently deceased that compares to Shostakovich.


What makes you so sure that your perspective is the right one? I mean, the people in this thread who are expressing great enthusiasm for this music are also familiar with the rest of the repertoire, and they seem to think Boulez is just as good. Who cares that he's less popular than, say, Schubert: so is a great composer like Machaut, but we don't hear that the people who do like him are being fooled...


----------



## Lisztian

shirime said:


> For people who aren't (yet) fans of early piano works (especially the sonatas) but enjoy other Boulez; I think the original version of Incises is a good place to start. It's short, snappy, virtuosic and for me it gives me the feeling of trying to catch something in the wind...it's pretty fun imo!


I also found his early Sonatine for flute and piano quite approachable and effective.


----------



## DaveM

Lisztian said:


> I mean, the guy did literally say that all of us expressing enthusiasm for Boulez were either know-nothings or suckers (read his first post again, the one you liked).


No, read it again. The statement was '_And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.'_

While I wouldn't have phrased it that way myself, the statement was a general rant, not directed at anyone here specifically. Someone could say, "Anyone who likes Mozart is a no-nothing idiot." Am I going to take that personally? Besides, do you consider yourself as the musical intelligentsia? On the other hand, Enthusiast's post was a series of personal attacks at an individual.

I don't know why people here take general statements in threads like this so personally and respond as if someone just kicked their dog. I also don't understand why a poster sets themself up as a thread regulator telling others to get out. They can apply for the moderator job if they want that job description.


----------



## Lisztian

DaveM said:


> No, read it again. The statement was '_And it isn't just know-nothings that are fooled by this -- even the musical intelligentsia has been suckered into thinking mediocrity (or worse) is something worth celebrating.'_
> 
> While I wouldn't have phrased it that way myself, the statement was a general rant, not directed at anyone here specifically. Besides, do you consider yourself as the musical intelligentsia? .


But seeing as many in this thread have been celebrating the work of Boulez, surely you can see how it's a problematic statement...

As for me, no, I am definitely not part of the 'musical intelligentsia.' Of the two I'd be a know-nothing


----------



## Lisztian

ANYWAY I shouldn't have responded. Let's try to get this thread back to discussing Boulez 

I have to say, for those who aren't (yet?) fans, for me I really struggled at first with Boulez because I got stuck on his early works like LMSM and the second piano sonata: I think a lot of people do this because they are probably his most renowned works. I personally found them very difficult and only mildly appealing (YMMV). I had a go at his later works though and find them to be excellent and, yes, beautiful works. Perhaps others might have more success by following this route.

(This is not to say that those earlier works are bad: lots of people love them).

Some works that changed my mind were:

Figures, Doubles, Prismes
Cummings ist der dichter
Derive I 
Le Visage Nupital

I also really like Pli Selon Pli and Derive II but those ones were a bit more challenging for me at first.


----------



## DaveM

Lisztian said:


> But seeing as many in this thread have been celebrating the work of Boulez, surely you can see how it's a problematic statement...


I get that, which is why I either avoid posting in threads like this or, if I do, try not to say anything negative about the composer. Still, IMO, if someone makes general negative statements that someone doesn't like, they can either ignore them or respond to them generally instead of questioning the poster's I.Q. or self-esteem.


----------



## KenOC

I have listened to several of the musical examples put forth in this thread. My opinion remains unchanged:

I do not like thee, Mr Boulez
The reason why I cannot tellez
But this I know and know full wellez
I do not like thee, Mr Boulez.

Apologies to Tom Brown.


----------



## Lisztian

KenOC said:


> I have listened to several of the musical examples put forth in this thread. My opinion remains unchanged:
> 
> I do not like thee, Mr Boulez
> The reason why I cannot tellez
> But this I know and know full wellez
> I do not like thee, Mr Boulez.
> 
> Apologies to Tom Brown.


Good on you for trying!


----------



## KenOC

There once was a fellow from Fez
Who listened all day to Boulez
He developed a cough
And his ears fell right off
He was saved by his big tube of Pez!


----------



## clavichorder

I don't see how Boulez had much to offer past what Webern did. Just sounds like he orchestrated more colorfully. It can be nice to listen to, but I like Webern far more.


----------



## Mandryka

clavichorder said:


> I don't see how Boulez had much to offer past what Webern did. Just sounds like he orchestrated more colorfully.


Rhythm ordering delirium. Theatricality. Actually in truth I don't know Webern's music very well, I've not really thought about it!


----------



## Jacck

shirime said:


> For people who aren't (yet) fans of early piano works (especially the sonatas) but enjoy other Boulez; I think the original version of Incises is a good place to start. It's short, snappy, virtuosic and for me it gives me the feeling of trying to catch something in the wind...it's pretty fun imo!


I am still not convinced that this is real art. It sounds like something that I - who know nothing about piano or music - could have composed by randomly bashing the keys.

If I compare the 4 composers in this recording




Boulez seems to have the least talent, because as I said, his music sounds like something, that I could have composed by randomly pressing the piano keys. The Stravinsky and Prokofiev are on a completely different qualitative level.

And I do not get this feeling of "random key bashing" with Schoenberg. I don't think I could have composed Schoenberg's piano music




so at least to my ears, there seems to be something real in Schoenberg, but with Boulez I have the feeling that the emperor wears no clothes.


----------



## Mandryka

Lisztian said:


> I also really like Pli Selon Pli . . . but those ones were a bit more challenging for me at first.


I think Mallarmé just is a very difficult poet, and Boulez was serious about making a setting which fitted with Mallarme's ideas about poetry. As it happens Pli selon Pli is the work I've got the most out of, in the sense of the one I've spent most time considering, part of it is that I'm interested in the interaction between Boulez and Stockhausen.


----------



## Mandryka

shirime said:


> For people who aren't (yet) fans of early piano works (especially the sonatas) but enjoy other Boulez; I think the original version of Incises is a good place to start. It's short, snappy, virtuosic and for me it gives me the feeling of trying to catch something in the wind...it's pretty fun imo!


Notations is the piano piece, or rather pieces, I like the most. Notations seems to to be full of really moody and expressive gestures, the expressive range is fabulous, from violent to reflective to aetherial. Sets of twelve studies or preludes for piano became a sort of cliché of twentieth century music, Wolff, Debussy, Bolcom, and I think the Boulez Notations is the summit of it all.


----------



## Enthusiast

I take music as I find it and as it grows into me and am no musical scholar. But I would like to know a lot more about the development of Boulez's works. I believe that many works that I know and love had earlier incarnations that I have not heard and that were quite different? This morning partly inspired by this thread (as I had listened to all the same pieces relatively recently I might not have listened again were it not for this thread) I listened to Sur Incises, Pli Selon Pli and Le Marteau Sans Maître. 

I tend to be aware when listening to Boulez of a surface and a very different "body". Unraveling the two is one of the things I enjoy at the moment but I guess I will grow out of that as I get to know the pieces better. But I do wonder how these two "levels of reality" emerged during earlier incarnations of the works. Can anyone help?


----------



## Guest

Boulez was quite a perfectionist with his music in some cases and withdrew lots of previous versions and old revisions. He would often expand on works, flesh out and really aim to perfect certain ideas and explore a variety of more musical possibilities in those ideas that he may have been fairly limited with in earlier versions. Even though this example is from a fairly short period of time, it's interesting to notice the development of the original 1994 version of Incises (less than 3 minutes in duration) and then seeing how that was expanded into the 'official' Incises for solo piano (about 11 minutes long) followed by Sur Incises (3 each of pianos, harps and percussionists playing for nearly 40 minutes). The material is pretty much the same across all three works/versions, but we have a good awareness of where and how he would expand on older material. In the Notations, I always find it interesting to hear how different-but _thematically related_-each orchestral Notation is in comparison to the original piano Notation. I also think it's quite possible to compare Anthèmes with Anthèmes II in the same way.

Another way Boulez used the same material across different works is through his re-use of note-rows. The opening of Messagesquisse melodically exposes the SACHER hexachord (E flat, A, C, B natural, E, D), which featured as he main six-note row in Dérive I and Répons. I believe Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna, ...explosante-fixe..., Dérive II all share a sevent-note row. Curiously, I came to enjoy the pieces using the SACHER hexachord more quickly than I did the other pieces. I think Boulez has a way of having a very defined harmonic palette depending on the row used in his serial works where the row isn't audible on the surface (except at the start of Messagesquisse) but hides in the background, giving each piece a kind of harmonic cohesiveness.


----------



## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> I am still not convinced that this is real art. It sounds like something that I - who know nothing about piano or music - could have composed by randomly bashing the keys.
> 
> If I compare the 4 composers in this recording
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Boulez seems to have the least talent, because as I said, his music sounds like something, that I could have composed by randomly pressing the piano keys. The Stravinsky and Prokofiev are on a completely different qualitative level.
> 
> And I do not get this feeling of "random key bashing" with Schoenberg. I don't think I could have composed Schoenberg's piano music
> 
> 
> 
> 
> so at least to my ears, there seems to be something real in Schoenberg, but with Boulez I have the feeling that the emperor wears no clothes.


I am not that good at always knowing what I think of a new piece by most avant garde composers on first listening. For some composers it can take me two or three hearings to really get to where I would be with a more familiar composer of first hearing. Your perceptions are interesting. I was watching the recent BBC documentary about the composer George Benjamin and was struck by an anecdote of the young Benjamin (16?) going to Paris to be interviewed by Messiaen as a possible student of his. Messiaen asks him to play a piece of his and he plays something but because he is nervous he plays it faster than he had intended it to go. After a few bars Messiaen praised the work for its clarity and melodic sense (I think I am remembering rightly) but tells him he played it much too fast and he should start again at _this_ speed! Benjamin played the piece for us. I certainly could not have learned anything from a few bars of it. But I am not a musician and am a novice as a listener.


----------



## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> I am not that good at always knowing what I think of a new piece by most avant garde composers on first listening. For some composers it can take me two or three hearings to really get to where I would be with a more familiar composer of first hearing. Your perceptions are interesting. I was watching the recent BBC documentary about the composer George Benjamin and was struck by an anecdote of the young Benjamin (16?) going to Paris to be interviewed by Messiaen as a possible student of his. Messiaen asks him to play a piece of his and he plays something but because he is nervous he plays it faster than he had intended it to go. After a few bars Messiaen praised the work for its clarity and melodic sense (I think I am remembering rightly) but tells him he played it much too fast and he should start again at _this_ speed! Benjamin played the piece for us. I certainly could not have learned anything from a few bars of it. But I am not a musician and am a novice as a listener.


I'm really curious to see this documentary about Benjamin. It seems like he's one of the leading voices of the UK at the moment, perhaps overtaking Adès, I'm not sure. Anyhow, it sounds very insightful!


----------



## Dimace

The people are everywhere the same: They can't deny the big ones and attack the small... (the writer is included to this phenomenon) In Germany are attacking the Strauß Bros (the guys with the Waltzes) here the Orff (I did it first) and the Boulez, etc. The same way I like Strauß music, (despite its easiness) the same I like (and respect) the commitment of our fellow users to defend their beloved composers and to continue doing what they like. (maybe, to remember this conversation, I will buy something with Pierre. For my collection.)


----------



## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> You mean that people who may have been listening to CM for decades, may have made many good decisions in their life to achieve success, may have raised reasonably good families with all the introspection (and) 'now' moments of reality and problem-solving that entails suddenly dumb down when it comes to deciding they don't like Boulez?


No, that's not what I mean. All those things are situational, and can be dealt with by the mind, because those are the world of forms. To understand Boulez, you must understand that this is sacred music, and has nothing to do with all that. Your "not liking Boulez" is just a product of your own identity-game.


----------



## millionrainbows

Allerius said:


> I assume that your epiphanal region is quite developed for you to give me such a tip. Thanks!


Are you flirting with me?


----------



## millionrainbows

I think many here are missing the obvious: that Boulez enthusiasts would rather share their enthusiasm with those of like mind, than engage in conflict. Who did you vote for in the last election?


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> I have listened to several of the musical examples put forth in this thread. My opinion remains unchanged:
> 
> I do not like thee, Mr Boulez
> The reason why I cannot tellez
> But this I know and know full wellez
> I do not like thee, Mr Boulez.
> 
> Apologies to Tom Brown.


And your action of posting this opinion remains _inappropriate_ on a thread entitled *"Boulez composed some great music!"*



> I have listened to several of the musical examples put forth in this thread. My opinion remains unchanged...


_Ha ha!_ As if you came into this thread _"to be convinced!"_


----------



## Guest

There are many threads I don’t participate in because they feature a discussion of music that doesn’t really interest me. (That is, sometimes it’s the discussion, sometimes it’s the music, sometimes it’s both.)

Boulez is my favourite composer, and I am glad that there are people who are interested enough to participate even if they aren’t fond of his music.


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> No, that's not what I mean. All those things are situational, and can be dealt with by the mind, because those are the world of forms. To understand Boulez, you must understand that this is sacred music, and has nothing to do with all that. Your "not liking Boulez" is just a product of your own identity-game.


My guess is that most of those who like Boulez would not describe his music as being on some ethereal level anymore than any other composer. Your having decided and decreed that his music is sacred does not mean that you have some appreciation and understanding of music that is superior to mine.

I've noticed that there is an increasing subject matter in your posts that infers that not liking modern composers implies some sort of psychological limitation that limits appreciation of modern works, particularly avant-garde. This includes the uses of sketchy terms and premises such as not liking Boulez is a product of one's 'identity-game', something which makes absolutely no sense.


----------



## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> I've noticed that there is an increasing subject matter in your posts that infers that not liking modern composers implies some sort of psychological limitation that limits appreciation of modern works, particularly avant-garde. This includes the uses of sketchy terms and premises such as not liking Boulez is a product of one's 'identity-game', something which makes absolutely no sense.


Well, I'm part of the problem of the general state of Humanity, too, insofar as I oscillate between periods of more and less awareness. 
But on this forum I see many listeners who are obviously firmly entrenched in a state of unconsciousness, as it applies to composers like Boulez, and these people are flaunting it to the point it is obvious.

I fully understand that to "pop their bubble" makes them extremely uncomfortable, but if they are exhibiting this behavior and "acting it out" on threads which were intended to _praise_ Boulez' music, then I have every right to point out the obvious, using whatever kind of New-Age theories I choose.



DaveM said:


> My guess is that most of those who like Boulez would not describe his music as being on some ethereal level anymore than any other composer. Your having decided and decreed that his music is sacred does not mean that you have some appreciation and understanding of music that is superior to mine.


I didn't just "decree" that Boulez' music is sacred. It is based in the idea of a sacred sense of time, into which I go into detail on my blog "New Conceptions of Musical Time".

https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/millionrainbows/1521-new-conceptions-musical-time.html

This way of perceiving time includes other modernists: Varese, Messiaen, and the Minimalists Philip Glass and Terry Riley.


----------



## millionrainbows

shirime said:


> There are many threads I don't participate in because they feature a discussion of music that doesn't really interest me. (That is, sometimes it's the discussion, sometimes it's the music, sometimes it's both.)
> 
> Boulez is my favourite composer, and I am glad that there are people who are interested enough to participate even if they aren't fond of his music.


Yes, I had an art teacher who said "It's better to like it or hate it, but don't just "appreciate it" and walk on by. In this sense, the people who don't like Boulez' music are providing a bit of spice which I find enlivens a discussion (which I'm sure makes many mods nervous). And I have no problem handling such antics.


----------



## larold

I've made clear my own opinion of this composer and, since that opinion ruffled some feathers, I thought perhaps I was overboard or intemperate. So I resorted to the theory I used when I created my list of top 99 composers: see how he and his music are viewed in musicological guides vis-à-vis other composers of his time and history.

One guide I used was from 1947 and he wasn't be listed so I used three newer guides: the (final) 2010 Penguin Guide, the All Music Guide from 2005 (the only version published), and Third Ear Classical Music from the 1990s, again the only version published.

Boulez had sections listed in each guide. He received about 1 page in Penguin and about 2 pages in the other two. I realize none of these publications existed up to his death; however, all listed his major compositions, some guides defined one or more as masterpieces, and each had a section on him and his role in classical music.

This is how he compares to other composers I looked at in my survey. The final -- No. 99 -- composer listed in my survey was Schnittke who, using the same three guides, had 9 pages of listings or about twice that of Boulez. 

Boulez was roughly equally represented in those guides as Rautavaara, a peer who died about the same time as him, and Arvo Part. He trailed John Adams and Phillip Glass, both of whom have much broader range of compositions published and recorded, by a great margin.

Using the same documentation I used to judge the top 100 composers I feel justified in what I've said about Boulez. While he was a force in his time his music is not widely recorded, not widely known, and does not often appear in concert. I think it fair to say, removing my personal opinion, that he was not among the top 100 composers in history at the time of his death. 

That doesn't answer any quality or perception questions and it doesn't stop anyone from enjoying him, however. As I've said many times people like what they like. But, knowing what I do about celebrity and buzz (I was a publicist for many years), it still irks me how someone not even considered a peer to Schnittke could ever be thought of as a great composer by famous music magazines. As a former publisher, I know they have to publish something and sell it.


----------



## Dimace

larold said:


> I've made clear my own opinion of this composer and, since that opinion ruffled some feathers, I thought perhaps I was overboard or intemperate. So I resorted to the theory I used when I created my list of top 99 composers: see how he and his music are viewed in musicological guides vis-à-vis other composers of his time and history.
> 
> One guide I used was from 1947 and he wasn't be listed so I used three newer guides: the (final) 2010 Penguin Guide, the All Music Guide from 2005 (the only version the published), and Third Ear Classical Music from the 1990s, again the only version published.
> 
> Boulez had sections listed in each guide. He received about 1 page in Penguin and about 2 pages in the other two. I realize none of these publications existed up to his death; however, all listed his major compositions, some guides defined one or more as masterpieces, and each had a section on him and his role in classical music.
> 
> This is how he compares to other composers I looked at in my survey. The final -- No. 99 -- composer listed in my survey was Schnittke who, using the same three guides, had 9 pages of listings or about twice that of Boulez.
> 
> Boulez was roughly equally represented in those guides as Rautavaara, a peer who died about the same time as him, and Arvo Part. He trailed John Adams and Phillip Glass, both of whom have much broader range of compositions published and recorded, by a great margin.
> 
> Using the same documentation I used to judge the top 100 composers I feel justified in what I've said about Boulez. While he was a force in his time his music is not widely recorded, not widely known, and does not often appear in concert. I think it fair to say, removing my personal opinion, that he was not among the top 100 composers at the time of his death.
> 
> *That doesn't answer any quality or perception question and it doesn't stop anyone from enjoying him, however. As I've said many times people like what they like.*


Yes, Sir! Let us enjoy our music and leave our modern friends to enjoy their music. We are know what we are doing, they know also what they are doing! Peace!


----------



## Mandryka

larold said:


> I've made clear my own opinion of this composer and, since that opinion ruffled some feathers, I thought perhaps I was overboard or intemperate. So I resorted to the theory I used when I created my list of top 99 composers: see how he and his music are viewed in musicological guides vis-à-vis other composers of his time and history.
> 
> One guide I used was from 1947 and he wasn't be listed so I used three newer guides: the (final) 2010 Penguin Guide, the All Music Guide from 2005 (the only version published), and Third Ear Classical Music from the 1990s, again the only version published.
> 
> Boulez had sections listed in each guide. He received about 1 page in Penguin and about 2 pages in the other two. I realize none of these publications existed up to his death; however, all listed his major compositions, some guides defined one or more as masterpieces, and each had a section on him and his role in classical music.
> 
> This is how he compares to other composers I looked at in my survey. The final -- No. 99 -- composer listed in my survey was Schnittke who, using the same three guides, had 9 pages of listings or about twice that of Boulez.
> 
> Boulez was roughly equally represented in those guides as Rautavaara, a peer who died about the same time as him, and Arvo Part. He trailed John Adams and Phillip Glass, both of whom have much broader range of compositions published and recorded, by a great margin.
> 
> Using the same documentation I used to judge the top 100 composers I feel justified in what I've said about Boulez. While he was a force in his time his music is not widely recorded, not widely known, and does not often appear in concert. I think it fair to say, removing my personal opinion, that he was not among the top 100 composers in history at the time of his death.
> 
> That doesn't answer any quality or perception questions and it doesn't stop anyone from enjoying him, however. As I've said many times people like what they like. But, knowing what I do about celebrity and buzz (I was a publicist for many years), it still irks me how someone not even considered a peer to Schnittke could ever be thought of as a great composer by famous music magazines. As a former publisher, I know they have to publish something and sell it.


I don't want to put you to any trouble, but I'd love to know how does Boulez does in those guides compared to Abelard and Dunstable and Taverner and Grigny and Titelouze and Cabezon and Arauxo and Frescobaldi and Andrea Gabrieli and Sweelinck and Dufay and Landini and Scheidt and Schildt and Boehm and Scheidemann and Du Mage and Louis Couperin and Froberger and Gombert and Cicconia and Kapsberger and the Gaultiers and Narváez and Esaias Reusnmer and Senfl and Piccinini and Luys Milan.


----------



## Xisten267

millionrainbows said:


> Are you flirting with me?


Only if you were a pretty girl _and_ loved Wagner, Bach and Beethoven.


----------



## Guest

Mandryka said:


> I don't want to put you to any trouble, but I'd love to know how does Boulez does in those guides compared to Abelard and Dunstable and Taverner and Grigny and Titelouze and Cabezon and Arauxo and Frescobaldi and Andrea Gabrieli and Sweelinck and Dufay and Landini and Scheidt and Schildt and Boehm and Scheidemann and Du Mage and Louis Couperin and Froberger and Gombert and Cicconia and Kapsberger and the Gaultiers and Narváez and Esaias Reusnmer and Senfl and Piccinini and Luys Milan.


I would too! Generally I think contemporary music is more comparable to pre-baroque music actually because both time periods don't fit neatly into the 'classical canon of repertoire and composers.'


----------



## DaveM

Dimace said:


> Yes, Sir! Let us enjoy our music and leave our modern friends to enjoy their music. We are know what we are doing, they know also what they are doing! Peace!


 That's a good thought in keeping with the season.


----------



## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> I don't want to put you to any trouble, but I'd love to know how does Boulez does in those guides compared to Abelard and Dunstable and Taverner and Grigny and Titelouze and Cabezon and Arauxo and Frescobaldi and Andrea Gabrieli and Sweelinck and Dufay and Landini and Scheidt and Schildt and Boehm and Scheidemann and Du Mage and Louis Couperin and Froberger and Gombert and Cicconia and Kapsberger and the Gaultiers and Narváez and Esaias Reusnmer and Senfl and Piccinini and Luys Milan.


That would be interesting. People might naturally be expected to take a greater interest in the music of their own time than in music three, four or five centuries old. How often has Boulez been recorded, and how well have those recordings sold, as against those of Dufay or Josquin?


----------



## Woodduck

shirime said:


> I would too! Generally I think contemporary music is more comparable to pre-baroque music actually because both time periods don't fit neatly into the 'classical canon of repertoire and composers.'


They may be similar in what they are not, but hardly in what they are.


----------



## Gallus

Woodduck said:


> That would be interesting. People might naturally be expected to take a greater interest in the music of their own time than in music three, four or five centuries old. How often has Boulez been recorded, and how well have those recordings sold, as against those of Dufay or Josquin?


I don't know, but a quick check on Spotify has 273,152 monthly listeners for Boulez, Josquin with 55,487 and Dufay at 42,055. (Shostakovich has 763,611 monthly listeners and The Archies 1,076,903. )


----------



## Lisztian

larold said:


> I've made clear my own opinion of this composer and, since that opinion ruffled some feathers, I thought perhaps I was overboard or intemperate. So I resorted to the theory I used when I created my list of top 99 composers: see how he and his music are viewed in musicological guides vis-à-vis other composers of his time and history.
> 
> One guide I used was from 1947 and he wasn't be listed so I used three newer guides: the (final) 2010 Penguin Guide, the All Music Guide from 2005 (the only version published), and Third Ear Classical Music from the 1990s, again the only version published.
> 
> Boulez had sections listed in each guide. He received about 1 page in Penguin and about 2 pages in the other two. I realize none of these publications existed up to his death; however, all listed his major compositions, some guides defined one or more as masterpieces, and each had a section on him and his role in classical music.
> 
> This is how he compares to other composers I looked at in my survey. The final -- No. 99 -- composer listed in my survey was Schnittke who, using the same three guides, had 9 pages of listings or about twice that of Boulez.
> 
> Boulez was roughly equally represented in those guides as Rautavaara, a peer who died about the same time as him, and Arvo Part. He trailed John Adams and Phillip Glass, both of whom have much broader range of compositions published and recorded, by a great margin.
> 
> Using the same documentation I used to judge the top 100 composers I feel justified in what I've said about Boulez. While he was a force in his time his music is not widely recorded, not widely known, and does not often appear in concert. I think it fair to say, removing my personal opinion, that he was not among the top 100 composers in history at the time of his death.
> 
> That doesn't answer any quality or perception questions and it doesn't stop anyone from enjoying him, however. As I've said many times people like what they like. But, knowing what I do about celebrity and buzz (I was a publicist for many years), it still irks me how someone not even considered a peer to Schnittke could ever be thought of as a great composer by famous music magazines. As a former publisher, I know they have to publish something and sell it.


Wait, Boulez isn't a great composer because he isn't well documented in mainstream classical music guides, written while he was a controversial living figure?

The enthusiasm I've witnessed from many people -people whose musical judgement I trust, people who often have decades of wide-ranging listening experience- is, along with my own impressions, enough for me to consider him a great composer. Popularity should not be the deciding factor when we are talking about art music. I don't even particularly mind if he's not listed in those 'top 50 classical composers of all time and their best works' etc guides: his music will always be there for those who look for it, and many will consider it to be great music (after all, at the end of the day everyone decides for themselves).

I also think that more people (not everyone, but more) would like his music if there wasn't so much (admittedly self-inflicted) prejudice towards the guy. I think this because my impression, based on what I heard on here when I hadn't heard his music, was of a dry, purely mathematical composer that people only enjoy if they are of a heavily mathematical bent themselves. For me, this could not be further from the truth...


----------



## Dimace

Lisztian said:


> Wait, Boulez isn't a great composer because he isn't well documented in mainstream classical music guides, written while he was a controversial living figure?
> 
> The enthusiasm I've witnessed from many people -people whose musical judgement I trust, people who often have decades of wide-ranging listening experience- is, along with my own impressions, enough for me to consider him a great composer. Popularity should not be the deciding factor when we are talking about art music. I don't even particularly mind if he's not listed in those 'top 50 classical composers of all time and their best works' etc guides: his music will always be there for those who look for it, and many will consider it to be great music (after all, at the end of the day everyone decides for themselves).
> 
> I also think that more people (not everyone, but more) would like his music if there wasn't so much (admittedly self-inflicted) *prejudice towards the guy*. I think this because my impression, based on what I heard on here when I hadn't heard his music, was of a dry, purely mathematical composer that people only enjoy if they are of a heavily mathematical bent themselves. For me, this could not be further from the truth...


You are telling a big truth, my friend: People (like me) they don't like this music (this means they don't listen to this music) are rejecting it, without has given to it enough time, to know it better or to exploit it. I have listen Boulez, totally, 30 minutes in You Tube. Three or four different works of him. No one completely. I found his music, unacceptable. (I'm honest) But, who knows? Maybe the Frenchman has written other works, which are better or, why not, great. So, it isn't solely a matter of prejudice but also of ignorance. (I'm speaking for my ignorance for this music, which is known here).

To the other site of the argument now: Yesterday I have seen in one presentation here a work of Karl Jenkins. Years before I listened something of him (a modern composer also) and I found it interesting. After I forgot everything for him until yesterday. I turned on the You Tube (not to search my Konvolut) and after 5 minutes I said: The guy is VERY SIGNIFICANT composer! This is a FFF good music! Immediately I bought two CDs of him and now is under my microscope.

Modern music from Boulez, modern from Karl. It seems that the problem is not the modern music, or the modern composers. *The problem is our background*. What we have listened and loved before. We are copying our musical memories and we don't listen. We reproducing our past. If something new (actually it is only chronologically new) sticks well with the old, we accepted it. Otherwise we reject it.


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## Lisztian

Dimace said:


> You are telling a big truth, my friend: People (like me) they don't like this music (this means they don't listen to this music) are rejecting it, without has given to it enough time, to know it better or to exploit it. I have listen Boulez, totally, 30 minutes in You Tube. Three or four different works of him. No one completely. I found his music, unacceptable. (I'm honest) But, who knows? Maybe the Frenchman has written other works, which are better or, why not, great. So, it isn't solely a matter of prejudice but also of ignorance. (I'm speaking for my ignorance for this music, which is known here).
> 
> To the other site of the argument now: Yesterday I have seen in one presentation here a work of Karl Jenkins. Years before I listened something of him (a modern composer also) and I found it interesting. After I forgot everything for him until yesterday. I turned on the You Tube (not to search my Konvolut) and after 5 minutes I said: The guy is VERY SIGNIFICANT composer! This is a FFF good music! Immediately I bought two CDs of him and now is under my microscope.
> 
> Modern music from Boulez, modern from Karl. It seems that the problem is not the modern music, or the modern composers. *The problem is our background*. What we have listened and loved before. We are copying our musical memories and we don't listen. We reproducing our past. If something new (actually it is only chronologically new) sticks well with the old, we accepted it. Otherwise we reject it.


Nice post.

Also, I repeat that not everyone will like Boulez' music. Prejudice though is not only a problem with a first listening, but also the perception that repeated listenings/different works will not bring about a different result for the listener. Some people will like his music immediately, but I truly believe many others who think it's not for them now will like at least some of his music after prolonged exposure at some point in their lives. If not, fine, but don't tell us it's the 'emperors new clothes' or 'mediocre' just because you don't like it.


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## MaxKellerman

Great? Just because you really like it doesn't make it great. If the examples posted in this thread constitute great music, I'm curious to hear some examples of poor, mediocre, or even just pretty good music written in this idiom. Curious if it's actually possible to discern any qualitative difference.


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## Lisztian

MaxKellerman said:


> Great? Just because you really like it doesn't make it great. If the examples posted in this thread constitute great music, I'm curious to hear some examples of poor, mediocre, or even just pretty good music written in this idiom. Curious if it's actually possible to discern any qualitative difference.


To those who get a lot out of the music, it is great music. You know what? I've been spending a lot of time on general, non-specialist music forums lately, and a lot of people on these forums can't really get into classical music from before the 20th century, despite obviously having tried. A lot of these guys listen to a lot of 'art music,' whether it's jazz, prog, or 20th century classical. NO music is universal.

I have a feeling they could say the same thing: "Just because you really like it doesn't make it great."

Have some respect for others' tastes please: we listen to Boulez and we hear great music.

Welcome to TC btw.


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## Dimace

MaxKellerman said:


> Great? Just because you really like it doesn't make it great. If the examples posted in this thread constitute great music, I'm curious to hear some *examples of poor,* mediocre, or even just pretty good music written in this idiom. Curious if it's actually possible to discern any qualitative difference.


Please, look here>>>> https://www.talkclassical.com/54083-current-listening-vol-v-1041.html#post1553333 (my post for Mondezuma) There are more if you want...


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## Woodduck

Gallus said:


> I don't know, but a quick check on Spotify has 273,152 monthly listeners for Boulez, Josquin with 55,487 and Dufay at 42,055. (Shostakovich has 763,611 monthly listeners and The Archies 1,076,903. )


This is unsurprising, and makes sense. Pre-Baroque music has always been a "niche" interest, and the earlier the more so. Recordings have no doubt enlarged the niche. They're indispensable for late 20th- and 21st-century music too, but I think it's rather pointless to compare, as some have done, the audiences for these repertoires merely because neither is "central" to the concert repertoire. The reasons are different in the two cases.


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## Mandryka

Woodduck said:


> They may be similar in what they are not, but hardly in what they are.


Well that was not my point, as you know. In fact, I think you're wrong, but this isn't the place.



Woodduck said:


> The reasons are different in the two cases.


Really?


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> Well that was not my point, as you know. In fact, I think you're wrong, but this isn't the place.
> 
> Really?


Yes, really.

?


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## KenOC

MaxKellerman said:


> ...If the examples posted in this thread constitute great music, I'm curious to hear some examples of poor, mediocre, or even just pretty good music written in this idiom. Curious if it's actually possible to discern any qualitative difference.


Easy. If it sounds like a stupid, clumsy dog walking across the piano keys, it's poor or at best mediocre. If it sounds like a refined, educated, and artistic dog walking on those keys, and probably wearing a beret, it's likely pretty good.


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## Enthusiast

KenOC said:


> Easy. If it sounds like a stupid, clumsy dog walking across the piano keys, it's poor or at best mediocre. If it sounds like a refined, educated, and artistic dog walking on those keys, and probably wearing a beret, it's likely pretty good.


But it depends on who is listening and how much experience they have in understanding the language. That is true of all CM from all ages but harder to test for older music as the language permeates everything - film music, pop and rock, jingles - still how many of us have had experience with friends who do not like CM claiming that all Mozart (or even all music from his period) "sounds the same" or "Beethoven goes on too long"? In my parent's generation people said you had to _work _at great art to really get the pleasure out of it. These days the word "work" sounds a bit miserable but you do still need to learn how to decode it in some way.


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## Jacck

KenOC said:


> Easy. If it sounds like a stupid, clumsy dog walking across the piano keys, it's poor or at best mediocre. If it sounds like a refined, educated, and artistic dog walking on those keys, and probably wearing a beret, it's likely pretty good.


it is an analogous situation to modern painting. Some people paint this and claim that it is abstract art. But apparently, no real painting skill is required to produce something like that. I get it that there are people who enjoy this kind of art and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I cannot help feeling that this art is degenerate.
this is not to attack Boulez. As I said, I enjoy some of his music, for example Sur Incises


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## Mandryka

Jacck said:


> it is an analogous situation to modern painting. Some people paint this and claim that it is abstract art. But apparently, no real painting skill is required to produce something like that. I get it that there are people who enjoy this kind of art and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I cannot help feeling that this art is degenerate.
> this is not to attack Boulez. As I said, I enjoy some of his music, for example Sur Incises


For a painting, it's in part the cost to buy which determines the value of the work. In music, it's not _prima facie_ quite the same, but that may be a superficial idea, I'm not sure. This is not the right thread for that discussion, albeit an interesting one.


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## Enthusiast

shirime said:


> Boulez was quite a perfectionist with his music in some cases and withdrew lots of previous versions and old revisions. He would often expand on works, flesh out and really aim to perfect certain ideas and *explore a variety of more musical possibilities in those ideas that he may have been fairly limited with in earlier versions*. Even though this example is from a fairly short period of time, it's interesting to notice the development of the original 1994 version of Incises (less than 3 minutes in duration) and then seeing how that was expanded into the 'official' Incises for solo piano (about 11 minutes long) followed by Sur Incises (3 each of pianos, harps and percussionists playing for nearly 40 minutes). The material is pretty much the same across all three works/versions, but we have a good awareness of where and how he would expand on older material. In the Notations, I always find it interesting to hear how different-but _thematically related_-each orchestral Notation is in comparison to the original piano Notation. I also think it's quite possible to compare Anthèmes with Anthèmes II in the same way.
> 
> Another way Boulez used the same material across different works is through his re-use of note-rows. The opening of Messagesquisse melodically exposes the SACHER hexachord (E flat, A, C, B natural, E, D), which featured as he main six-note row in Dérive I and Répons. I believe Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna, ...explosante-fixe..., Dérive II all share a sevent-note row. Curiously, I came to enjoy the pieces using the SACHER hexachord more quickly than I did the other pieces. I think Boulez has a way of having a very defined harmonic palette depending on the row used in his serial works where the row isn't audible on the surface (except at the start of Messagesquisse) but hides in the background, giving each piece a kind of harmonic cohesiveness.


Thank you. Tantalising in that I understand _some _of what you say but some of it is just too technical for me. Still I get the general idea. Boulez's development of his pieces seems to involve expanding and elaborating on them. I sometimes hear it as adding new levels but you can hear the relationship with what came before and maybe one day I will sense the same. For some reason I am now thinking of Sibelius who we know edited his pieces down, removing lots of great music in the interest of a tighter and more coherent structure (there are recordings of earlier versions of his violin concerto and fifth symphony) - a very different approach!

So you think we, the general audience (rather than musicians) should think of the latest version of Boulez's pieces as "the correct ones" or are they all equally valid but different?


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## Guest

I consider Boulez to be a very uneven composer with a few great pieces (explosante-fixe, sur-incises, piano sonata no 2, livre pour cordes). The great composers of the second part of the twentieth century have loads of masterpieces (Scelsi, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Ligeti, G.F.Haas, Cerha, Reich, J.Adams for example)


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Boulez was a very important composer, in that he was a pioneer of serialism and other things, in the last half of the 20th century. In The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin, Boulez is mentioned in all 10 chapters of the last volume, "Music In the Late 20th century" on at least 45 pages. Pärt and Reich, f.ex., are mentioned in chapter 8 & 10. Boulez is at least popular in music history


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## Enthusiast

I do think that Boulez - along with Carter - was perhaps the most challenging composers of his time. But I am also finding that the rewards of persevering are very deeply satisfying and often exquisite. The same is true (the satisfying part, at least) for Carter. So when I see comparisons with other greats of the period I do catch myself wondering at the extent to which difficulty (for the listener) needs to be factored in. I have been struck by how quite a lot of Boulez resisted me for quite some time (and despite effort) but then almost suddenly seemed much easier, almost as if it was no more challenging that Bartok! With Carter the journey was a little different.


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## Mandryka

marc bollansee said:


> I consider Boulez to be a very uneven composer with a few great pieces (explosante-fixe, sur-incises, piano sonata no 2, livre pour cordes). The great composers of the second part of the twentieth century have loads of masterpieces (Scelsi, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Ligeti, G.F.Haas, Cerha, Reich, J.Adams for example)


What in my opinion Stockhausen has, which makes him stand apart, is a certain sense of real imaginative spontaneous creative boundary pushing, while still creating something aesthetically pleasing. I _know_, when I listen to later Stockhausen especially, the Stockhausen of Licht and even sometimes Klang, that I am listening to a genius -- a very annoying genius sometimes, but a genius nevertheless.

Here's something I love






Xenakis in his middle period, the period of Kraanerg, makes me feel the same way, but less so. This for example






The other I would add to the list, a composer whose lyrical genius has not been matched since Mozart IMO, is not Xenakis, but Luc Ferrari.






There's also Feldman and Cage to think about,


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## larold

_Wait, Boulez isn't a great composer because he isn't well documented in mainstream classical music guides, written while he was a controversial living figure?_

Yes, that is exactly correct. These "guides" are/were published by musicologists and other experts that pay/paid attention to, explore/explored and listen/listened to everything in classical music. They made judgments sometimes with bias but, generally speaking, without it. They know/knew how composers compared to each other.

I should add that this completely eliminated my opinion and your opinion on matters related to the composer and his music.

While you say he was a controversial figure I think he was more a politician in music. He made it clear in his heyday that anyone who didn't agree with his style, the so-called avant-garde, should no longer be considered a serious musician. He moderated this intolerance after time but in my opinion it contributed greatly to the state of classical music since 1960.

There became no room for a traditional composer like Samuel Barber, one of the last composers to write in a romantic idiom, because of the edicts perpetrated under Boulez's influence. Everything had to be the same kind of noise or, sound world, Boulez wrote in.

I should remind you Barber has at least two great classics that are scheduled and played regularly in concert and recorded all the time, his Violin Concerto and Adagio for Strings. How many of same did the whole of the avant-garde create?

I don't wish to enter another polemic on this but the answer to the above question is obviously yes.


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## Manxfeeder

larold said:


> _.
> 
> While you say he was a controversial figure I think he was more a politician in music. He made it clear in his heyday that anyone who didn't agree with his style, the so-called avant-garde, should no longer be considered a serious musician. He moderated this intolerance after time but in my opinion it contributed greatly to the state of classical music since 1960.
> 
> _


_

I think it was this attitude of his that kept me from his music for so long._


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## Lisztian

larold said:


> _Wait, Boulez isn't a great composer because he isn't well documented in mainstream classical music guides, written while he was a controversial living figure?_
> 
> Yes, that is exactly correct. These "guides" are/were published by musicologists and other experts that pay/paid attention to, explore/explored and listen/listened to everything in classical music. They made judgments sometimes with bias but, generally speaking, without it. They know/knew how composers compared to each other.
> 
> I should add that this completely eliminated my opinion and your opinion on matters related to the composer and his music.
> 
> While you say he was a controversial figure I think he was more a politician in music. He made it clear in his heyday that anyone who didn't agree with his style, the so-called avant-garde, should no longer be considered a serious musician. He moderated this intolerance after time but in my opinion it contributed greatly to the state of classical music since 1960.
> 
> There became no room for a traditional composer like Samuel Barber, one of the last composers to write in a romantic idiom, because of the edicts perpetrated under Boulez's influence. Everything had to be the same kind of noise or, sound world, Boulez wrote in.
> 
> I should remind you Barber has at least two great classics that are scheduled and played regularly in concert and recorded all the time, his Violin Concerto and Adagio for Strings. How many of same did the whole of the avant-garde create?
> 
> I don't wish to enter another polemic on this but the answer to the above question is obviously yes.


This conversation is fruitless because we simply think completely differently. What seems obvious to me seems ludicrous to you, and vice versa.

To be clear I'm not a big fan of Boulez' attitude over much of his life either (although I'm sure it's more nuanced than I've been lead to believe), but this has nothing to do with his music.


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## Enthusiast

^^^ Well, he is also remembered for his warm and supporting personality so our views of his famous opionated quotes need to be tempered with an understanding that context might have changed how his words should be taken.


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## Dimace

Manxfeeder said:


> I think it was this attitude of his that kept me from his music for so long.


First of all I would like to thank our friend Mandryca for the videos and mostly for the one with Giannis (so he liked to call him) Xenakis, the big Greek, who (with Theodoros Antoniou) once upon a time were teachers for me. Giannis, really revolutionized the classic music after the WWII and found new ways to compose it, included mathematics, geometry, architectural shaping, light in Prisma (diathlassis/// a Greek word which explains the effect of the light on one mainly glass object) and many other things, I found by this time very interesting like* a field for research*. As a music, all of you know my thesis which is negative.

My dearest Manx!

Many composers were like humans unacceptable. If a listener knows their background, is a good reason (as you have written) to reject also their music. But, I believe, if their music is good, at the end, the listener will forget everything about the character or attitude and he will come close to their music. He will love it and he will accepted it. Because, after all, we are music lovers and not the German Church.

Thanks a lot, all of you! I learned a lot from this conversation.


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## TurnaboutVox

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, I had an art teacher who said "It's better to like it or hate it, but don't just "appreciate it" and walk on by. In this sense, the people who don't like Boulez' music are providing a bit of spice which I find enlivens a discussion (which I'm sure makes many mods nervous). And I have no problem handling such antics.


Yes, I agree it has been a lively discussion. But it hasn't made me _too_ nervous (not yet, anyway!)

This dicussion has inspired me to listen again to Sur Incises, Messagesquisses and Anthemes II (as I read the thread and type this). It has caused me to think about when in my journey into listening to modern classical music this became just 'music' rather than something that was difficult to listen to and (even) difficult to regard as music. I do know that it has required a lot of listening for it to become 'just music' and I rather think that what has helped most has been to listen to live performances. I live just an hour's journey from a music 'Conservatoire' and reasonably close to the venue for an annual contemporary music festival, which I suspect helps a bit.

But there must have been something in the first place that made me think (or feel, perhaps) that the music was worth exploring and getting to know. I suspect that it may partly have been exposure to 'different' music during my childhood, but also I think people differ in their attitude to all things unfamiliar and different (as has been briefly alluded to in this thread). It is very interesting, and not necessarily easily explicable.


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## mmsbls

Enthusiast said:


> I do think that Boulez - along with Carter - was perhaps the most challenging composers of his time. But I am also finding that the rewards of persevering are very deeply satisfying and often exquisite. The same is true (the satisfying part, at least) for Carter. So when I see comparisons with other greats of the period I do catch myself wondering at the extent to which difficulty (for the listener) needs to be factored in. I have been struck by how quite a lot of Boulez resisted me for quite some time (and despite effort) but then almost suddenly seemed much easier, almost as if it was no more challenging that Bartok! With Carter the journey was a little different.


I'm not sure which composers were the most challenging, but I certainly required much listening to eventually enjoy Boulez and many other modern/contemporary composers. In my early days I was listening for what I loved about Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music and obviously did not find it in Boulez and the others. In some sense it was like trying to enjoy Mozart but not responding to melody and harmony. It's not exactly like learning a new language, but I and others have described it that way. Without knowing the language (i.e. listening and responding to what Boulez created), one can listen over and over and never enjoy the music.

No one before the modern era ever created anything like Sur Incises. Some here will say, "Thank God!", but others of us will enjoy new music such as Beethoven's Eroica, Wagner's operas, and what we consider wonderful modern/contemporary music.


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## arpeggio

Suggestions/observations/etc.

One. To those who hate modern music go start an "Agony of Modern Music" thread and grouse away.

Two. To those of us who appreciate modern music just ignore these nattering nabobs of negativism. Nothing will irritate them more than me ignoring their responses to this post. They will even deny that ignoring them will be irritating.

Three. Most of the negative posts are coming from members on my ignore list. A looks as if I will be adding a few more.

Four. As a result of some of the suggestion that have been posted I have discovered some works of Boulez that appeal to me. Thanks.

Five. To those who hate Boulez. Don't go away mad. Just go away.


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## Red Terror

Jacck said:


> it is an analogous situation to modern painting. Some people paint this and claim that it is abstract art. But apparently, no real painting skill is required to produce something like that. I get it that there are people who enjoy this kind of art and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I cannot help feeling that this art is degenerate.
> this is not to attack Boulez. As I said, I enjoy some of his music, for example Sur Incises


One can more or less get away with a narrow skill set in contemporary art. However, even though one may not like Boulez's work, it's readily apparent that he is a highly skilled (to put it mildly) composer.


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## Enthusiast

arpeggio said:


> Suggestions/observations/etc.
> 
> Three. Most of the negative posts are coming from members on my ignore list. A looks as if I will be adding a few more.


A strategy that may have protected me from the worst in this thread. But many who hate the contemporary and insist they are in the right to do so also post interestingly on more mainstream subjects so I don't want to miss everything they write.


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## DaveM

arpeggio said:


> Suggestions/observations/etc.
> 
> One. To those who hate modern music go start an "Agony of Modern Music" thread and grouse away.
> 
> Two. To those of us who appreciate modern music just ignore these nattering nabobs of negativism. Nothing will irritate them more than me ignoring their responses to this post. They will even deny that ignoring them will be irritating.
> 
> Three. Most of the negative posts are coming from members on my ignore list. A looks as if I will be adding a few more.
> 
> Four. As a result of some of the suggestion that have been posted I have discovered some works of Boulez that appeal to me. Thanks.
> 
> Five. To those who hate Boulez. Don't go away mad. Just go away.


So, the conversation has been going along just fine. Everyone is being respectful. Two moderators have been taking part and seem fine with the situation and yet, you put on your regulator badge and come up with this?


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## arpeggio

Enthusiast said:


> A strategy that may have protected me from the worst in this thread. But many who hate the contemporary and insist they are in the right to do so also post interestingly on more mainstream subjects so I don't want to miss everything they write.


One can still click on the "View Post" link and read their posts. One now has the discretion on whether or not to read their posts. I still read many of them. I use the ignore feature to remind me not to respond to them.


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## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> Thank you. Tantalising in that I understand _some _of what you say but some of it is just too technical for me. Still I get the general idea. Boulez's development of his pieces seems to involve expanding and elaborating on them. I sometimes hear it as adding new levels but you can hear the relationship with what came before and maybe one day I will sense the same. For some reason I am now thinking of Sibelius who we know edited his pieces down, removing lots of great music in the interest of a tighter and more coherent structure (there are recordings of earlier versions of his violin concerto and fifth symphony) - a very different approach!
> 
> So you think we, the general audience (rather than musicians) should think of the latest version of Boulez's pieces as "the correct ones" or are they all equally valid but different?


I like the point you made about Sibelius! I think there's definitely an 'inverse' approach in relation to Boulez. Good point; I hadn't considered it before. 

From what I understand, Boulez wants the latest versions of pieces to be the 'definitive' versions. Early versions of Répons, ...explosante-fixe... and many other major works are withdrawn from publication, bar a few exceptions that slipped through (like the original version of Incises I mentioned earlier). I think it would be fascinating to be able to really look through and analyse his unpublished works to see his learning process. Most of the time initial revisions were made because of impracticalities or the music not really sounding how he wanted it to sound.

Hypothetically, it would be interesting to hear what a composer like Mozart-whose earliest compositions are relatively well known-would do if he updated his first symphony to reflect who he was as a composer in, say, 1788. How different would his treatment if the same material be? How different would his approach to form be? Would the orchestration be any different? Would he include passages of more complex harmony and counterpoint?


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## Dimace

DaveM said:


> So, the conversation has been going along just fine. Everyone is being respectful. Two moderators have been taking part and seem fine with the situation and yet, you put on your regulator badge and come up with this?


I agree! This conversation is from the finest and highly educational (for me at least) Travelling to unknown waters (modern music) is very fascinating. The mods are doing super, the users giving lot of information included videos, etc. PERFECT!!


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## Jacck

Red Terror said:


> One can more or less get away with a narrow skill set in contemporary art. However, even though one may not like Boulez's work, it's readily apparent that he is a highly skilled (to put it mildly) composer.


Certainly, Boulez was highly skilled, as the Sur Incises or Explosante-Fixe show. Only his piano music sounds like a dog walking over the keys.


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## Mandryka

Jacck said:


> Certainly, Boulez was highly skilled, as the Sur Incises or Explosante-Fixe show. Only his piano music sounds like a dog walking over the keys.


I think it's surprising that more romantically disposed pianists don't play Notations, it seems the sort of music that would suit the likes of Uchida or Zimerman very well. Hints of Messaien and Debussy but modernised, brought into the world of post occupation Paris.






It is very early; maybe Boulez's most important work is the earliest.

Having said that one of the things I love the most is Derive 1 (from 1964) -- this is my favourite performance, by Daniel Kawka (I think Boulez is often not the best conductor of his own music.) It begins after about 6 minutes into this video. How could anyone think this music was difficult or anything other than magnificent?






The first piece on the video, Memorial, is from 1985, it is also well worth hearing, you may even prefer it to Derive 1.


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## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> I think it's surprising that more romantically disposed pianists don't play Notations..


Believe it or not, I continue to periodically make an effort to see what it is that a few people here see in the music in the category that Boulez seems to be in. I've listened closely to Notations and see nothing that the the term 'romantic' would be applied to. It's this kind of thing that reinforces my belief that people who like Boulez are reading into the music something that very few people will. All the more power to them, though.


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## Dimace

DaveM said:


> Believe it or not, I continue to periodically make an effort to see what it is that a few people here see in the music in the category that Boulez seems to be in. I've listened closely to Notations and see nothing that the the term 'romantic' would be applied to. It's this kind of thing that reinforces my belief that people who like Boulez are reading into the music something that very few people will. All the more power to them, though.


Speaking technically as a pianist, I must give 5X the time to play these Notations, in comparison with the time I need for a whole Liszt Concerto. The reason is simple. My fingers don't have the experience to find the wright places on the keys, my brain has difficulties to follow my eyes and both of them to work together with my hands. And at the end: Let us say that I learned this notations. Where I can play them? I know no one (very honestly) who can understand this music (my self included) It is super that fellow users understand and like this creations, which requires a superior listening training I don't have.


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## Sid James

Piano Sonata No. 2 is the only Boulez work which I like, for its uncompromising, aggressive and at times mysterious quality. I think Boulez’s music became more refined as he went on, which is understandable. This is the work of a young man, unique in its combination of blunt aggression with detached intellect.

Dimace, your comments about Boulez’s piano music rings true. Yvonne Loriod cried when she first saw the score of the sonata, but went on to perform it. Claudio Arrau was an admirer of the piece and said he would be willing to play it, but never did because he said that his audience would not have a bar of it. No doubt it’s hard to justify fitting this into the standard recital, nevertheless it is a milestone in the 20th century piano literature.


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## DaveM

Sid James said:


> Piano Sonata No. 2 is the only Boulez work which I like, for its uncompromising, aggressive and at times mysterious quality. I think Boulez's music became more refined as he went on, which is understandable. This is the work of a young man, unique in its combination of blunt aggression with detached intellect.
> 
> Dimace, your comments about Boulez's piano music rings true. Yvonne Loriod cried when she first saw the score, but went on to perform it. Claudio Arrau was an admirer of the piece and said he would be willing to play it, but never did because he said that his audience would not have a bar of it. No doubt it's hard to justify fitting this into the standard recital, nevertheless it is a milestone in the 20th century piano literature.


Very confusing! Someone says Boulez's music is sacred. Another implies that the Notations work is something romantic pianists should want to play. A pianist who appears to have the technical skill to play Notations says, in so many words, that he can't make sense of it and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to find an audience for it.

You relate that two professional pianists had issues with the Piano Sonata #2 (I think you're referring to that rather than Notations) and one of the most well known of them didn't play it because audiences wouldn't tolerate it. And yet, you conclude that the sonata is a milestone of the last century?

FWIW, one of the things the music of Boulez has done for me is give me a little more appreciation for Schoenberg in comparison, though I can't say I'm at the point of listening to much of Schoenberg yet.


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## Phil loves classical

Just recently I feel I really understand the music of Schoenberg (although I thought I did before). He uses serialism, but in more traditional forms and expressions. They are unmistakable to my ears now. It seems his followers somewhere down the line felt it should go in a new direction, without any pointing to the past. I believe this is where Boulez's quote on the history of music evolving to him via Schoenberg comes in, as also Wuorinen's quote on any serious composer uses 12-tone.


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## Sid James

DaveM said:


> Very confusing! Someone says Boulez's music is sacred. Another implies that the Notations work is something romantic pianists should want to play. A pianist who appears to have the technical skill to play Notations says, in so many words, that he can't make sense of it and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to find an audience for it.
> 
> You relate that two professional pianists had issues with the Piano Sonata #2 (I think you're referring to that rather than Notations) and one of the most well known of them didn't play it because audiences wouldn't tolerate it. And yet, you conclude that the sonata is a milestone of the last century?
> 
> FWIW, one of the things the music of Boulez has done for me is give me a little more appreciation for Schoenberg in comparison, though I can't say I'm at the point of listening to much of Schoenberg yet.


Some of Boukez's pieces do have a sense of ritual, which ties in to a sense of the spiritual. The most obvious one being Le Marteau. Boulez said that music should be "collective magic and hysteria." I personally connect more with say Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury which goes along the same lines, but does it in a different way.

Even taking into account Boulez's outbursts against the residue of the old ways (even in Schoenberg's music), I know that pianists have played the Piano Sonata No. 2 in different ways. Perhaps some existing interpretations could be called Romantic?

I used to own Idil Biret's interpretation which is really emotional and totally on fire compared to the more detached Maurizio Pollini. Nevertheless I kept Pollini's account, which can be tied more to the subtlety of Debussy or Ravel. Pollini's disc has a varied program but Biret's all Boulez disc is also fine, having won a gold Diapason.

Who knows what Arrau would have done with this piece? His repertoire being as it was, he could have made a case for it being called the Hammerklavier of the 20th century. In terms of the technical advances made in this piece alone the case for that assessment is solid. In other words that's not my conclusion, it's one I have read in a number of books on Western music (not just those focussing on the modern period).

Audiences won't clamour for this to be performed live but the case was similar in the 19th century. A famous example is how Liszt never played his Sonata in B minor at a public recital. That's changed somewhat though, with smaller ensembles existing now which specialise in new music.

In any case, there where no recordings in Liszt's time, and it can be argued that today's new music audience has a fair amount of people who will be happy to acquire a recording if they can't attend the rare public airing of it (mostly this will be a premiere).

It's good to listen to Boulez and other music of the period in context. That includes Schoenberg but also others (who the young Boulez also rejected) such as Stravinsky and Bartok.


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## Dimace

Sid James said:


> Piano Sonata No. 2 is the only Boulez work which I like, for its uncompromising, aggressive and at times mysterious quality. I think Boulez's music became more refined as he went on, which is understandable. This is the work of a young man, unique in its combination of blunt aggression with detached intellect.
> 
> Dimace, your comments about Boulez's piano music rings true. Yvonne Loriod cried when she first saw the score of the sonata, but went on to perform it. Claudio Arrau was an admirer of the piece and said he would be willing to play it, but never did because he said that his audience would not have a bar of it. No doubt it's hard to justify fitting this into the standard recital, nevertheless it is a milestone in the 20th century piano literature.


It is EXTREMELY difficult for a *classical* pianist to perform such works. And if he succeeded one day, believe me, the result will NOT be good. It is so disappointing, when you compare your performance with an other one, which is accepted as good, to realize that what you have played is behind the standards and, here is the problem, you don't know why. When we, the pianists, listen the Horowitz or the Cherkassky, we immediately understand what went wrong with (this is an example) Mozarts Sonata in B KV 333. How we can learn (leave the performance aside for the moment) something without knowing how it is generally works? For this reason (this music is generally unknown) this kind of works have found very few big pianists to study and perform them. Sokolov, Barenboim, Schiff, Perahia, etc... They take no risks. Imagine after a Rachmaninows Prelude (extreme melodic) to listen the Notations of Boulez. The audience will eat you alive, or they leave you to play alone for your self. So, this Kind of music (Boulez's) is a SPECIAL MUSIC, for s SPECIAL AUDIENCE under SPECIAL SIRCUMSTANCES. It is a blessing that in our company in this great Forum, we have such an audience!  My opinion is that you must know the HELL of a music to understand such works. I don't know so much music, it is somehow late to learn it, but I can TRY with a lot of respect to understand it.


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## Lisztian

Dimace said:


> My opinion is that you must know the HELL of a music to understand such works. I don't know so much music, it is somehow late to learn it, but I can TRY with a lot of respect to understand it.


This might be true for some, but it wasn't for me. I definitely don't know Boulez' works well at all. I'm not THAT experienced with his music, so I just let it all wash over me. The Boulez works I like I find to be colourful, luminous, sensual. I like that the musical line constantly flows and undulates without repetition/use of sequencing. It's 'pure' in this way.


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## Mandryka

Dimace said:


> I know no one (very honestly) who can understand this music (my self included) It is super that fellow users understand and like this creations, which requires a superior listening training I don't have.


I don't know about understanding or training, I think the 12 Piano Notations is just nice music to hear. I'd have thought anyone who likes (e.g.) Visions Fugitives or Schoenberg op 11 or the Debussy Etudes will love it too.


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## Dimace

Lisztian said:


> This might be true for some, but it wasn't for me. I definitely don't know Boulez' works well at all. I'm not THAT experienced with his music, so I just let it all wash over me. The Boulez works I like I find to be colourful, luminous, sensual. I like that the musical line constantly flows and undulates without repetition/use of sequencing. It's 'pure' in this way.





Mandryka said:


> I don't know about understanding or training, I think the 12 Piano Notatuons is just nice music to hear. I'd have thought anyone who likes (e.g. Visions Figitives or Schoenberg op 11 or the Debussy Etudes will love to.


Thanks for the nice comments! We have an agreement, also to these points. A very good conversation.


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## Mandryka

Dimace said:


> Thanks for the nice comments! We have an agreement, also to these points. A very good conversation.


Years ago Uchida programmed Schubert sonatas and Schoenberg piano music in London, a big venue -- Royal Festival Hall I think. Everyone went for the Schubert of course, but she started with the Schoenberg and interleaved it with the Schubert too, so there was no escape for the audience. The people I was with were surprised to find themselves enjoying the Schoenberg very much, at least as much as the 19th century music, though I can't speak for the audience as a whole of course, my impression was that the concerts worked well.

My point is this: at least in metropolitan London the audience can rise to a challenge. In provincial USA or Germany maybe not.


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## Dimace

Mandryka said:


> Years ago Uchida programmed Schubert sonatas and Schoenberg piano music in London, a big venue -- Royal Festival Hall I think. Everyone went for the Schubert of course, but she started with the Schoenberg and interleaved it with the Schubert too, so there was no escape for the audience. The people I was with were surprised to find themselves enjoying the Schoenberg very much, at least as much as the 19th century music, though I can't speak for the audience as a whole of course, my impression was that the concerts worked well.
> 
> My point is this: at least in metropolitan London the audience can rise to a challenge. In provincial USA or Germany maybe not.


Some years before (2008 I believe) I was organizing at the weekends (Fridays and Saturdays) Musikalischen Abend with the financial support of the State of Brandenburg for third age audience. At this time I had I quite big house and in the living room were taking place the musical evenings. They weren't only old people but also younger (their sons, daughters etc...) who were coming. In Germany, as is well known, we have some musical education. I can directly compare us with the Russians and the Austrians. I mean that you can see a Hausfrau who listens Beethoven while she is cooking or a construction worker who is doing his job enjoying Schumann. Ok... The Russians have no Opponent in this field (reading Pasternak while you are waiting the bus for the Fabrik or everywhere listen a piano playing classic music) but I want to say that we are not completely dead culturally. I was playing Chopin (the Nocturnes) and Beethoven (some popular sonatas) at the beginning. After 2 or 3 weeks, a public servant called me and told me (I was paying for these events) that the people loved the Chopin and wanted MORE of him. Indirectly told me to take Beethoven out of the programm.  I did it. I started instead to play some Debussy (the Clair de Lune) some Liszt (The Years of Pilgrimage) etc... I was understanding their acceptance (or not) from the applause. What I notice after months was that most demanding pieces (acoustically) had not their acceptance. The 1st Soneto was perfect. The 3rd not so good for them! They wanted melody, tempo, bravura, feeling, romance in high portions. I fulfilled my contract (was for one year) and I stopped to play for them. I was not disappointed but also I was not elated. And I had played so many Nocturnes, that I was ready to excommunicate Frederick and his music :lol:

Two years after I was in Tel Aviv in Murray Perahia Institut to watch a masterclass. Murray was there teaching and playing Bach. When he was teaching, was very traditional. Like Andras, who was also there. (they are best friends) When he was to perform Bach he was quite liberal in comparison with Schiff. I can say that I enjoyed his Bach more than the one of Andras. At the last day of the event I had the chance to ask him for this metamorphose. He answered me that the purpose of the institute is to bring new people close to classic music and it is better to compromise a little, for a good reason.

We are trying to keep alive one of the last Bastions of human civilization: The classic music. This is exactly what you (we) are doing here. They are ways to make this easier (Chopin) or more difficult (Boulez) As you said, YES! there is audience for the music of Pierre. There is also audience for the music of Rach. I want to be with the second one. Not only because I like more his music, but mainly because I believe that this way I support better my intentions for a widely known and accepted classical music. Because, that for sure, after one year, maybe I will be Boulez's fan (if I occupy every day with his music) The old guys came to listen my music, the new (and young) audience wants to make a beginning with the classic music, I don't believe it has the time, the discipline or the appetite to do this.

Thanks, again, for your nice comments! It a pleasure to talk with you (you) dear friend(s)


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## Manxfeeder

Dimace said:


> We are trying to keep alive one of the last Bastions of human civilization: The classic music.


My feeling is, everyone likes classical music; they just don't know it yet. Sometimes they just have to have the right exposure in the right context.

I remember the first day of my music history class, I was sitting behind a long-haired rocker. The professor played Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. He explained the piece so clearly and convincingly that the rocker turned to his friend and commented, "Why am I wasting my time with rock music?"


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## Gallus

I don't think anyone believes that we should stop all recitals of Chopin and Clair de Lune in order to play only Boulez and other serialist works. (I mean okay, that's actually what the serialists might have believed in the 50s but we're all wiser now.) The point is that Boulez's piano works can have a space in the repertoire alongside Chopin and Rachmaninoff (and Haydn, Scarlatti, Byrd etc.) without risking the popularity of the classical tradition as a whole. For one thing, in my experience it's not fair to say that the only way for people to get into classical music is to listen to melodic, Romantic works: in fact I know trendy young hipsters who listen to experimental electronic and noise music who find Webern more attractive than Mozart, and among the young trained musicians/music students I've hung out with Boulez is (if not a favourite) liked more than disliked and no more controversial than Mahler. To me his work is important enough to have its niche.


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## Jacck

I read that there was a competition between Boulez and Dutilleux who is the master of French avant-garde music. In comparison to Boulez, Dutilleux is almost conservative, tonal, continuing the tradition of Debussy and Ravel. Dutilleux sonata for comparison with the Boulez sonata




personally, I think they are both great in their own unique ways.


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## millionrainbows

Perhaps the Boulez nay-sayers are wise in their rejection of his music; after all, according to Paul Griffiths in his _Modern Music and After,_ the "violence" in Boulez' work is "not just superficial rhetoric but symptomatic of a whole aesthetic of annihilation, and especially of a need to demolish what had gone before."

To quote Boulez: "History as it is made by great composers is not a history of conservation but of destruction - even while cherishing what has been destroyed."

This destructive element is apparent in the music itself, where Boulez, In Griffith's words, "piles up rhythmic cells so that they obliterate one another" and "presses his proliferating serial method so hard that any unifying power in the basic interval shapes is threatened."

This is the opposite of Milton Babbit's approach, which seeks to find a _unity _between the elements of pitch, rhythm, duration, and timbre. 
According to Griffiths, Babbitt was concerned with "embodying the extensions, generalizations, and fusions of certain techniques of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, and above all with applying the _pitch_ operations of the twelve-tone system to non-pitch elements: durational rhythm, phrase rhythm, timbre, and register in such a manner as to _preserve the most significant properties associated with these operations in the pitch domain when they are applied in these other domains._ This implies a search for _congruence _among the organizational means used for the different parameters rather than for _separation and conflict._ This is the fundamental division between Babbitt and Boulez."

Boulez' Sonatina for Flute and Piano (1946) is an early work which demonstrates this creative violence in Boulez' music.


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## Sid James

Dimace said:


> It is EXTREMELY difficult for a *classical* pianist to perform such works. And if he succeeded one day, believe me, the result will NOT be good. It is so disappointing, when you compare your performance with an other one, which is accepted as good, to realize that what you have played is behind the standards and, here is the problem, you don't know why. When we, the pianists, listen the Horowitz or the Cherkassky, we immediately understand what went wrong with (this is an example) Mozarts Sonata in B KV 333. How we can learn (leave the performance aside for the moment) something without knowing how it is generally works? For this reason (this music is generally unknown) this kind of works have found very few big pianists to study and perform them. Sokolov, Barenboim, Schiff, Perahia, etc... They take no risks. Imagine after a Rachmaninows Prelude (extreme melodic) to listen the Notations of Boulez. The audience will eat you alive, or they leave you to play alone for your self. So, this Kind of music (Boulez's) is a SPECIAL MUSIC, for s SPECIAL AUDIENCE under SPECIAL SIRCUMSTANCES. It is a blessing that in our company in this great Forum, we have such an audience!  My opinion is that you must know the HELL of a music to understand such works. I don't know so much music, it is somehow late to learn it, but I can TRY with a lot of respect to understand it.


You're right, a pianist is an extremely exposed situation as a performer. The pressure of delivering performance of the most complex music is completely on one individual. Added time needed for practice, and to deliver music which is not readily gratifying for his or her audience also falls on the one individual rather than many.

I found a couple of interviews with Claudio Arrau but failed to locate the one I remember him emphatically ruling out playing Boulez due to his audience not tolerating it. These are both from 1983, whereas the one I read was from the late 1980's. By that late in his career he was reflecting on the reasons why he made certain decisions in the past.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/20/arts/claudio-arrau-at-80-the-years-have-deepened-his-art.html

_Mr. Arrau says he plans to record Busoni's elaborate ''Fantasia contrappuntistica'' and also Schoenberg's Concerto and solo literature, but why do we associate his name so little with contemporary music? ''I have played it all my life,'' he replied. ''I gave the first performance of the Prokofiev Third Concerto in Mexico, and I was one of the first to play the Stravinsky Capriccio. I love the Ives Sonata, and I am always looking at Stockhausen and Cage. I would love to play the Boulez Second Sonata, but I would not have time to memorize it, given my other commitments. I do not feel I can properly interpret any piece if I have to look at the music._

https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0728/072835.html

_Although he once played Schonberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Copland, and other contemporary composers, he has long stayed away from modern music.

''It had to do with . . . what audiences were ready to hear,'' he says. ''I'm thinking of (Pierre) Boulez, (Karlheinz) Stockhausen, and (Luciano) Berio. I do not say that I will play them yet, but I'd like to.''

His favorite composer, however, is ''whoever I am playing at the moment.''_


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## arpeggio

I was concerned because some members felt that my moderate submissions were killing the thread. I am glad to see that this is not true and that the discussion is still going on. Most of the posts are very enlightening. If you think I am full of it just ignore me.


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## Enthusiast

^^ I am not sure what feedback you have had or from who but I find your posts mild, mature and positive. There are people who post opinions far more strongly (I mean as if they are facts), or who seem to want to pick fights or who keep repeating the same things ad nauseam ... and so on - you are not among them. I am surprised by your post!


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## larold

_This conversation is fruitless because we simply think completely differently. What seems obvious to me seems ludicrous to you, and vice versa._

My point was not whether you or I think alike or differently or any judgment about our varied opinions. My point was people that are experts in classical music, that listen to everything there is, don't consider Boulez to be in the front rank of composers. I could cite more examples of this going back to the 1950s.

Here is one from Warren DeMotte whose book "The LP/Stereo Record Guide and Tape Review" came out 1955. It included one listing -- Le Marteau sans Maitre on Columbia ML-5275.

"The title may be translated as _The Hammer Without A Master_, and the piece is scored for alto and six instruments," DeMotte wrote. "Margery McKay sings with conviction and the players are obviously skilled. The composition is in nine movements, totaling about a half-hour of complex sound, for this is not music in the traditional sense. The excellent recording gives the work full opportunity to prove itself."

I didn't note opinions on Boulez changed much over time in these kinds of periodicals right up to this century. Boulez was considered a contemporary composer who wrote a few masterpieces and not a particularly beloved figure in music or one that set masses on fire to hear his works. He was clearly part of a movement from mid-to-late 20th century that created some fans and infuriated others.

I thought he made far greater inroads to audiences later in his career through his conducting than composing, especially when he began to record music not associated with him such as Bruckner.

Most people that listen to classical music, however, ignored his music. He is clearly more talked about than listened to.


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## Enthusiast

larold said:


> _This conversation is fruitless because we simply think completely differently. What seems obvious to me seems ludicrous to you, and vice versa._
> 
> My point was not whether you or I think alike or differently or any judgment about our varied opinions. My point was people that are experts in classical music, that listen to everything there is, don't consider Boulez to be in the front rank of composers. I could cite more examples of this going back to the 1950s.


Choose your "experts" and others can choose theirs. Really, you will find all sorts of views in a group of musicians and there are certainly very many who have extremely conservative tastes. This was obvious when the HIP movement was just starting. I knew many musicians at that time and most of them thought that the movement had no value or interest at all. I don't suppose so many would think that now ... but that is conservatism - slow to adopt and trust the new. A justifiable position - as is its opposite - but hardly reliable as a way or deciding anything.


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## Mandryka

Do you think it's true that "this [Le Marteau sans maître] is not music in the traditional sense?"


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## larold

_Perhaps the Boulez nay-sayers are wise in their rejection of his music; after all, according to Paul Griffiths in his Modern Music and After, the "violence" in Boulez' work is "not just superficial rhetoric but symptomatic of a whole aesthetic of annihilation, and especially of a need to demolish what had gone before." _

You can't blame Boulez for violence after what he hear in Shostakovich that is routinely termed genius. The two surely had differing aesthetics -- Boulez part of a movement of a particular sound world and Shostakovich writing music that represented to him the violence of his own world -- but violence is clearly in both.

It is fairly common in a lot of music after the Second Viennese School, I think, and even before. Heck, some people thought the 1812 Overture and Wellington's Victory glorified violence in the Romantic century.

Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps is full of violence even though it is dance music. Some people think the latter Tchaikovsky symphonies, and especially the Pathetique, represent violence. Ditto Ralph Vaughan Williams 4th symphony which the composer himself said was about human conflict.

As to the need to demolish what went before -- that was one of the great criticisms of both Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony and a lot of Debussy when it arrived, that they sought to destroy the history of music leading up to them.

I read somewhere a contemporary of Debussy, a conservatory professor, saying anyone that played Debussy and continued to perpetrate the fraud would be thrown out of school immediately with no recourse.

But I agree that element in Boulez puts me off. It's not only him. It always strikes me when friends tell me what a masterpiece is Carl Ruggles' Sun-Treader; whenever I hear it I hear 16 and a half minutes of unaltered high pitched shrieking, an interminable wail.

There is some avant-garde or serialism I can enjoy but not those two.


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## larold

_Do you think it's true that "this [Le Marteau sans maître] is not music in the traditional sense?" _

I think that was probably true in 1955. Considering what we have gone through since then it may be considered more baseline. In any case it was (is) without melody which many people consider essential in music.

Serialism can't have melody because all the notes and tones are considered equal and should all be played before repeating them. Or, as Stockhauzen said:

"...serial thinking is something that's come into our consciousness and will be there forever: it's relativity and nothing else. It just says: Use all the components of any given number of elements, don't leave out individual elements, use them all with equal importance and try to find an equidistant scale so that certain steps are no larger than others. It's a spiritual and democratic attitude toward the world. The stars are organized in a serial way. Whenever you look at a certain star sign you find a limited number of elements with different intervals. If we more thoroughly studied the distances and proportions of the stars we'd probably find certain relationships of multiples based on some logarithmic scale or whatever the scale may be."


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## Dimace

Sid James said:


> You're right, a pianist is an extremely exposed situation as a performer. The pressure of delivering performance of the most complex music is completely on one individual. Added time needed for practice, and to deliver music which is not readily gratifying for his or her audience also falls on the one individual rather than many.
> 
> I found a couple of interviews with Claudio Arrau but failed to locate the one I remember him emphatically ruling out playing Boulez due to his audience not tolerating it. These are both from 1983, whereas the one I read was from the late 1980's. By that late in his career he was reflecting on the reasons why he made certain decisions in the past.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/20/arts/claudio-arrau-at-80-the-years-have-deepened-his-art.html
> 
> _Mr. Arrau says he plans to record Busoni's elaborate ''Fantasia contrappuntistica'' and also Schoenberg's Concerto and solo literature, but why do we associate his name so little with contemporary music? ''I have played it all my life,'' he replied. ''I gave the first performance of the Prokofiev Third Concerto in Mexico, and I was one of the first to play the Stravinsky Capriccio. I love the Ives Sonata, and I am always looking at Stockhausen and Cage. I would love to play the Boulez Second Sonata, but I would not have time to memorize it, given my other commitments. I do not feel I can properly interpret any piece if I have to look at the music._
> 
> https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0728/072835.html
> 
> _Although he once played Schonberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Copland, and other contemporary composers, he has long stayed away from modern music.
> 
> ''It had to do with . . . what audiences were ready to hear,'' he says. ''I'm thinking of (Pierre) Boulez, (Karlheinz) Stockhausen, and (Luciano) Berio. I do not say that I will play them yet, but I'd like to.''
> 
> His favorite composer, however, is ''whoever I am playing at the moment.''_


Excellent post! I didn't know about Arrau and his denial, but, to be honest, to (metaphoric) ''destroy'' your fingers attempting something so difficult isn't the best option for a piano player. Surely, I want also to learn to play modern music. I would like to have in my repertoire some modern composers, just in case. But what I like to do and what I'm doing are two different things...


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## Larkenfield




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## larold

_Choose your "experts" and others can choose theirs. Really, you will find all sorts of views in a group of musicians and there are certainly very many who have extremely conservative tastes._

I hear this all the time: the experts aren't really expert. I'd be curious to read some you cite from musicological guides that have a different worldview.


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## Mandryka

larold said:


> _Choose your "experts" and others can choose theirs. Really, you will find all sorts of views in a group of musicians and there are certainly very many who have extremely conservative tastes._
> 
> I hear this all the time: the experts aren't really expert. I'd be curious to read some you cite from musicological guides that have a different worldview.


I think Stravinsky appreciated Le Marteau, and Walter Benjamin. They don't have the same stature as Warren DeMotte.



larold said:


> _Do you think it's true that "this [Le Marteau sans maître] is not music in the traditional sense?" _
> 
> I think that was probably true in 1955. Considering what we have gone through since then it may be considered more baseline.


_Pierrot Lunaire_ is something to think about in this respect, and maybe some of Webern's music -- the cantatas and songs. There's also _Le Temps restitué_ (Jean Barraqué), I bet that Boulez and Barraqué were aware of each others work, they were both in the same place at the same time as it were.

Years ago millionrainbows put me on to a recording of Webern lieder with Dorothy Dorow and I never thanked him. Better late than never -- it's very good.

The idea that it's not music seems to me hard to defend, in 1955 and in 2018.


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## Larkenfield

Mandryka said:


> I think Stravinsky appreciated Le Marteau...


Yes, Stravinsky enthusiastically praised _Le Marteau_ as "a new and wonderfully supple kind of music."






It suggests to me a beautifully organized, colorfully orchestrated chaos... I also hear the bird-like influence of Olivier Messiaen that Boulez didn't always speak kindly of, an ironic contradiction or ambivalence that he was sometimes known for. So I don't see this work as entirely original but as an accumulation of influences that he vividly put together and was highly influential at the time in the mid-1950s and which attracted a great of interest, including by Stravinsky. In addition to its vivid instrumental colors, it often has a great rhythmic pulse.


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## Enthusiast

larold said:


> _Choose your "experts" and others can choose theirs. Really, you will find all sorts of views in a group of musicians and there are certainly very many who have extremely conservative tastes._
> 
> I hear this all the time: the experts aren't really expert. I'd be curious to read some you cite from musicological guides that have a different worldview.


No. That is not what I am saying. Of course experts are experts. But experts in what? If something is new it is hard to say how reliable you should expect an expert to be. It is a field for specialists who cannot aspire to the reliability that we might expect from expert critics in older music. But, actually, critics often differ even on old and established composers and we tend to rely on a critical consensus for a more reliable view. It should be clear that such a consensus doesn't emerge quickly and, anyway, I think the current critical view on Boulez is that he was a great composer. So I am baffled about which experts you are relying on.


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## millionrainbows

_Perhaps the Boulez nay-sayers are wise in their rejection of his music; after all, according to Paul Griffiths in his Modern Music and After, the "violence" in Boulez' work is "not just superficial rhetoric but symptomatic of a whole aesthetic of annihilation, and especially of a need to demolish what had gone before." _



larold said:


> You can't blame Boulez for violence after what he hear in Shostakovich that is routinely termed genius. The two surely had differing aesthetics -- Boulez part of a movement of a particular sound world and Shostakovich writing music that represented to him the violence of his own world -- but violence is clearly in both.
> 
> It is fairly common in a lot of music after the Second Viennese School, I think, and even before. Heck, some people thought the 1812 Overture and Wellington's Victory glorified violence in the Romantic century.
> 
> Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps is full of violence even though it is dance music. Some people think the latter Tchaikovsky symphonies, and especially the Pathetique, represent violence. Ditto Ralph Vaughan Williams 4th symphony which the composer himself said was about human conflict.
> 
> As to the need to demolish what went before -- that was one of the great criticisms of both Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony and a lot of Debussy when it arrived, that they sought to destroy the history of music leading up to them.
> 
> I read somewhere a contemporary of Debussy, a conservatory professor, saying anyone that played Debussy and continued to perpetrate the fraud would be thrown out of school immediately with no recourse.
> 
> But I agree that element in Boulez puts me off. It's not only him. It always strikes me when friends tell me what a masterpiece is Carl Ruggles' Sun-Treader; whenever I hear it I hear 16 and a half minutes of unaltered high pitched shrieking, an interminable wail.
> 
> There is some avant-garde or serialism I can enjoy but not those two.





Mandryka said:


> Do you think it's true that "this [Le Marteau sans maître] is not music in the traditional sense?"


Those instances larold cites of "music being destroyed" seem very context-dependent, a matter of relative degree, and somewhat historically dated; at least Debussy was still using major and minor triads, scales, and other harmonic devices derived from tonality. Most listeners nowadays can listen to it with relative ease. Berlioz? ditto.

But Boulez' method of destruction of what went before seems to me to go deeper than that; he seemed to want to destroy the very aspects of music which appeal to the brain as being somehow related to spoken language: phrase structure and recognizable rhythmic coherence. Boulez criticized Schoenberg for this very thing, the use of Brahmsian and old-fashioned phrase structures. Boulez was also "wary" of the human voice. Beyond that Boulez wanted to destroy Schoenberg's innovations as well, and wanted to go far past the serial row as "theme," or even being perceptible (it probably wasn't anyway) or even evident in the score (for note-counters or row detectives). He wanted to "tear asunder" the serial, 12-note system itself, and "explode it" to fragments...and thus, destroy and dismantle the entire legacy of Western music as we knew it.

Perhaps this is the appeal of Boulez' later music; it seems non-human, with no recognizable phrase-statements, no regular or detectable rhythms, no concession to the human listener, except for pure sound events and color.


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## Resurrexit

millionrainbows said:


> Perhaps this is the appeal of Boulez' later music; it seems non-human, with no recognizable phrase-statements, no regular or detectable rhythms, no concession to the human listener, except for pure sound events and color.


And precisely what is so unappealing about it to me.


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## millionrainbows

Resurrexit said:


> And precisely what is so unappealing about it to me.


We look at other "non-human" things as being beautiful; the Grand Canyon, birds, flowers, landscape vistas, rocks, clouds, the stars; why does music have to be seen as "man- made" or as some sort of implement to serve his ego?

This is another factor in Boulez' aesthetic, and also John Cage: they both, using different methods, wanted to do away with bombast, Romanticism, gestures, statements, and all the man-made musical rhetoric which constituted the Western Classical tradition. 
It seems that in 1945, after WWII had nearly destroyed Europe, they saw the need for a reassessment of music, in its entirety.

Then the Cold War set in, and the hydrogen bomb, and this was further confirmation and impetus for composers like Boulez, Cage, and Stockhausen to continue on, away from the traditional ways.

Perhaps this music is "unappealing" to those whose enjoyment revolves around a central heroic notion of Man, a celebration of his accomplishments, and desires.

In other words, traditional music is the manifest Man-made "world" of situations, ideas, characters, identities, and events; the worlds of recognizable and relatable forms; Boulez' music comes from the unmanifest and formless, where none of that matters, even Man (or rather, what Man "thinks" he is).

If it does not appeal to "you," you should drop your expectations, and detach "yourself" from it as you listen. Simply listen, without judgment or expectation. Observe the sounds. The more you do this, the more you will grasp, even if only for a few seconds at a time. Gradually, you will come to understand this music.


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## Larkenfield

”It seems that in 1945, after WWII had nearly destroyed Europe, they saw the need for a reassessment of music, in its entirety.” MR.

I see this as being profoundly true after the failure of civilization and the debacle of the War. I believe there were artists who looked at what had happened and what they thought worth preserving of the more traditional past after that catastrophe, and it wasn’t much. As an illustration, the Nazis were steeped in many of the classics and attended concerts regularly and they were the instigators of this catastrophic war that led to the deaths of, as some estimate, 50 million people. What could have been a bigger failure than that? Let’s sweep all the carnage away and start over fresh at Ground Zero. 

Boulez was young, energetic, idealistic, innovative, and a brilliant intellectual bright enough to confront just about anyone on the necessity of change. He also had extremely high standards of performance, perhaps the product of the subtleties the French are known for, and those standards also served him well in the conducting that he seemed to have a genius to articulate. His Mahler was a breath of fresh air, not without feeling, and extremely well done. He interpreted Mahler as forward-looking, not as a neurotic stuck on his past. Refreshing.


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## millionrainbows




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## Jacck

millionrainbows said:


> Perhaps this is the appeal of Boulez' later music; it seems non-human, with no recognizable phrase-statements, no regular or detectable rhythms, no concession to the human listener, except for pure sound events and color.


this was exactly my feeling as I listened to Boulez a couple of days ago. I had a revelation/insight into his music as I lsitened to his 2nd sonata. He is trying to compose music that has no recognizable patterns, that sounds unpredictable. That is why his music sounds like a random noise sometimes. Still, it cannot be pure noise/randomness, otherwise we would not be able to call it music at all. But I do not know what the patterns/structure are.


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## Larkenfield

millionrainbows said:


>


 The ultimate blast. Terrible. The destiny of the world has been under a mushroom cloud ever since the first one went off. I may never eat another 'shroom again.


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## larold

_I think the current critical view on Boulez is that he was a great composer. So I am baffled about which experts you are relying on. _

This is what I've been saying: you think one thing, experts don't necessarily agree.

Looked at another way I think it can be argued fairly that any mention in a musicological guide that covers Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and everyone else -- any mention -- suggests a composer is worthy of note in their field.

Yet the duration of Boulez's mention -- the number of works discussed and the things said about them -- suggests he is on a relatively equal plane with contemporaries such as Rautavaara and John Tavener.

Would you also say the latter composers are perceived as being great? If not, is there a difference other than you like one and not the others?


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## Mandryka

millionrainbows said:


> _
> Perhaps this is the appeal of Boulez' later music; it seems non-human, with no recognizable phrase-statements, no regular or detectable rhythms, no concession to the human listener, except for pure sound events and color._


_

As I type now I'm listening to Derive 1 and there are indeed recognizable phrase-statements and rhythms. There's even a rather memorable melody which is repeated and varied. That's mid 1980s. I'd say the same for the Rituel. Phrase structure is less obvious in Derive 2 (though I think there's a pulse if not a rhythm) but I'm not sure what I'm listening to (wiki says "1988; revised 2002; expanded and completed 2006") -- I'd like to hear the 1988 version. Maybe, I'm not sure but maybe, what you're referring too was a very late development, a final phase.

(I just found the 1988 Derive 2 on youtube and I think what I'm saying may well be right, I think there is a phrase structure, a pulse -- it's too late to think about it now here!)_


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## Phil loves classical

I think Boulez was a great arranger of music. But I don't think he is a great actual composer. Using mathematical functions to generate musical material is not really composing to me.


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## Sid James

Dimace said:


> Excellent post! I didn't know about Arrau and his denial, but, to be honest, to (metaphoric) ''destroy'' your fingers attempting something so difficult isn't the best option for a piano player. Surely, I want also to learn to play modern music. *I would like to have in my repertoire some modern composers, just in case. But what I like to do and what I'm doing are two different things...*


You're being pragmatic and it's the same for someone like Arrau, or Boulez for that matter.

Boulez started conducting to ensure better performances of his own music. We all know what happened next, it was the start of a significant part of his career in music, alongside theory and composition.

Despite theory and ideology, in the end it's the practicalities which make the substantive difference for any musician. In Boulez's case, all these factors came together for him to be able to do what he wanted, become influential on the classical music scene and build up a legacy.


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## Dimace

Larkenfield said:


> "It seems that in 1945, after WWII had nearly destroyed Europe, they saw the need for a reassessment of music, in its entirety." MR.
> 
> I think this is profoundly true after the failure of civilization in the debacle of the War. I think a lot of the artists looked at what had happened and what they thought worth preserving of the more traditional past after that catastrophe, and it wasn't much. As an illustration, the Nazis were steeped in many of the classics and attended concerts regularly, and they were the instigators of this catastrophic war that led to the deaths of, as some estimate, *70 million people.* What could have been a bigger failure than that? Let's sweep all the carnage away and start over fresh at Ground Zero.
> 
> Boulez was young, energetic, idealistic, innovative, and a brilliant intellectual bright enough to confront just about anyone on the necessity of change. He also had extremely high standards of performance, perhaps the product of the subtleties the French are known for, and those standards served him well in the conducting that he seemed to have a genius to articulate. His Mahler was a breath of fresh air, not without feeling, and extremely well done. He interprets Mahler as forward-looking, not as a neurotic stuck on his past. Refreshing.


Small correction to your excellent post. The big carnage happened from the Japs... And after from us… The commies made also their job. FFF it!  1000 time better ALL the music of the world to be Boulez and Xenakis and to have peace than to have Wagner, Strauß, Schostakowitsch, Prokofiev, Hanson, Copland etc. and war. Thanks for the post my friend.


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## Gallus

Larkenfield said:


> "It seems that in 1945, after WWII had nearly destroyed Europe, they saw the need for a reassessment of music, in its entirety." MR.
> 
> I think this is profoundly true after the failure of civilization in the debacle of the War. I think a lot of the artists looked at what had happened and what they thought worth preserving of the more traditional past after that catastrophe, and it wasn't much. As an illustration, the Nazis were steeped in many of the classics and attended concerts regularly, and they were the instigators of this catastrophic war that led to the deaths of, as some estimate, 50 million people. What could have been a bigger failure than that? Let's sweep all the carnage away and start over fresh at Ground Zero.
> 
> Boulez was young, energetic, idealistic, innovative, and a brilliant intellectual bright enough to confront just about anyone on the necessity of change. He also had extremely high standards of performance, perhaps the product of the subtleties the French are known for, and those standards also served him well in the conducting that he seemed to have a genius to articulate. His Mahler was a breath of fresh air, not without feeling, and extremely well done. He interpreted Mahler as forward-looking, not as a neurotic stuck on his past. Refreshing.


I think this is very important to note as historical context for why the postwar serialists were doing what they were doing. Related to this is that the German-Romantic tradition had been to some extent 'tainted' post-WW2: Strauss had refused to leave Germany, Karajan was a Nazi Party member, Böhm had praised Hitler, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf had performed to SS soldiers on the Eastern Front...this is not to say that all of those people made objectively verboten moral decisions considering the circumstances, but it explains why people such as Adorno were evangelists for the twelve-tone method (and hated Sibelius etc.), as they saw it as a strike against the degenerated nationalist-Romanticist culture of Europe which had ended in the self-immolation of two World Wars. Indeed I think this was also behind Stravinsky's neoclassical turn after the First World War, and the direction of the Second Viennese School even before the World Wars, building on a feeling widely felt among the intellectual middle class of the time that the classical-Romantic European civilisation erected over the course of the 19th century had become frivolous and petty, and that a general cleansing was needed to restore art and society to health.

This is of course not to *aesthetically justify* Boulez or the post-war serialists or anyone else, but to help explain what (I think) their goals might have been as artists, so that their work can be judged in the proper context.


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## Sid James

.......................


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## Red Terror

Phil loves classical said:


> I think Boulez was a great arranger of music. But I don't think he is a great actual composer. Using mathematical functions to generate musical material is not really composing to me.


Boulez used mathematics as tool for composition-exactly how does that preclude him from being a real composer?


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## Woodduck

There have been several posts in the last couple of pages describing the music of Boulez and other "modernists" in terms of what these composers were against and sought to oppose or destroy. Boulez himself was quite explicit in his negativity, notorious for making statements hostile to the cultural tradition. It would seem, then, that both he and the contributors here are asking us to understand his art as a negation. But isn't that an odd basis for a creative vision? When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?

I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. That alone may justify it. But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


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## Guest

Resurrexit said:


> And precisely what is so unappealing about it to me.


And, for me, it's this element which is unappealing in Beethoven's music. I'm yet to discover what's so 'inhuman' about Boulez's music. Perhaps one day I will understand what it is and learn to find it unappealing like many do. In the meantime, I'll enjoy it.


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## Jacck

at least I have something positive to say. I think I finally "got" Boulez and started to really enjoy his music. I listened to Répons yesterday and it was great. The difference between the traditional and the modern music could almost be likened to the classical physics and quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanics requires a completely new attidute to thinking about reality, likewise this modern music requires a completely different way to think and listen to this music. I am glad that I can enjoy both worlds, and am not limited to either the modern or the classical.


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## Enthusiast

larold said:


> Yet the duration of Boulez's mention -- the number of works discussed and the things said about them -- suggests he is on a relatively equal plane with contemporaries such as Rautavaara and John Tavener.
> 
> Would you also say the latter composers are perceived as being great? If not, is there a difference other than you like one and not the others?


Boulez seems not to have been prolific and often seems to have occupied his compositional time developing works that he had already composed. So a mention as long as that for more prolific composers is actually a longer mention. But as far as musicology and criticism goes, with recent music there is not yet a consensus on who was "important" and who less so. So, yes, if you only want to listen to music that will last and that is for posterity than no-one *knows *whether that will be Boulez or Rautavaara ... or neither or both. But I do think both have been around long enough for us to have a fair idea (Boulez will be seen as great, Rautavaara as very good). Perhaps I am wrong but I won't be around to witness it.


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> at least I have something positive to say. I think I finally "got" Boulez and started to really enjoy his music. I listened to Répons yesterday and it was great. The difference between the traditional and the modern music could almost be likened to the classical physics and quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanics requires a completely new attidute to thinking about reality, likewise this modern music requires a completely different way to think and listen to this music. I am glad that I can enjoy both worlds, and am not limited to either the modern or the classical.


That's a cool analogy; I can see how it works. And I'm glad you enjoy that piece! In some parts I find it really dense, but the _energy_ of the music-to me-is especially appealing in the denser passages.


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## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> Boulez seems not to have been prolific and often seems to have occupied his compositional time developing works that he had already composed. So a mention as long as that for more prolific composers is actually a longer mention. But as far as musicology and criticism goes, with recent music there is not yet a consensus on who was "important" and who less so. So, yes, if you only want to listen to music that will last and that is for posterity than no-one *knows *whether that will be Boulez or Rautavaara ... or neither or both. But I do think both have been around long enough for us to have a fair idea (Boulez will be seen as great, Rautavaara as very good). Perhaps I am wrong but I won't be around to witness it.


I think what marks this era as different from previous eras is that we have recorded audio documents of so much music. Boulez and Rautavaara will be remembered that's for sure, but they will be remembered in a different way than Telemann and Handel who, for most of history, had to rely on repeat performances. There's nothing stopping me from listening to Répons or Cantus Arcticus on repeat for hours on end, and for some people in the world they will have enough interest in these composers to do that also. The power to remember and preserve the music of composers in the era of CDs and streaming is more reliant on people who simply like to listen to it than ever before. My best prediction is this: because taste is so diverse, there will always be fans of every recorded composer, and therefore there will always be listeners for every recorded composer. The proportion of listeners that any composer has is irrelevant because no two people will have exactly the same taste in music or the same listening habits. Although no one composer can have a true majority of listeners, we might still perceive that some composers are more prominent just because they are talked about a lot. Boulez is talked about a lot, for example.


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## Mandryka

Woodduck said:


> There have been several posts in the last couple of pages describing the music of Boulez and other "modernists" in terms of what these composers were against and sought to oppose or destroy. Boulez himself was quite explicit in his negativity, notorious for making statements hostile to the cultural tradition. It would seem, then, that both he and the contributors here are asking us to understand his art as a negation. But isn't that an odd basis for a creative vision? When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?
> 
> I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. That alone may justify it. But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


One thing I am 100% sure about, is that some of Boulez's music probes my spirit!

Maybe you could say a little bit more about how, exactly, his music "sweeps away" the past, I think that could make an interesting contribution to the discussion. My impression is that there's a good deal in common -- polyphony, antiphon and response, pitches, harmonies, rhythms, timbres, theatricality and ritual, but maybe at some other level there is a break with past western art music.

Can you give me an example (with justification) of a musician who, through their instrumental work, found things to say about the times they lived in?


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## Mandryka

Re Boulez's relation to other composers, listen to Structures 1a and Messiaen's second etude, I think there must have been an influence











In Structures 1a I do have the feeling of violent and random music surrounding less volatile music in the lower registers, this is like what happens in ancient polyphonic music with a _cantus firmus_.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> There have been several posts in the last couple of pages describing the music of Boulez and other "modernists" in terms of what these composers were against and sought to oppose or destroy. Boulez himself was quite explicit in his negativity, notorious for making statements hostile to the cultural tradition. It would seem, then, that both he and the contributors here are asking us to understand his art as a negation. But isn't that an odd basis for a creative vision? When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?
> 
> I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. That alone may justify it. But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


I think perhaps you are reading too much into it....although you bring up statements hostile to cultural tradition, so I'm not really sure exactly what the importance of that is, if he really made and stood by statements that are hostile to any cultural tradition.


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## Jacck

Pierre Boulez Picks 10 Great Works of the 20th Century
https://www.newsounds.org/story/10-great-works-20th-century-pierre-boulezs-90th-birthday/
that egomaniac had the guts to picks himself :lol:


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## Enthusiast

shirime said:


> I think what marks this era as different from previous eras is that we have recorded audio documents of so much music. Boulez and Rautavaara will be remembered that's for sure, but they will be remembered in a different way than Telemann and Handel who, for most of history, had to rely on repeat performances. There's nothing stopping me from listening to Répons or Cantus Arcticus on repeat for hours on end, and for some people in the world they will have enough interest in these composers to do that also. The power to remember and preserve the music of composers in the era of CDs and streaming is more reliant on people who simply like to listen to it than ever before. My best prediction is this: because taste is so diverse, there will always be fans of every recorded composer, and therefore there will always be listeners for every recorded composer. The proportion of listeners that any composer has is irrelevant because no two people will have exactly the same taste in music or the same listening habits. Although no one composer can have a true majority of listeners, we might still perceive that some composers are more prominent just because they are talked about a lot. Boulez is talked about a lot, for example.


Mmm. But I do think that some music that finds an appreciative audience today will not really find it tomorrow. My go to example is the Foulds World Requiem. Now I like quite a lot of Foulds' music but this piece which was heard as a great masterpiece in its time seems now to be almost an embarrassment. There is, I think, some history of some (but certainly not all) "easier" contemporary music being loved when it is fresh and then, some decades later, being widely heard as empty or overblown. Of course, some people still search out the rejected and want to resurrect it but that is not quite the same thing ...


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## Enthusiast

Woodduck said:


> There have been several posts in the last couple of pages describing the music of Boulez and other "modernists" in terms of what these composers were against and sought to oppose or destroy. Boulez himself was quite explicit in his negativity, notorious for making statements hostile to the cultural tradition. It would seem, then, that both he and the contributors here are asking us to understand his art as a negation. But isn't that an odd basis for a creative vision? When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?
> 
> I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. _*I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. *_That alone may justify it. But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


Others have commented on this but I guess I wanted to ask whether we know a composer by his words or by his music? And aside from this I also wanted to ask whether words taken out of context can really tell us that much. And, finally, I wondered whether, even if he did mean the words in the way you suggest (and I do not think he did) and even if he meant them throughout his career (which he clearly didn't, would that mean we have to take sides "with him and against all the music of tradition" or vice versa? Surely, an understanding of post-WW2 art includes a recognition that this was a time when artists rubbishing their forebears and contemporaries came to a head. We may lack sympathy with that aspect of the time but it is what it was!

You say that there has never been a time when an artist's purpose in producing art was to wash away the art of the past but really that seems a very strange way of describing what Boulez's composing was about. I do not believe that a proper reading of his words adds up to that intention and I certainly do not hear that intention in his music. The sentence of yours that I have highlighted seems to be an attempt to construct a straw man. It tries to pin down and limit the appeal and purpose of the music and arrives at a description that I do not recognise. I am not sure he swept away the past (even in his own music) as I hear the past's influence in much of what he wrote - he certainly belongs to the tradition to me - and if you find his music empty there are many here who do not.


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> As I type now I'm listening to _Derive 1 _and there are indeed recognizable phrase-statements and rhythms. There's even a rather memorable melody which is repeated and varied. That's mid 1980s. I'd say the same for the _Rituel_. Phrase structure is less obvious in _Derive 2 _(though I think there's a pulse if not a rhythm) but I'm not sure what I'm listening to (wiki says "1988; revised 2002; expanded and completed 2006") -- I'd like to hear the 1988 version. Maybe, I'm not sure but maybe, what you're referring too was a very late development, a final phase.
> 
> (I just found the 1988 _Derive 2_ on youtube and I think what I'm saying may well be right, I think there is a phrase structure, a pulse -- it's too late to think about it now here!)


Yes, I agree; maybe my description was too exaggerated. I was listening to ...explosante-fixe... and I was hearing more intelligible music than I expected from Boulez. Maybe the description I was giving was more true of early works like Structures (which he considered a failure or experiment).

I may have been exaggerating for the sake of the "non-believers", for whom this exaggeration might just have well been accurate. In a book on fractals, there was a photograph of some trees, and it said that in the apparent chaos or formlessness of these types of patterns in nature, that there is nonetheless a rational underpinning, which can now be simulated by computers (for animation purposes, etc.) which can be used to mathematically generate similar patterns, which appear to be chaotic, but are not.

Maybe this is indicative that Man has "outgrown" the obvious, and is ready to delve into things which are beyond him. If so, then Boulez was prophetic...


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## millionrainbows

Phil loves classical said:


> I think Boulez was a great arranger of music. But I don't think he is a great actual composer. Using mathematical functions to generate musical material is not really composing to me.


...but I'll bet you would accept the results of mathematical functions if they were used to generate images in a computer animated landscape or cartoon-movie. I think it's a matter of what we expect music to be, and how we view art as being "utilitarian" in serving our needs as listeners.

You seem to be equating "composing" with a sort of predictable outcome under the control of the composer.

Boulez (and Cage) were both, to a degree, trying to escape the notion of "control" in their art; and Boulez, with his rejection of Schoenbergian methods and the residual classicism and phrasing, seems to have modified whatever "rules" were in play to suit his own needs, in order to create what most here agree to be "beautiful" music. I think he succeeded.

This "non-utilitarian" aspect of Boulez' music is one of the aspects of Boulez' music that I consider "sacred" in nature. It recognizes that "Man" and his nature is not the end-all purpose of art; art must embody Man, but only as it points further, to the "sacred." Art is a reflection of something much larger. Perhaps this is why Mandryka, whose main interest seems to be sacred vocal music, seems to like it.


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## millionrainbows

Gallus said:


> I think this is very important to note as historical context for why the postwar serialists were doing what they were doing. Related to this is that the German-Romantic tradition had been to some extent 'tainted' post-WW2: Strauss had refused to leave Germany, Karajan was a Nazi Party member, Böhm had praised Hitler, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf had performed to SS soldiers on the Eastern Front...this is not to say that all of those people made objectively verboten moral decisions considering the circumstances, but it explains why people such as Adorno were evangelists for the twelve-tone method (and hated Sibelius etc.), as they saw it as a strike against the degenerated nationalist-Romanticist culture of Europe which had ended in the self-immolation of two World Wars. Indeed I think this was also behind Stravinsky's neoclassical turn after the First World War, and the direction of the Second Viennese School even before the World Wars, building on a feeling widely felt among the intellectual middle class of the time that the classical-Romantic European civilisation erected over the course of the 19th century had become frivolous and petty, and that a general cleansing was needed to restore art and society to health.
> 
> This is of course not to *aesthetically justify* Boulez or the post-war serialists or anyone else, but to help explain what (I think) their goals might have been as artists, so that their work can be judged in the proper context.


That's an excellent observation, and is congruent with what Paul Griffiths was saying in his book, which is where I'm getting this idea from. Even if we don't agree with the post-war serialists, or their music, this was their impetus.


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## Mandryka

My impression is that Boulez’s motivations were very positive. 


It’s more rich than the stupid caricature of someone who hated romanticism because of Hitler, and who wanted to just “sweep away” all the jewels of western culture! That’s absurd, it’s a disingenuous attempt to paint Boulez as a boor and an idiot, when in fact he was a sensitive and humane artist. It doesn’t do justice to what he said in his more intimate writings (for example the correspondence with Stockhausen), or, more importantly, to what the actual music tells us about the man and his values.


He liked the freshness of Jeux, the way the music seemed to be free from a formal straightjacket, to be undergoing a constant process of creating itself; he enjoyed exploring chance; he wanted to capture some of the spirit of Mallarmé, Char, and Joyce even into his music projects. He loved the sound of the gamelan, and the way that Indonesians used it; he was interested in old music, in antiphonic chant and C 15 century polyphony.


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> One thing I am 100% sure about, is that some of Boulez's music probes my spirit!
> 
> Maybe you could say a little bit more about how, exactly, his music "sweeps away" the past, I think that could make an interesting contribution to the discussion. My impression is that there's a good deal in common -- polyphony, antiphon and response, pitches, harmonies, rhythms, timbres, theatricality and ritual, but maybe at some other level there is a break with past western art music.
> 
> Can you give me an example (with justification) of a musician who, through their instrumental work, found things to say about the times they lived in?


You're addressing the wrong person. I'm not the one saying that Boulez sought to sweep away the past. I'm commenting (as my first sentence makes clear) on remarks of other people here and of Boulez himself, not expressing agreement with them, and it's their statements you should be challenging, not my questioning of them.

Obviously the music of Boulez has elements in common with earlier music, though the things you mention (pitches, rhythms, etc.) are found variously throughout the music of the world and don't necessarily say anything about what his music means expressively or culturally, which is what I presume others here are talking about when they say that Boulez (and other postwar Modernists) must be understood as rejecting prewar Western music.

You also seem to misread my last sentence to imply that I think composers should comment on the times they live in. Commenting on the times is different from expressing a sense of how people feel about their lives in the world, which I think it quite obvious that music has always done in ways both personal (as in a simple folk or popular song) and superpersonal (as in a symphony, opera, or mass). Does the music of Boulez express a sense of his, or our, being in the world? Can you identify what that sense might be?

In post #28 here you say, "For me Boulez much more than Debussy represents a hope for _true music._ I know that, by his culture, his training, his origins, his interests, Boulez admired and maybe enjoyed the music of the past. But I think in his best music _he transcended this aspect of character. He felt the uneasiness of the times he lived in, our times._ _The chiaroscuro of his music is like a light glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, a hope that the fear may end." _[emphasis mine]

I confess to not understanding that. Clearly you find Boulez to be saying something both significant and timely in his music. If that something is more than a play of aesthetic qualities - which I perceive and can (sometimes) appreciate - I would like to hear more about it.


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## Mandryka

Jacck said:


> Pierre Boulez Picks 10 Great Works of the 20th Century
> https://www.newsounds.org/story/10-great-works-20th-century-pierre-boulezs-90th-birthday/
> that egomaniac had the guts to picks himself :lol:


I thinks he makes a good list - the only one which made me raise my eyebrows was Mahler 6, but he had his own reasons, personal reasons, for including it.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> There have been several posts in the last couple of pages describing the music of Boulez and other "modernists" in terms of what these composers were against and sought to oppose or destroy. Boulez himself was quite explicit in his negativity, notorious for making statements hostile to the cultural tradition. It would seem, then, that both he and the contributors here are asking us to understand his art as a negation. But isn't that an odd basis for a creative vision? When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?


Yes, Boulez was negating the older tradition, but this is still valid and instructive.

An analogy can be made in the terms "being" (not mind) and "the non-manifest" (the world of the mind, and of situations).

"Being" is a positive term, which refers to "what being is;" 
"The non-manifest" is a negative term, referring to all the things of the mind that "being" is not.

In the same way, Boulez was negating all the "manifestations" of tradition, its very identity, but his goal was to create a new "being" in its place, which is ultimately the goal of all art, and the source of all truly creative energy.



> I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. That alone may justify it.


It justifies it as art, but maybe not in terms of tradition.



> ...But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


That's understandable, seeing as your real love is for the great traditions of music. However, I must disagree with the opinion that Boulez swept away tradition without leaving us with anything which is relevant to the present, or to Man. If he did not succeed, at least his was an arrow which points in that direction.

The problem may be that there is no answer to this in terms of the long-assumed narrative or purpose of art, i.e. "the manifest." Boulez' music is like "being;" it simply is. That is, indeed, a radical sweeping away of the narrative of Man, the world of situations, and his heroic struggle.

It's almost as if this subjective or narcissistic narrative of Man (and what he is, attempted to be, failed at, or strives to be) might be replaced (by Boulez or someone else) by an objectivity (or non-subjectivity), which, while it still concerns Man most intimately, must go ultimately beyond the world of Man, to that place beyond Man, but which Man is still a part of.


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## millionrainbows

shirime said:


> And, for me, it's this element which is unappealing in Beethoven's music. I'm yet to discover what's so 'inhuman' about Boulez's music. Perhaps one day I will understand what it is and learn to find it unappealing like many do. In the meantime, I'll enjoy it.


It's good that you enjoy Boulez' music. 
When I described Boulez' music as having an "almost inhuman" quality, I meant that it has a certain "objective" quality which has no specific need to satisfy our requirement that music/art should be "about" Man in an exclusive, subjective way, or to simply entertain us.

It seems to point beyond Man, to what we might call the "sacred" realm, of which we are a part. The world where Man and his identity are "not manifest," but simply exist as a part of everything else which is.

Perhaps this is an indicator of Boulez' world view. From Wik, we read:
_
From the age of seven he went to school at the Institut Victor de Laprade, a Catholic seminary where the thirteen-hour school day was filled with study and prayer. By the age of eighteen he had repudiated Catholicism although later in life he described himself as an agnostic.

_Like me, Boulez apparently viewed most organized religion as somewhat of a failure, although I see the intended good in it; many indicators which point to the "truth" or the best intended purpose, which is to reconnect us to a "clear" spiritual state of being, but which was lost or distorted, or turned into inflexible, illogical doctrine. Sorry to bring religion into this, but I see this as a crucial element in Boulez' aesthetic outlook.


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## Mandryka

I feel really frustrated because, given the way the discussion is going, I wanted to find out what he thought of Moses and Aaron. All I can find is this fascinating looking interview but it's in German and I don't understand it, anyone care to offer a summary?






I don't have the recording to see if he contributed an essay to the booklet.

I don't know if he wrote anything about Parsifal. What other religious music did he get involved with? Did he conduct the Webern cantatas?


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## Sid James

Sid James said:


> .......................


I self-censored yesterday and I think it's better to quit while I'm ahead rather end on a sour note. I've had opportunity here to take part in some fine conversations.

I think there's a limit to agreement on controversial - and highly contradictory - figures like Boulez. If we joined all the threads on him, Cage and Wagner we would have the longest thread on the forum. After a certain point we get to a stage of cannibalising what's already been said.

_When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left._
- Langston Hughes


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## Manxfeeder

Jacck said:


> Pierre Boulez Picks 10 Great Works of the 20th Century
> https://www.newsounds.org/story/10-great-works-20th-century-pierre-boulezs-90th-birthday/
> that egomaniac had the guts to picks himself :lol:


One thing I learned in junior high is, when you are running for any position, always be sure to vote for yourself. (I thought I was being nice by voting for my opponent, and I lost by one vote.)


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## Dimace

Manxfeeder said:


> One thing I learned in junior high is, when you are running for any position, always be sure to vote for yourself. (I thought I was being nice by voting for my opponent, and I lost by one vote.)


Thanks God, was Mahler there... :lol:


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## KenOC

"I was listening to ...explosante-fixe... and I was hearing more intelligible music than I expected from Boulez."

If we're taking "intelligibility" to be praise, then it seems to me that we're setting the bar awfully low these days.


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## aleazk

I wish there were more Boulezs these days... composers today are so boringly politically correct, both in their art and their public discourse.


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## KenOC

aleazk said:


> I wish there were more Boulezs these days... composers today are so boringly politically correct, both in their art and their public discourse.


So true! Everybody loves a rebel. I've got my Che Guevara sweatshirt around here somewhere…

But poor Boulez ended up waving his little stick, conducting golden oldies in the very opera houses he once wanted to burn down. To make it even sadder, he conducted them rather well.


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## aleazk

Ken, I didn't know you liked Schoenberg, Webern and Carter. Good to know


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## KenOC

aleazk said:


> Ken, I didn't know you liked Schoenberg, Webern and Carter. Good to know


Like them? Actually I never met them, so it's hard to tell. But I'm sure they were all fine fellows!


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## millionrainbows

Something about Boulez that might shed some light...in the Joan Peyser books, either "The New Music" or the revised and expanded version "Boulez: Composer, Conductor, Enigma," she described Boulez as almost monk-like. He lived in modest surroundings at the time, and his closet contained six or seven business suits, all identical. He was totally devoted to music, to the exclusion of almost everything else. 
This might explain his aesthetic to a degree.



Woodduck said:


> When was a vital and enduring art, capable of speaking for a culture and evolving along with it, ever born in a spirit of nihilism? I can think of no other era in which music was written for the particular purpose of sweeping away the past. Is destruction really at the heart of Boulez's music, and of postwar serialism in general?


Boulez was not a nihilist. Boulez was sweeping away the bombast of "Man" but not the rest of it.

Remembering that Western music's original purpose was for the Church, maybe Boulez was going back to this era's aesthetic, when music was for a greater purpose than Man himself, and authorship was often anonymous. The Romantic notion of "a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit" might be true in certain cases, like Wagner, but much of this legacy must have seemed to Boulez to be false.
In other words, a totally selfless devotion to something which does not concern the objectified and romanticized vision of Man; rather, the unmanifest, or being, which is connected to this greater universe, whatever that may be. 
Keeping in mind that Boulez was a declared agnostic, this focus would not be any concept of organized religion, which Boulez saw as having failed its purpose. 
Also, this necessitates a vision which is subjective and individual, not subject to the forms of institutionalized religion or of an objectified and romanticized vision of Man.
Also note that Boulez conducted Wagner, but no other opera except modern; no Italian opera. Perhaps this individualism of Wagner is what Boulez respected.



> I'm not suggesting any clear answer to this. I do know that the music of Boulez can fascinate a mind disposed to be entertained, even ravished, by its subtle and kaleidoscopic play of sound. That alone may justify it. But I'm unable to avoid feeling - having been nurtured and accompanied through life by a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit - that Boulez, like many others, succeeded in sweeping away the past without finding much to say in, or about, the present.


I don't think so, for the reasons stated above.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> Boulez was not a nihilist. Boulez was sweeping away the bombast of "Man" but not the rest of it.
> 
> Remembering that Western music's original purpose was for the Church, maybe Boulez was going back to this era's aesthetic, when music was for a greater purpose than Man himself, and authorship was often anonymous. The Romantic notion of "a centuries-long tradition of music which in an infinity of ways probes the human spirit" might be true in certain cases, like Wagner, but much of this legacy must have seemed to Boulez to be false.
> In other words, a totally selfless devotion to something which does not concern the objectified and romanticized vision of Man; rather, the unmanifest, or being, which is connected to this greater universe, whatever that may be.
> Keeping in mind that Boulez was a declared agnostic, this focus would not be any concept of organized religion, which Boulez saw as having failed its purpose.
> Also, this necessitates a vision which is subjective and individual, not subject to the forms of institutionalized religion or of an objectified and romanticized vision of Man.
> Also note that Boulez conducted Wagner, but no other opera except modern; no Italian opera. Perhaps this individualism of Wagner is what Boulez respected.


Sorry, but all of this is speculation with no evidence that Boulez was on some ethereal plane, 'sweeping away the bombast of 'Man' (on the contrary, on a personal note, I find his music to be the bombast of a man.) or ' total selfless devotion to...being which is connected to this greater universe.'

My reading of Boulez indicates a reclusive eccentric not unlike a Glenn Gould with little sense of understanding or care for the outside world. He intensely disliked most opera except for perhaps a few modern works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and a few Wagner operas. Particularly, he almost hated the leadership of the major opera houses. He disparaged Verdi as a superficial 'postcard' of a composer.

His appointment to the New York Philharmonic in the early 70s was a shock to the New Your concert-going public and his attempt to bring in a younger audience by scheduling modern works was largely a failure. He left after 6 years with little in the way of a legacy, contrary to that of Leonard Bernstein's 13 year tenure.

His major motivation in his music seemed to be nothing much more than taking music beyond Schoenberg's 12 tone system.


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## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> ...but I'll bet you would accept the results of mathematical functions if they were used to generate images in a computer animated landscape or cartoon-movie. I think it's a matter of what we expect music to be, and how we view art as being "utilitarian" in serving our needs as listeners.
> 
> You seem to be equating "composing" with a sort of predictable outcome under the control of the composer.
> 
> Boulez (and Cage) were both, to a degree, trying to escape the notion of "control" in their art; and Boulez, with his rejection of Schoenbergian methods and the residual classicism and phrasing, seems to have modified whatever "rules" were in play to suit his own needs, in order to create what most here agree to be "beautiful" music. I think he succeeded.
> 
> This "non-utilitarian" aspect of Boulez' music is one of the aspects of Boulez' music that I consider "sacred" in nature. It recognizes that "Man" and his nature is not the end-all purpose of art; art must embody Man, but only as it points further, to the "sacred." Art is a reflection of something much larger. Perhaps this is why Mandryka, whose main interest seems to be sacred vocal music, seems to like it.


No, I wouldn't accept mathematical functions used to generate images as art, which I've seen before. I'm a fan of sacred choral music like Gesualdo, Faure, Haydn, but I don't hear anything sacred in Boulez's music. Just the subjectivity of the music wouldn't rule out it's there, or it isn't. But there is nothing in the compositional process from what I've read that would suggest anything sacred. If you want to get philosophical, I would say with the undoubtedly higher entropy in music by Cage and Boulez, there is less of the order that is traditionally characteristic of sacred music.


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## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> No, I wouldn't accept mathematical functions used to generate images as art


Why not?



Phil loves classical said:


> , I would say with the undoubtedly higher entropy in music by Cage and Boulez, there is less of the order that is traditionally characteristic of sacred music.


Wouldn't mathematically generated music be more ordered, not less? This makes me think that there's an element of the instinctive in Boulez's music.



Phil loves classical said:


> But there is nothing in the compositional process from what I've read that would suggest anything sacred.


Well, _sacred _and _spiritual _are difficult concepts, I'm not sure I understad them at all. Whatever you and millionrainbows mean by these ideas, it may be useful to remember who Boulez's influences were -- think Baudelaire, Artaud, Rimbaud, Mallarmé , Joyce, Char. It would be surprising if he hadn't given a lot of thought to the human spirit, and indeed to chance, necessity, freedom, transcendence, vision, creation, instinct -- the most profoundly humane aspects of our selves.


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## Mandryka

DaveM said:


> His major motivation in his music seemed to be nothing much more than taking music beyond Schoenberg's 12 tone system.


No, this is incorrect.

He's explicit about his motivation in, _inter alia_, Dominique Jameux's book _Pierre Boulez_.



> si vous ecrivez c'est pour communiquer.





DaveM said:


> He disparaged Verdi as a superficial 'postcard' of a composer.


I expect you're right, but woud you mind finding the reference for that quotation please? I've not seen it before.


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## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> I expect you're right, but woud you mind finding the reference for that quotation please? I've not seen it before.


I misquoted (since it was from memory) though the underlying meaning was much the same. The exact quote was that Verdi's music was _'picture postcard music_' in the 3rd last paragraph of this article:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4703931/Boulez-and-the-blight-of-the-opera.html


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## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> Why not?
> 
> Wouldn't mathematically generated music be more ordered, not less? This makes me think that there's an element of the instinctive in Boulez's music.
> 
> Well, _sacred _and _spiritual _are difficult concepts, I'm not sure I understad them at all. Whatever you and millionrainbows mean by these ideas, it may be useful to remember who Boulez's influences were -- think Baudelaire, Artaud, Rimbaud, Mallarmé , Joyce, Char. It would be surprising if he hadn't given a lot of thought to the human spirit, and indeed to chance, necessity, freedom, transcendence, vision, creation, instinct -- the most profoundly humane aspects of our selves.


The first is debatable. My view is that those patterns like on screensavers don't constitute high art since there is no deliberate intent. It's like produce this and see what sticks together, rather than producing some specific view or perspective.

Cage's use of indetermination is chance and highest entropy. Boulez was against this leaving to chance, but he didn't design his math operations through to the end in Marteau sans Maitre. He took away repeating numbers, and adjusted some to his ear but expects we don't judge it as we do Beethoven. I think it's an unreasonable compromise. He wants to avoid the criticism that would be levied against it if it were as composed as Stravinsky, but doesn't take the human perspective element out entirely.

I don't find Boulez's music particularly ugly or beautiful, but Boulez thought Messiaen's Turangulila Symphony was so ugly it made him want to vomit? To me I find beauty in a certain boldness, so I can't agree with Boulez there.


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## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> Sorry, but all of this is speculation with no evidence that Boulez was on some ethereal plane, 'sweeping away the bombast of 'Man' (on the contrary, on a personal note, I find his music to be the bombast of a man.) or ' total selfless devotion to...being which is connected to this greater universe.'


The point has already been made by Paul Griffiths that Boulez (and Cage, among others) was sweeping away the past bombast of tradition, so if this is speculation, at least it's informed speculation, and I have a source, and this is generally held to be an historically accurate opinion. What have you got for me?



> My reading of Boulez indicates a reclusive eccentric not unlike a Glenn Gould with little sense of understanding or care for the outside world. He intensely disliked most opera except for perhaps a few modern works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and a few Wagner operas. Particularly, he almost hated the leadership of the major opera houses. He disparaged Verdi as a superficial 'postcard' of a composer...His appointment to the New York Philharmonic in the early 70s was a shock to the New Your concert-going public and his attempt to bring in a younger audience by scheduling modern works was largely a failure. He left after 6 years with little in the way of a legacy, contrary to that of Leonard Bernstein's 13 year tenure.


Boulez was very private, but he was a successful conductor who got along well with the orchestras and musicians. So what of the fact that he disliked most opera? Most of it is for entertainment, anyway, not a good fit for an iconoclast like Boulez. And he did conduct his share of opera, including Wagner. And he conducted Zappa!



> His major motivation in his music seemed to be nothing much more than taking music beyond Schoenberg's 12 tone system.


Are you sure you want to phrase it that way? To take music "beyond Schoenberg's 12 tone system (sic: method)" implies that you take the "progression of music" as a given. This is a "no-no" concept to traditionalists.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> "I was listening to ...explosante-fixe... and I was hearing more intelligible music than I expected from Boulez."
> 
> If we're taking "intelligibility" to be praise, then it seems to me that we're setting the bar awfully low these days.


Again, an invalidation based on a misunderstanding. It's already been observed that Boulez was doing away with what most consider the "intelligible" aspects of music: repetition, regular rhythms, and speech-like phrasing. But even knowing that, the astute listener _must simply "listen in the now" _to get the picture. Perhaps some more elementary 12-tone music might enlighten you. Try Stefan Wolpe:










Here, the language is 12-tone, it's chamber music, and there is interesting polyphony going on, without getting too large and complicated. You should be able to easily hear the polyphony, and yet it will not be "intelligible" for you as other music has been, since it doesn't work on that level.

See my blog on "New Conceptions of Musical Time" and familiarize yourself with these ideas of time.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> The point has already been made by Paul Griffiths that Boulez (and Cage, among others) was sweeping away the past bombast of tradition...


And replaced it with the merde of modernism? It takes more than the snobbish assignment of a pejorative adjective to make us forget that tradition is what MOST people have always preferred in music, and still do.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> And replaced it with the merde of modernism? It takes more than the snobbish assignment of a pejorative adjective to make us forget that tradition is what MOST people have always preferred in music, and still do.


Okay, then let's look at it in terms of negative and positive. "Tradition" is a positive term, which describes itself as what it is. "Tradition swept away" is a negative term, describing all the things that "tradition" is not.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> The point has already been made by Paul Griffiths that Boulez (and Cage, among others) was sweeping away the past bombast of tradition, so if this is speculation, at least it's informed speculation, and I have a source, and this is generally held to be an historically accurate opinion. What have you got for me?


I might have agreed with the 'sweeping away the past bombast of tradition', hyperbole notwithstanding, but you said the "bombast of 'Man'" which along with the 'total selfless devotion to..being which is connected to this greater universe' takes the hyperbole to a whole new level. I have never heard the music of Boulez described with such hallowed terminology.



> Are you sure you want to phrase it that way? To take music "beyond Schoenberg's 12 tone system (sic: method)" implies that you take the "progression of music" as a given. This is a "no-no" concept to traditionalists.


I'll stick with what I wrote. Btw, the use of 'sic' does not apply. Schoenberg's 12 tone 'system' is also in the lexicon (along with 'technique') used by no less than the New York Times (note in the 4th and 5th paragraphs) and elsewhere:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/arts/music/14tomm.html


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## Enthusiast

...........................


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## Enthusiast

millionrainbows said:


> Boulez was very private, but he was a successful conductor who got along well with the orchestras and musicians. So what of the fact that he disliked most opera? Most of it is for entertainment, anyway, not a good fit for an iconoclast like Boulez. And he did conduct his share of opera, including Wagner. And he conducted Zappa!


I don't think you need to concede this hatred of opera. As you say, he did conduct a few (Pelleas and Melisande and Wozzeck may stand out and also his Ring at Bayreuth and Moses and Aron) and would have conducted several more had the conditions been right. He made several attempts, for example, to do Don Giovanni. Ever the perfectionist, it seems that he was averse to the compromises that tend to apply to such big ventures.

Some information about this is here 
http://https://www.telegraph.co.uk/c...the-opera.html

but most obituaries cover the question of his attitude to opera as well as his overall - and very eminent - record as a conductor. In this field as well as in composing it seems we miss him rather badly.


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## DavidA

aleazk said:


> I wish there were more Boulezs these days... composers today are so boringly politically correct, both in their art and their public discourse.


In his day Boulez was boringly PC. He became more so the longer he lived


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## Mandryka

DaveM said:


> He intensely disliked most opera except for perhaps a few modern works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and a few Wagner operas. Particularly, he almost hated the leadership of the major opera houses. He disparaged Verdi as a superficial 'postcard' of a composer.


He had a passion for opera and was involved in it all his life. And he had a hatred of the opera house system which, he thought, stifled creativity. In this respect his approach to opera was identical to his approach to concert music -- he also hated the concert hall.

Re Verdi specifically, maybe he he thought that Verdi's operas aren't specially interesting from the musical or rhetorical point of view. Rum-ti-tum music and parlando alternating with aria.



DaveM said:


> He intensely disliked most opera except for perhaps a few modern works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and a few Wagner operas. Particularly, he almost hated the leadership of the major opera houses. He disparaged Verdi as a superficial 'postcard' of a composer.


I can't resist saying this. Imagine someone grumping about Furtwangler by saying "He intensely disliked most opera except for perhaps a few old fashioned works such as Mozart's Don Giovanni and Wagner's Ring . . . He disparaged Schoenberg as an "unnatural" composer."


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## Enthusiast

DavidA said:


> In his day Boulez was boringly PC. He became more so the longer he lived


Could you explain this criticism? Even in politics I never really got the idea of political correctness - it seems like a lazy way of avoiding an understanding of the issue (and is often an excuse to go on bullying the less strong) - but I can't begin to guess how it applies to music.


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## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> He had a passion for opera and was involved in it all his life. And he had a hatred of the opera house system which, he thought, stifled creativity. In this respect his approach to opera was identical to his approach to concert music -- he also hated the concert hall.


That's at odds with the following (from the article that I gave you the link to):
_
'Meanwhile, Boulez has not altogether recanted on his views of opera in general. He is no buff: most opera fills him with stupefied boredom, if not bafflement. "I've always been troubled by the basic convention: why should these people be singing? It amazes me how easily most people accept this strange idea - it seems as oddly ritualised to me as Kabuki and Noh seem to other people.
We had made many plans - a Ring, Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov, Lulu
"Perhaps my thinking has been conditioned to some extent by the very poor standard of opera I saw in my youth. The performances in France in the 1940s and 1950s were dreadful: there was no tradition of theatre people working in opera - it was all cardboard, and the acting was dreadful. I heard [Kirsten] Flagstad in Wagner once - she was absurd! So it is no wonder I thought opera was creatively dead, a museum art."'_

That's not to say that he didn't develop an interest in some opera as it turns out. However, it's obvious that when it came to opera in general, he was ambivalent.


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## Mandryka

This seems to me the key bit of the quote



DaveM said:


> there was no tradition of theatre people working in opera - it was all cardboard, and the acting was dreadful. I heard [Kirsten] Flagstad in Wagner once - she was absurd! So it is no wonder I thought opera was creatively dead, a museum art."'[/I]


This desire to bring theatre, modernist theatre of course, to opera, is presumably why he had such a fruitful relationship with Wieland Wagner and Patrice Chéreau. Does anyone know if he ever worked with Peter Brook?

The Neue Beyreuth initiative is something which I think is very interesting. It's a shame that there aren't more videos of Wieland Wagner productions.


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## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> Could you explain this criticism? Even in politics I never really got the idea of political correctness - it seems like a lazy way of avoiding an understanding of the issue (and is often an excuse to go on bullying the less strong) - but I can't begin to guess how it applies to music.


PC means 'treating people with the respect they deserve' by how we use language as normal human beings. I can only guess that when applied to music it just refers to respecting that everyone has different tastes and interests.


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## Guest

From biographies about Boulez and articles by him that I’ve read, I never ever got the idea that Boulez hated opera. Ever since seeing Boris Godunov as a young man he loved opera.


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## Mandryka

I'm very tempted to buy this because I like Klee, does Boulez have interesting things to say in it?









There's also the catalogue to the Boulez retrospective at the Cité de la musique, I went to the exhibition but didn't buy the catalogue (too heavy) -- the exhibition was good on Boulez's debt to early music, my guess is that the book could have some interesting articles about this aspect of his work, though I'm not sure.









There are many books of interviews which I would like to get hold of some time


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## DaveM

shirime said:


> From biographies about Boulez and articles by him that I've read, I never ever got the idea that Boulez hated opera. Ever since seeing Boris Godunov as a young man he loved opera.


How do you explain this quote from an interview with the 71 year old Boulez?
_
'Meanwhile, Boulez has not altogether recanted on his views of opera in general. He is no buff: most opera fills him with stupefied boredom, if not bafflement. "I've always been troubled by the basic convention: why should these people be singing? It amazes me how easily most people accept this strange idea - it seems as oddly ritualised to me as Kabuki and Noh seem to other people.'_


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## Mandryka

DaveM said:


> How do you explain this quote from an interview with the 71 year old Boulez?
> _
> 'Meanwhile, Boulez has not altogether recanted on his views of opera in general. He is no buff: most opera fills him with stupefied boredom, if not bafflement. "I've always been troubled by the basic convention: why should these people be singing? It amazes me how easily most people accept this strange idea - it seems as oddly ritualised to me as Kabuki and Noh seem to other people.'_


I can. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. It's not negative to ask why the people should be singing, it is a troubling convention, and opera is indeed ritualised. I think you're reading into the comment your own preconceptions about Boulez.

Remember ritual is hardly a bad thing in Boulez's scheme of things! Neither is Noh theatre.

I am in complete agreement with Boulez I think, about opera, opera houses and indeed Verdi!

It's the journalist's comment which has encouraged your misunderstanding. He should be fired.


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> How do you explain this quote from an interview with the 71 year old Boulez?
> _
> 'Meanwhile, Boulez has not altogether recanted on his views of opera in general. He is no buff: most opera fills him with stupefied boredom, if not bafflement. "I've always been troubled by the basic convention: why should these people be singing? It amazes me how easily most people accept this strange idea - it seems as oddly ritualised to me as Kabuki and Noh seem to other people.'_


The same way Mandryka explained it. He's not opposed to it, but he's quick to point out something troubling about ritualising conventions. Don't forget that he also wanted to compose an opera one day, based on _Waiting for Godot_ no less. We can infer that his entire career in music is a contradiction between the conventional and the unconventional, but he truly _owns_ that contradiction and lives by it. He's an Absurd composer, with a capital A. One must imagine Boulez happy.


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## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> I can. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. It's not negative to ask why the people should be singing, it is a troubling convention, and opera is indeed ritualised. I think you're reading into the comment your own preconceptions about Boulez.
> 
> Remember ritual is hardly a bad thing in Boulez's scheme of things! Neither is Noh theatre.
> 
> I am in complete agreement with Boulez I think, about opera, opera houses and indeed Verdi!
> 
> It's the journalist's comment which has encouraged your misunderstanding. He should be fired.


I was responding to the comment: _'Ever since seeing Boris Godunov as a young man he loved opera_.' which is an inaccurate generalization. At the very least, Boulez's view of opera was qualified and conflicted. Obviously, from the history of his conducting and production of opera, he liked some of it, particularly if it met his rather stringent criteria.


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## Guest

Ever since I heard music when I was very young, I loved it. Ever since Boulez saw Boris Godunov, he loved opera. I don’t love all music. Boulez doesn’t love all opera.


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## aleazk

shirime said:


> PC means 'treating people with the respect they deserve' by how we use language as normal human beings. I can only guess that when applied to music it just refers to respecting that everyone has different tastes and interests.


[video=facebook_share;10155552393856778]https://www.facebook.com/BBCOne/videos/10155552393856778/?t=3[/video]

Didn't know you decided to grow a moustache


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## millionrainbows

Boulez' recording of Wozzeck was unusual in that it was recorded on a BBC soundstage, usually used for television or other broadcast visuals, and it turned out very "dry" with no stage resonance like we hear in most opera recordings. 
I loved it from the moment I heard it, as I prefer dry or close-miked recordings like Glenn Gould's. I read somewhere that there were German musicians who were jokingly referring to it as "the dry Wozzeck."

From customer reviews on Amazon: "This is a mid-1960's recording. The sound is extremely clear and there is great separation of the voices in the two channel stereo that I listen to."
"Clean and clear."


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## larold

I read Boulez's _Initiale_ will be played on a concert by the Utah Symphony in February along with Rachmaninoff and some other stuff. Like much of his music, the brief brass piece reminds me of Schoenberg.


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## Mandryka

larold said:


> I read Boulez's _Initiale_ will be played on a concert by the Utah Symphony in February along with Rachmaninoff and some other stuff. Like much of his music, the brief brass piece reminds me of Schoenberg.


I hadn't heard that before. Listening to it now I thought how tuneful it is -- I expect it'll fit well with a programme with Rachmaninoff and go down well with the Utah crowd.


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## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> I might have agreed with the 'sweeping away the past bombast of tradition', hyperbole notwithstanding, but you said the "bombast of 'Man'" which along with the 'total selfless devotion to..being which is connected to this greater universe' takes the hyperbole to a whole new level. I have never heard the music of Boulez described with such hallowed terminology.


It's not a far-fetched idea. On p. 38 of Griffiths' book, we read:

_...Goeyvaerts wrote to Barraqué of what was on his mind: "You know I want to arrive at a music where everything - absolutely everything - is contained in one fundamental generating idea. The pitch, the duration, the intensity, the density, the timbre and the attack are subjected to a general synthetic number with its subdivisions...The whole thing appears as something immobile, static, which is, so to say, the analysis of the structure of "Being," its adaptation to time..."
...One might even speak, again, of a conversion, especially when what exhilarated Stockhausen as much as Goeyvaerts was the spiritual dimension of their work: the possibiity of liberating, more than creating, sound structures that would have nothing human in their composition, that would be images of divine unity._


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> *It's not a far-fetched idea.* On p. 38 of Griffiths' book, we read:
> 
> _...Goeyvaerts wrote to Barraqué of what was on his mind: "You know I want to arrive at a music where everything - absolutely everything - is contained in one fundamental generating idea. The pitch, the duration, the intensity, the density, the timbre and the attack are subjected to a general synthetic number with its subdivisions...The whole thing appears as something immobile, static, which is, so to say, the analysis of the structure of "Being," its adaptation to time..."
> ...One might even speak, again, of a conversion, especially when what exhilarated Stockhausen as much as Goeyvaerts was the spiritual dimension of their work: the possibiity of liberating, more than creating, sound structures that would have nothing human in their composition, that would be images of divine unity._


Nothing is too far to be fetched by some people, or too useless.

Nature is full of wonderful "sound structures" that have "nothing human in their composition." If that's what's wanted there is no need for music.


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## Becca

Some of this philosophizing makes we want to paraphrase Isaac Asimov:

_"That is the interesting thing, after detailed semantic analysis had succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - there was nothing left. Everything canceled out. It didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. "_


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Nothing is too far to be fetched by some people, or too useless.
> 
> Nature is full of wonderful "sound structures" that have "nothing human in their composition." If that's what's wanted there is no need for music.





Becca said:


> Some of this philosophizing makes we want to paraphrase Isaac Asimov:
> 
> _"That is the interesting thing, after detailed semantic analysis had succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - there was nothing left. Everything canceled out. It didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. "_


Gee, people around here have a way of turning victory into defeat, or trying to make it seem that way. These reactions do not matter, and don't say much. I've been saying for a long time, to whomever would listen, that the way to listen to atonal and serial music is "in the moment," and confirmed this by posting the blog "New Conceptions of Musical Time."

Now, reading the book of astute critic & writer Paul Griffiths quoting no less than Stockhausen, completely confirms this way of perception. What I am telling the critics here is, simply, that they need to stop thinking so much, and just be quiet and listen.

Griffiths, p. 43:
_...the new 'through-organized' music demanded a kind of 'meditative' listening: "one stays in the music...one needs nothing before or after in order to perceive the individual now (the individual sound)." Here is confirmation of what was said above...that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena.

_At last, someone "telling it like it is." This makes George Rochberg's treatise on "intelligibility in atonal music" seem even more ridiculously off-track, since he's trying to apply "old-school" music listening habits to the new music.It's what I've been saying all along...the key to listening to serial music _(or Messiaen, Varese, or Debussy, or Ives, for that matter)_ is to ignore that pesky narrative, time-dependent mind-set that conservative listeners are so addicted to, and to simply turn all that stuff off, and simply listen. 
That way of listening consists of more "brain" than ear, anyway, because it is more a set of _ideas_ about music, and about what music _should_ be. It's the _worst_ set of habits to have if one wants to truly listen, and the resulting negative reactions bear this out.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> ...Nature is full of wonderful "sound structures" that have "nothing human in their composition." If that's what's wanted there is no need for music.


That may have more truth in it than you intended, especially to John Cage. But take Messiaen's imitation of birdsong; this is a prime component of his work. In Taoism, Man observes "the way" of nature and tries to be more like that, instead of trying to create some unnatural, artificial solution which is the product of his inability to "flow" with nature. You know, human beings are part of nature, too, but usually find some way to mess it up. I think that serialism should be admired for creating music using rational means, which give irrational results which are similar to chaos in nature.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> ...It's what I've been saying all along...the key to listening to serial music _(or Messiaen, Varese, or Debussy, or Ives, for that matter)_ is to ignore that pesky narrative, time-dependent mind-set that conservative listeners are so addicted to, and to simply turn all that stuff off, and simply listen.
> That way of listening consists of more "brain" than ear, anyway, because it is more a set of _ideas_ about music, and about what music _should_ be. It's the _worst_ set of habits to have if one wants to truly listen, and the resulting negative reactions bear this out.


No they don't. That's just a concocted conclusion to support a flimsy premise. Do you like rap music? Do you like country-western music? Do you like traditional Chinese music? Do you like big-band music? Is there any music you don't like? Because according to your reasoning, any reasonable music-listening adult should like virtually any form of music.


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## millionrainbows

Becca said:


> Some of this philosophizing makes we want to paraphrase Isaac Asimov:
> 
> _"That is the interesting thing, after detailed semantic analysis had succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - there was nothing left. Everything canceled out. It didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. "_


Of course serial music is going to sound "meaningless" in tonal terms. This is the obstacle one must overcome in order to hear the new music. Stop looking for meaning. Hopefully, you will be so dumbfounded by it that your old familiar ticker-tape mind-chatter will simply "short out," leaving you with nothing to think about, except to listen.


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## Becca

I don't know about the music however I long ago ceased looking for meaning in many of these posts.


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## millionrainbows

Becca said:


> I don't know about the music however I long ago ceased looking for meaning in many of these posts.


Some people get it, and some people never will. But thank you anyway for your support, and have a nice day!


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> ...*the way to listen to atonal and serial music is "in the moment"* ...
> 
> Paul Griffiths quoting no less than Stockhausen, completely confirms this way of perception. The critics...need to stop thinking so much, and just be quiet and listen.
> 
> Griffiths, p. 43:
> _...the new 'through-organized' music demanded a kind of 'meditative' listening: "one stays in the music...*one needs nothing before or after in order to perceive the individual now (the individual sound).*" Here is confirmation of what was said above...that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and *what **is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena.*
> 
> `_At last, someone "telling it like it is." This makes George Rochberg's treatise on "intelligibility in atonal music" seem even more ridiculously off-track, since he's trying to apply "old-school" music listening habits to the new music.It's what I've been saying all along...the key to listening to serial music _(or Messiaen, Varese, or Debussy, or Ives, for that matter)_ is to ignore that pesky narrative, time-dependent mind-set that conservative listeners are so addicted to, and to simply turn all that stuff off, and simply listen.
> 
> That ["conservative"] way of listening consists of more "brain" than ear, anyway, because it is more a set of _ideas_ about music, and about what music _should_ be. It's the _worst_ set of habits to have if one wants to truly listen, and the resulting negative reactions bear this out.


The idea of music as "a succession of instants" is ridiculous. Why? Because there is no such thing as an "instant." "Instant" is an abstract concept that does not describe experience, which always has duration and structure. We can isolate a sound as an individual "thing," but until there is another sound we don't have music, and when there is another sound the two sounds are experienced together as an entity with duration and structure.

The nearest thing possible to a succession of instants in music would be a succession of sounds which have no perceivable relation to one another - a "composition" in which it makes no difference whatever how the music goes. Why anyone would consider that to be something worth making needs a clearer explanation than you've provided. And why you would recommend that a listener attempt to hear the works of Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, Webern, or anyone else as if they tried to achieve this - as if the choice of which note should succeed which is arbitrary and meaningless - needs explaining as well. Do you hear their music, or any music, that way? I doubt it.

And the less said about the purposes of God, the better.


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## Mandryka

Woodduck said:


> The idea of music as "a succession of instants" is ridiculous. Why? Because there is no such thing as an "instant." "Instant" is an abstract concept that does not describe experience, which always has duration and structure.
> 
> The nearest thing possible to a succession of instants in music would be a succession of sounds which have no perceivable relation to one another - a "composition" in which it makes no difference whatever how the music goes. Why anyone would consider that to be something worth making needs a clearer explanation than you've provided. And why you would recommend that a listener attempt to hear the works of Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, Webern, or anyone else as if they tried to achieve this - as if the choice of which note should succeed which is arbitrary and meaningless - needs explaining as well. Do you hear their music, or any music, that way? I doubt it.
> 
> And the less said about the purposes of God, the better.


Have a look at this poem by Mallarmé, this is the sort of thing which inspired Boulez









Now I agree that why anyone would make such a composition, I mean a composition like Mallarmé's Coup de dés, is an interesting question, and I strongly suspect that the answer to it will help us very much understand something about some of Boulez's music.

But for now all I want to do is suggest that Boulez's aesthetic ideas aren't idiosyncratic, they're part of the mainstream of the C 20. Which does, of course, make your question all the more exciting to think about.

And bearing in mind that there are listeners, some of them pretty experienced music listeners, who, like me, find that the music is stimulating, this suggests to me that a dismissive attitude may be a contemptible mixture of arrogance and ignorance.


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> Have a look at this poem by Mallarmé, this is the sort of thing which inspired Boulez
> 
> View attachment 111365
> 
> 
> Now I agree that why anyone would make such a composition, I mean a composition like Mallarmé's Coup de dés, is an interesting question, and I strongly suspect that the answer to it will help us very much understand something about some of Boulez's music.
> 
> But for now all I want to do is suggest that Boulez's aesthetic ideas aren't idiosyncratic, they're part of the mainstream of the C 20. Which does, of course, make your question all the more exciting to think about.
> 
> And bearing in mind that there are listeners, some of them pretty experienced music listeners, who, like me, find that the music is stimulating, this suggests to me that a dismissive attitude may be a contemptible mixture of arrogance and ignorance.


I don't know why you're quoting my analysis of millionrainbows' statements but then talking about the music of Boulez. I haven't said anything about the music of Boulez. Are you merely expressiing a dismissive attitude of the sort you mention?


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## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by *millionrainbows* 
_...It's what I've been saying all along...the key to listening to serial music (or Messiaen, Varese, or Debussy, or Ives, for that matter) is to ignore that pesky narrative, time-dependent mind-set that conservative listeners are so addicted to, and to simply turn all that stuff off, and simply listen. 
That way of listening consists of more "brain" than ear, anyway, because it is more a set of ideas about music, and about what music should be. It's the worst set of habits to have if one wants to truly listen, and the resulting negative reactions bear this out._


DaveM said:


> No they don't. That's just a concocted conclusion to support a flimsy premise. Do you like rap music? Do you like country-western music? Do you like traditional Chinese music? Do you like big-band music? Is there any music you don't like? Because according to your reasoning, any reasonable music-listening adult should like virtually any form of music.


Why should we take this refutation seriously? Because you said so? More substance, please.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> The idea of music as "a succession of instants" is ridiculous. Why? Because there is no such thing as an "instant." "Instant" is an abstract concept that does not describe experience, which always has duration and structure.


Oh, you're taking it too literally, and the wrong way, and without liking the kind of music this type of listening should be applied to, which includes any music without a narrative time-line. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't already listen this way, since you like Wagner's operas so much. There are many instances in Wagnerian opera where the music seems to "stand still" so to speak.



> We can isolate a sound as an individual "thing," but until there is another sound we don't have music, and when there is another sound the two sounds are experienced together as an entity with duration and structure.


Yes, that's obvious, but too literal. I'll refer to the blog I posted on "New Conceptions of Musical Time:"

New Conceptions of Musical Time*Linear time:* Music that imparts a sense of linear time seems to move towards goals. This quality permeates virtually all of Western music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. This is accomplished by processes which occur within tonal and metrical frameworks.
*Nonlinear time:* Music that evokes a sense of nonlinear time seems to stand still or evolve very slowly.

Western musicians first became aware of nonlinear time during the late 19th century. Debussy's encounter with Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition was a seminal event.

*Moment Form:* broken down connections between musical events in order to create a series of more or less discrete moments. Certain works of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, and Stockhausen exemplify this approach.

*Vertical Time: *At the other extreme of the nonlinear continuum is music that maximizes consistency and minimizes articulation. Vertical time means that whatever structure that is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. A virtually static moment is expanded to encompass an entire piece. A vertical piece does not exhibit large-scale closure. It does not begin, but merely starts. It does not build to a climax, does not set up internal expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expectations that might arise accidentally, does not build or release tension, and does not end, but simply ceases.
*Minimalism* exemplifies vertical time, but instead of absolute stasis, it generates constant motion. The sense of movement is so evenly paced, and the goals are so vague, that we usually lose our sense of perspective.



> The nearest thing possible to a succession of instants in music would be a succession of sounds which have no perceivable relation to one another - a "composition" in which it makes no difference whatever how the music goes. Why anyone would consider that to be something worth making needs a clearer explanation than you've provided. And why you would recommend that a listener attempt to hear the works of Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, Webern, or anyone else as if they tried to achieve this - as if the choice of which note should succeed which is arbitrary and meaningless - needs explaining as well. Do you hear their music, or any music, that way? I doubt it.


I don't know why you are so resistant to this kind of experience in listening. In Messiaen, there is no real harmonic progression; there are successive "events" of color and timbre which occur as singularities. Most listeners here have no problem with Messiaen's music. I've heard it praised on these pages time and time again; and Messiaen was never singled-out for criticism that I can recall.



> And the less said about the purposes of God, the better.


Well, that shouldn't be surprising, since all of these post-war serialists studied with Messiaen. This didn't stop Boulez, a declared agnostic. Additionally, this forum has a whole section devoted to religious music.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, you're taking it too literally, and the wrong way, and without liking the kind of music this type of listening should be applied to, which includes any music without a narrative time-line. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't already listen this way, since you like Wagner's operas so much. There are many instances in Wagnerian opera where the music seems to "stand still" so to speak.
> 
> New Conceptions of Musical Time*Linear time:* Music that imparts a sense of linear time seems to move towards goals. This quality permeates virtually all of Western music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. This is accomplished by processes which occur within tonal and metrical frameworks.
> *Nonlinear time:* Music that evokes a sense of nonlinear time seems to stand still or evolve very slowly.
> 
> Western musicians first became aware of nonlinear time during the late 19th century. Debussy's encounter with Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition was a seminal event.
> 
> *Moment Form:* broken down connections between musical events in order to create a series of more or less discrete moments. Certain works of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, and Stockhausen exemplify this approach.
> 
> *Vertical Time: *At the other extreme of the nonlinear continuum is music that maximizes consistency and minimizes articulation. Vertical time means that whatever structure that is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. A virtually static moment is expanded to encompass an entire piece. A vertical piece does not exhibit large-scale closure. It does not begin, but merely starts. It does not build to a climax, does not set up internal expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expectations that might arise accidentally, does not build or release tension, and does not end, but simply ceases.
> *Minimalism* exemplifies vertical time, but instead of absolute stasis, it generates constant motion. The sense of movement is so evenly paced, and the goals are so vague, that we usually lose our sense of perspective.
> 
> I don't know why you are so resistant to this kind of experience in listening. In Messiaen, there is no real harmonic progression; there are successive "events" of color and timbre which occur as singularities. Most listeners here have no problem with Messiaen's music. I've heard it praised on these pages time and time again; and Messiaen was never singled-out for criticism that I can recall.


I'm not resistant to any way of listening. Obviously, music differs in its degree of narrative force or feeling of goal-directedness. I let the music tell me how it wants to be perceived. I don't see anything revelatory about this. It's probably useful to point it out to listeners who are less aware of the possible breadth of musical expression. I'm arguing here only that the phenomenon in question be described accurately and sensibly. Flights of new-agey, quasi-Buddhist jargon are not helpful. Nearly all music, even music such as Messiaen's with its dwelling on harmonic color and attenuated forward pressure, has temporal structure and is not well described as a "succession of instants" (be here now, dude). Maybe we can put some Scelsi under that rubric, but we ought to acknowledge that the determined pursuit of that aesthetic premise gives us a limited, impoverished art, regardless of who "gets into it." If it doesn't matter what the next note is, it just doesn't matter. We don't need music in order to "be here now."


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## Phil loves classical

Woodduck said:


> I'm not resistant to any way of listening. Obviously, music differs in its degree of narrative force or feeling of goal-directedness. I let the music tell me how it wants to be perceived. I don't see anything revelatory about this. It's probably useful to point it out to listeners who are less aware of the possible breadth of musical expression. I'm arguing here only that the phenomenon in question be described accurately and sensibly. Flights of new-agey, quasi-Buddhist jargon are not helpful. Nearly all music, even music such as Messiaen's with its dwelling on harmonic color and attenuated forward pressure, has temporal structure and is not well described as a "succession of instants" (be here now, dude). Maybe we can put some Scelsi under that rubric, but we ought to acknowledge that the determined pursuit of that aesthetic premise gives us a limited, impoverished art, regardless of who "gets into it." If it doesn't matter what the next note is, it just doesn't matter. We don't need music in order to "be here now."


I can understand the being in the moment thing if I never heard it done already before to be fair. I just don't understand how some composers can still keep doing it after it's been around for more than half a century, done with pretty much the same sort of results.


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## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> , done with pretty much the same sort of results.


How do you mean?


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## Enthusiast

millionrainbows said:


> I've been saying for a long time, to whomever would listen, that the way to listen to atonal and serial music is "in the moment," and confirmed this by posting the blog "New Conceptions of Musical Time."
> 
> Now, reading the book of astute critic & writer Paul Griffiths quoting no less than Stockhausen, completely confirms this way of perception. What I am telling the critics here is, simply, that they need to stop thinking so much, and just be quiet and listen.
> 
> Griffiths, p. 43:
> _...the new 'through-organized' music demanded a kind of 'meditative' listening: "one stays in the music...one needs nothing before or after in order to perceive the individual now (the individual sound)." Here is confirmation of what was said above...that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena.
> 
> _At last, someone "telling it like it is." This makes George Rochberg's treatise on "intelligibility in atonal music" seem even more ridiculously off-track, since he's trying to apply "old-school" music listening habits to the new music.It's what I've been saying all along...the key to listening to serial music _(or Messiaen, Varese, or Debussy, or Ives, for that matter)_ is to ignore that pesky narrative, time-dependent mind-set that conservative listeners are so addicted to, and to simply turn all that stuff off, and simply listen.
> That way of listening consists of more "brain" than ear, anyway, because it is more a set of _ideas_ about music, and about what music _should_ be. It's the _worst_ set of habits to have if one wants to truly listen, and the resulting negative reactions bear this out.


I think I agree with this but not only for atonal music. I am not a "I must concentrate on this to follow the logic" sort of listener. I know I am in a minority here but I am not sure what those listeners who favour concentration without disturbance or distraction actually do while they are listening.

If they are musically trained I suppose they might be partly aware of what the composer is doing, of how s/he is achieving the results. But I would have thought _that _would be a distraction from actually getting (experiencing) those results. Or if you are following a thread of musical argument - without the benefit of musical training - then how do you know you are not following a fantasy (your own interpretation of the piece) rather than listening with an open mind?

I often get to know new music by having it sort of in the background. I listen but do not stop my mind from wandering and am happy to let the music seep into my mind. If it bores me I will not want to listen again for quite a while but if some rewards begin to get through I will listen again. If it is a new composer or musical language I expect it to become memorable after a few hearings. More familiar composers don't need this delay. Different aspects of the music come into focus each time I listen.

I have listened like this since my earliest time - I did it with Mozart and Beethoven as well as with Bartok and Stravinsky and Schoenberg and Carter and Boulez and ... .


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## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> How do you mean?


Referring to "of the moment" note by note. I agree with MillionRainbows this sort of music is like discreet points in time, but by not tying the music together more strongly as in traditional music by real form, it's ingenuity doesn't last, and the approach can easily get tiresome work after work over time.


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## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> Referring to "of the moment" note by note. I agree with MillionRainbows this sort of music is like discreet points in time, but by not tying the music together more strongly as in traditional music by real form, it's ingenuity doesn't last, and the approach can easily get tiresome work after work over time.


It might be germane to remember that music not structured as a "narrative" is not a 20th-century invention. What strikes me as new is the eschewal of any suggestion of consequence, any sense that the sounds being heard now are occurring as a consequence of what came before or a predictor of what must come after. A Renaissance polyphonic motet, a piano piece by Debussy, even (to an important extent) a symphonic movement by Bruckner - these have little or no overarching "narrative" and often seem to be going nowhere in particular, but they still utilize harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement.

We now have a type of music which uses none of these devices, but simply presents sounds in a sequence without an apparent governing principle beyond, "Well, I guess we've heard enough of that sound, so here's another one." Music, an art form in which time is of the essence, has become a sort of sequential smorgasbord, with samples grouped by, at best, some quality of relatedness with respect to color or flavor. Case in point:






Of course there must be some sort of rationale for music like this, which would otherwise leave us wondering what the point might be. According to one YouTube comment, "Following the perfection of this composition's twelve-tone rows spiraling out of each other and condensing back into chordal crystals is very soothing to the mind and the soul, and effectively wipes off our heart and brain the daily aggression of mediocrity. Those for whom this is a bit challenging : do not cave in, but listen to it again during the night, in stillness, as a meditative exercise, a subtle contemplation of silence - it will reward your sincerity."

Hmmm...

Or take this composition:






Scelsi says: "Reiterating a note for a long time, it grows large, so large that you even hear harmony growing inside it. … When you enter into a sound, the sound envelops you and you become part of the sound. Gradually, you are consumed by it and you need no other sound. … All possible sounds are contained in it."

Well, it had to be something like that...

This of course is the artist speaking. Maybe the more determinedly intellectual among us will see the larger significance of such a statement, and infer from it a deep metaphysical meaning most of us never suspected. After enough thinking and listening to this sort of music, we might come to see how completely the music of our day has liberated our perception of reality, transcended mankind's time-bound, concrete-bound, egocentric past, and allowed us finally to rise above our petty humanistic concerns, stop waging war, and experience the timeless bliss of pure Being.

Namaste.


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## Phil loves classical

Woodduck said:


> It might be germane to remember that music not structured as a "narrative" is not a 20th-century invention. What strikes me as new is the eschewal of any suggestion of consequence, any sense that the sounds being heard now are occurring as a consequence of what came before or a predictor of what must come after. A Renaissance polyphonic motet, a piano piece by Debussy, even (to an important extent) a symphonic movement by Bruckner - these have little or no overarching "narrative" and often seem to be going nowhere in particular, but they still utilize harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement.
> 
> We now have a type of music which uses none of these devices, but simply presents sounds in a sequence without an apparent governing principle beyond, "Well, I guess we've heard enough of that sound, so here's another one." Music, an art form in which time is of the essence, has become a sort of sequential smorgasbord, with samples grouped by, at best, some quality of relatedness with respect to color or flavor. Case in point:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course there must be some sort of rationale for music like this, which would otherwise leave us wondering what the point might be. According to one YouTube comment, "Following the perfection of this composition's twelve-tone rows spiraling out of each other and condensing back into chordal crystals is very soothing to the mind and the soul, and effectively wipes off our heart and brain the daily aggression of mediocrity. Those for whom this is a bit challenging : do not cave in, but listen to it again during the night, in stillness, as a meditative exercise, a subtle contemplation of silence - it will reward your sincerity."
> 
> Hmmm...
> 
> Or take this composition:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scelsi says: "Reiterating a note for a long time, it grows large, so large that you even hear harmony growing inside it. … When you enter into a sound, the sound envelops you and you become part of the sound. Gradually, you are consumed by it and you need no other sound. … All possible sounds are contained in it."
> 
> Well, it had to be something like that...
> 
> This of course is the artist speaking. Maybe the more determinedly intellectual among us will see the larger significance of such a statement, and infer from it a deep metaphysical meaning most of us never suspected. After enough thinking and listening to this sort of music, we might come to see how completely the music of our day has liberated our perception of reality, transcended mankind's time-bound, concrete-bound, egocentric past, and allowed us finally to rise above our petty humanistic concerns, stop waging war, and experience the timeless bliss of pure Being.
> 
> Namaste.


Yes, I would agree Bruckner, Debussy and Renaissance have clear movement. To me they clearly go somewhere, where each note is part of something larger. Even atonal music like Schoenberg, Webern clearly go somewhere and is part of something larger to me, since they follow a certain form. It is serial music and indeterminate music, where I feel just about each note or phrase is not logically connected with others to form something larger. It is a "forced" combination of sounds, as in Marteau sans Maitre. With Repons, there is a clearer connection between notes, but little from the beginning of the work to the end or even between movements, from my own listening and from another critic that felt the same way.

Not saying I'm an intellectual, you are describing, but I quite don't buy what Scelsi is saying about hearing a particular sound, it contains all other possible sounds. Sounds like a nice theory, but in reality I doubt it can really be achieved.


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## KenOC

Phil loves classical said:


> Not saying I'm an intellectual, you are describing, but I quite don't buy what Scelsi is saying about hearing a particular sound, it contains all other possible sounds. Sounds like a nice theory, but in reality I doubt it can really be achieved.


Some, perhaps, deeply sunk in their philistinism, might even call that sort of talk BS. But that Woodduck shore does talk purty!


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## Becca

One of the increasingly popular cosmological theories involves the idea of multiple universes where there are differing physical realities brought about by them having differing fundamental physical constants. Given that some of the 'more determinedly intellectual' like to tie their more far-out theorizing to the hard science, typically aspects of relativity and particle physics *, it is only a matter of time before we have music written using the (supposed) realities of other universes.

* And their understanding of said sciences is clearly visible.

Before I get bombarded by comments about 'not getting it' or being thanked for being supportive, neither of which is true, let me say that my argument is not against the music, rather the more outlandish philosophizing used to describe how the cognoscenti rationalize it all.

Now I need to get back to my latest composition which can best be understood as how Beethoven might be perceived as one approaches a black hole event horizon ... in vertical time of course.


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## KenOC

Becca said:


> One of the increasingly popular cosmological theories involves the idea of multiple universes where there are differing physical realities brought about by them having differing fundamental physical constants.


Theories multiversial
Remain quite controversial
Boulez in another dimension
Would limit our dissension
Since he wouldn't be accessial.


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## aleazk

Becca said:


> One of the increasingly popular cosmological theories involves the idea of multiple universes where there are differing physical realities brought about by them having differing fundamental physical constants. Given that some of the 'more determinedly intellectual' like to tie their more far-out theorizing to the hard science, typically aspects of relativity and particle physics *, it is only a matter of time before we have music written using the (supposed) realities of other universes.
> 
> * And their understanding of said sciences is clearly visible.
> 
> Before I get bombarded by comments about 'not getting it' or being thanked for being supportive, neither of which is true, let me say that my argument is not against the music, rather the more outlandish philosophizing used to describe how the cognoscenti rationalize it all.
> 
> Now I need to get back to my latest composition which can best be understood as how Beethoven might be perceived as one approaches a black hole event horizon ... in vertical time of course.


I consider those theories to be BS talk already in the sciences... I prefer not to imagine what the result could be if they transform them into artsy BS talk! 

I mean, look what the hippies did already with rather simple physical concepts, like waves and energy. Multiverses and different physics in each of them would be so cloying as like dying of diabetic coma after eating ten ktons of sugar.


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## arpeggio

I never understood why it is necessary to understand the message of the music in order to understand it. I just happen to like the sound of atonal music. What is wrong with that?

(Note: If people who dislike atonal music must continue to want to remind us on why they dislike it I guess I will remind them why I like it.)


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## fluteman

larold said:


> _I do find a lot of Boulez (and his contemporaries) eerily beautiful, sometime frightening, thought-provoking. But there is nothing I would tap my toe to or sing in the shower. It has its fans, but the mainstream classical audiences will never embrace it._
> 
> In my opinion composers like Boulez are the reason for the steep worldwide decline in interest in classical music.


I had to stop my review of this lengthy thread right there. In my opinion, it is exactly the other way around, i.e., the steep decline in interest in the classical music of the 19th century and earlier are the reason for composers like Boulez. The 20th century was one of sonic revolution, filling our sonic environment with sounds that did not exist in previous centuries. How often are the sounds of modern technology fully silenced so we only hear the sounds of earlier centuries? Indoors in a climate-controlled building, never. And outdoors, few of us live so far from automobile traffic and other modern noises that they are fully silenced. An integral and logical part of this new environment was a new generation of electrical musical instruments and amplification.

I suspect many if not most of the anti-modernists here look to classical music in significant part for relief, a welcome respite if you will, from the relentless modern technological soundscape that pervades our current environment. To me that attitude is entirely understandable. But there is no escaping what we as a culture have become, not entirely, or even for the most part. And the greatest artists are merciless about revealing who we really are, however prepared or not we are to acknowledge it.

That is why, to me, if you want to understand modern music, the place to begin is with a predecessor of Boulez, not Schoenberg, but Edgard Varèse and his Amériques, completed in 1921 and premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1926. That may not be the earliest, but it is one of the most dramatic early expressions of the soundscape at a time when automobile traffic and so many other sounds of the technological revolution were still new.


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## Becca

> the steep decline in interest in the classical music of the 19th century and earlier are the reason for composers like Boulez.


Give us some evidence of this otherwise unsupported theory



> I suspect many if not most of the anti-modernists here look to classical music in significant part for relief, a welcome respite if you will, from the relentless modern technological soundscape that pervades our current environment.


I would describe that as wishful thinking.


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## KenOC

Becca said:


> I would describe that as wishful thinking.


Well, maybe not for all. One of the rewards I find in the classical period is the sense of a gracious and elevated discourse, always courteous and intelligent, which is a relief from the present world of constant vicious attacks which don't even attempt to hide their fundamental dishonesties.

In that sense, yes, for me that music at least is escapism.


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## 89Koechel

Hello, KenOC (and I think you were ON some of the Amazon Class. Music discussion boards, before they were terminated), I can simply say this - it seems certain that Boulez and one of the "venerable old masters"/Wilhelm Furtwangler were BETTER at conducting, than they were at composing. I've listened to "Le Marteau sans Maitre", and one or 2 of Furtwangler's compositions, and they might enter-into the area of "nice try … but how enduring are they?", that kind of summation. We could also include, of course, most of the output of the late Leonard Bernstein, or others. … I guess that one could argue that Berlioz was BOTH a great conductor, AND an exceptional composer, but we just don't have the evidence of such, do we? Anyhoo, thanks for the interesting idea/concept of Boulez, as a great composer. Would he (Boulez) argue the same … in other words, a great composer?


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## Mandryka

KenOC said:


> Well, maybe not for all. One of the rewards I find in the classical period is the sense of a gracious and elevated discourse, always courteous and intelligent, which is a relief from the present world of constant vicious attacks which don't even attempt to hide their fundamental dishonesties.
> 
> In that sense, yes, for me that music at least is escapism.


Gracious and courteous discourse, that doesn't sound like Beethoven and Shostakovich to me, more like the beer hall and the battering ram.


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## fluteman

Becca said:


> Give us some evidence of this otherwise unsupported theory
> 
> I would describe that as wishful thinking.


What is the point of your comment? I went to great pains to support my point in my post. Do you have some support for your point, or anything useful to add to the conversation rather than "I disagree"? For example, are you familiar with Ameriques and have anything to say about it? These threads would be a lot shorter and easier to read through without posts like yours.


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## fluteman

KenOC said:


> Well, maybe not for all. One of the rewards I find in the classical period is the sense of a gracious and elevated discourse, always courteous and intelligent, which is a relief from the present world of constant vicious attacks which don't even attempt to hide their fundamental dishonesties.
> 
> In that sense, yes, for me that music at least is escapism.


Well, if the present world is one of "constant vicious attacks which don't even attempt to hide their fundamental dishonesties" (and I'll readily agree that is an accurate description of at least some aspects of our current world, alas), then don't you have to accept that the art of our current world is going to reflect that? Wouldn't it be dishonest of artists to completely deny the realities of their own environment?
I spend a lot more time listening to Beethoven string quartets than to Amériques, and I suspect you and many of us here do the same. But I can understand why the latter was written, and had to be written.


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## KenOC

Mandryka said:


> Gracious and courteous discourse, that doesn't sound like Beethoven and Shostakovich to me, more like the beer hall and the battering ram.


I am thinking, of course, of the other end of the classical period. You know, the part prior to the Age of Rage!


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## KenOC

fluteman said:


> ...But I can understand why the latter was written, and had to be written.


"..had to be written" for sure. Some sort of compulsion was needed because, after all, why else would anybody write the stuff?

Fortunately, I don't "have to listen" except on those religious holidays when penitents are walking the streets half-naked and scourging themselves. I join in by listening to Boulez. Although that's probably more painful, I'm told there's a lower chance of infection.


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## MaxKellerman

fluteman said:


> Well, if the present world is one of "constant vicious attacks which don't even attempt to hide their fundamental dishonesties" (and I'll readily agree that is an accurate description of at least some aspects of our current world, alas), then don't you have to accept that the art of our current world is going to reflect that? Wouldn't it be dishonest of artists to completely deny the realities of their own environment?


This habit of dwelling on the distressing side of human life isn't new in art however. From the beginning of our civilization it has been one of the tasks of art to take what is most painful in the human condition and to redeem it in a work that finds beauty in even in the worst aspect of things. These works demonstrate how in the face of the horrors they depict, human being can still show nobility, compassion, and dignity. And art can help us to accept death by presenting it in such a light. Perhaps the difference is in the attitude towards art then. Many current artists are concerned with displaying and representing the ugliest apects of the world, while previously artists looked to transform them.


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## Becca

fluteman said:


> What is the point of your comment? I went to great pains to support my point in my post. Do you have some support for your point, or anything useful to add to the conversation rather than "I disagree"? For example, are you familiar with Ameriques and have anything to say about it? These threads would be a lot shorter and easier to read through without posts like yours.


No you didn't. You talked a lot about modern music and sounds going back to Varese but that doesn't say anything about why _"*the steep decline in interest in the classical music* of the 19th century and earlier are the reason for composers like Boulez"_


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## fluteman

Becca said:


> No you didn't. You talked a lot about modern music and sounds going back to Varese but that doesn't say anything about why _"*the steep decline in interest in the classical music* of the 19th century and earlier are the reason for composers like Boulez"_


Throughout the 20th century there was a growing gulf between what people living in industrialized societies encountered in their daily lives and what they encountered in the art of earlier centuries. Thus, in contemporary art there were dramatic departures from the conventions of that earlier art. Look at Picasso's Nude Descending A Staircase and Joyce's Ulysses. You can see the same thing in popular culture, entertainment and music, especially after 1920. The influence of the Art Deco movement in advertising, and Bauhaus in furniture design and architecture. The music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Even TV show themes in The Twilight Zone (Marius Constant) and Mission Impossible (Lalo Schifrin).
All of that eventually separated us somewhat (not entirely, of course), from the artistic aesthetic of earlier centuries. You think the music of Pierre Boulez has alienated people from the classical music? I have news for you: Almost nobody you'll meet on the street has even heard of Boulez or ever heard any of his music. Also, almost nobody you'll meet on the street has any interest in the music of Bruckner or Wagner, or has heard of them. To say Boulez somehow made people lose interest in Bruckner or Wagner is ridiculous.
They probably won't know the names of Arvo Part or Philip Glass either, but they'll have heard their music, and music influenced by them. 
I'm very tired of people claiming that the music of a long dead and gone era is unjustly dead and gone due to the machinations of certain 20th century composers (who are themselves dead and gone at this point). That music and art generally is dead and gone because the society and culture that produced it is dead and gone. That doesn't mean that those of us willing to make the effort to learn and understand it are not richly rewarded. We are. We can celebrate the past without pretending that somehow it is not past.


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## DaveM

fluteman said:


> ...I'm very tired of people claiming that the music of a long dead and gone era is unjustly dead and gone due to the machinations of certain 20th century composers (who are themselves dead and gone at this point). That music and art generally is dead and gone because the society and culture that produced it is dead and gone. That doesn't mean that those of us willing to make the effort to learn and understand it are not richly rewarded. We are. We can celebrate the past without pretending that somehow it is not past.


There's some truth to the above, but it ignores the fact that the existence of classical music in the present whether by performances or recordings still depends on the works of composers dead and gone for more than a century than less. And classical music where melody was an important part -as, at least, the most prominent form of classical music- did not die a natural death.


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## aleazk

MaxKellerman said:


> Many current artists are concerned with displaying and representing the ugliest apects of the world, while previously artists looked to transform them.


I'm having a hardtime in trying to guess what 'ugly aspect of the world' is being 'represented' by, say, Boulez's Sur Incises.

And even in Boulez's Structures. That piece doesn't represent anything, it's deliberately impersonal, like a work of modern architecture from that time, like, say, the Seagram building in NYC.

One of the few pieces by Boulez which I would characterize as actually violent is the 2nd Piano Sonata, which he composed when he was 20 years old or something close to that age.


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## MaxKellerman

aleazk said:


> I'm having a hardtime in trying to guess what 'ugly aspect of the world' is being 'represented' by, say, Boulez's Sur Incises.


I was simply offering my thoughts on the portion of fluteman's post that I quoted, not discussing Boulez's music specifically.


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## aleazk

Yes, but you did some generalizations that could give a misleading view of what current composers do.


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## MaxKellerman

Sounds like your beef is with fluteman then.


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## aleazk

MaxKellerman said:


> Sounds like your beef is with fluteman then.


I think pieces like Sur Incises and others by Boulez are a counterexample to what you said, since, in those pieces, the composer takes a language (chromaticism) that supposedly emerged in the early 20th century to represent the ugliness and uses it to compose sensual and colorful pieces, that are not ugly nor represent ugly things, thus achieving that transformation you were talking about. Most current composers use it in that way now and the ones who used it to despict the 'ugly' are actually only a few (say, Ligeti's Requiem).


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## MaxKellerman

aleazk said:


> I think pieces like Sur Incises and others by Boulez are a counterexample to what you said, since, in those pieces, the composer takes a language (chromaticism) that supposedly emerged in the early 20th century to represent the ugliness and uses it to compose sensual and colorful pieces, that are not ugly nor represent ugly things, thus achieving that transformation you were talking about. Most current composers use it in that way now and the ones who used it to despict the 'ugly' are actually only a few (say, Ligeti's Requiem).


Great, you get a cookie.


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## aleazk

MaxKellerman said:


> Great, you get a cookie.


So you don't care about talking the points you have made? Why post in the first place then?


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## fluteman

MaxKellerman said:


> Sounds like your beef is with fluteman then.


Quite the opposite. Aleazk has made almost exactly the point I was trying to make, only more skillfully and deftly and in vastly fewer words than I, in his intelligent post, in calling Boulez, or one of his best known pieces, "deliberately impersonal" and likening it to one of the most famous icons of monolithic, boxy mid-century modern architecture. The impersonal, the mechanical, the electronic, one could say, the inorganic, play central roles in the music of Boulez, even when he uses traditional acoustic instruments like mine. He does it with rhythm and timbre as much or more as atonality, which puts him very far from Schoenberg.
In fact, I will step aside and let aleazk continue with this thread in my stead with his much shorter, yet somehow more thoughtful, posts. Good night.


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## DaveM

fluteman said:


> ...The impersonal, the mechanical, the electronic, one could say, the inorganic, play central roles in the music of Boulez, even when he uses traditional acoustic instruments like mine. He does it with rhythm and timbre as much or more as atonality,


And this is what a cornerstone of modern music is built on?


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## aleazk

fluteman said:


> Quite the opposite. Aleazk has made almost exactly the point I was trying to make, only more skillfully and deftly and in vastly fewer words than I, in his intelligent post, in calling Boulez, or one of his best known pieces, "deliberately impersonal" and likening it to one of the most famous icons of monolithic, boxy mid-century modern architecture. The impersonal, the mechanical, the electronic, one could say, the inorganic, play central roles in the music of Boulez, even when he uses traditional acoustic instruments like mine. He does it with rhythm and timbre as much or more as atonality, which puts him very far from Schoenberg.
> In fact, I will step aside and let aleazk continue with this thread in my stead with his much shorter, yet somehow more thoughtful, posts. Good night.


Indeed, I agree with those points and my problem was with the fixation in 'ugly' things and the generalization that most composers do that and in a certain way. I understood you were mentioning the ugly just as a particular example of your points but saw that this was being used later for another agenda in the responses to your remarks...


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## aleazk

DaveM said:


> And this is what a cornerstone of modern music is built on?


Of certain type of modern music at some point in history, yes. But those views were not unique to music, it was part of the modernist movement, which was present in most artistic disciplines. "_It was a style that argued that the functional utility of the structural elements when made visible, could supplant a formal decorative articulation; and more honestly converse with the public than any system of applied ornamentation._" An interesting description of Boulez's integral serialism, don't you think? Except it's a description of the architectural principles behind the design of the mentioned Seagram building by the top modernist architect of all times, Mies van der Rohe.

Anyway, Boulez moved from that in his middle and late periods (starting with Le Marteau) towards a more sensual and, indeed, ornamented, style, in which the beauty of the surface is not relegated to a secondary level and dependent on the structure, but it's dealt in its own terms and just for the sake of sensual beauty. Of course, this can be seen as a revival of the usual french view, most commonly associated with Debussy and Ravel after the 'ornamental nihilism' of hardcore modernism.


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## DaveM

aleazk said:


> Of certain type of modern music at some point in history, yes. But those views were not unique to music, it was part of the modernist movement, which was present in most artistic disciplines. "_It was a style that argued that the functional utility of the structural elements when made visible, could supplant a formal decorative articulation; and more honestly converse with the public than any system of applied ornamentation._" An interesting description of Boulez's integral serialism, don't you think? Except it's a description of the architectural principles behind the design of the mentioned Seagram building by the top modernist architect of all times, Mies van der Rohe.


And so, a comment on an architectural style that can be applied to Boulez's serialism. It is this kind of description and the one that I just responded to that confirm to me, along with what I hear in the music, that perhaps it has a brain, but no heart so it isn't something I would want to spend precious minutes of my life trying to appreciate.


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## aleazk

DaveM said:


> And so, a comment on an architectural style that can be applied to Boulez's serialism. It is this kind of description and the one that I just responded to that confirm to me, along with what I hear in the music, that perhaps it has a brain, but no heart so it isn't something I would want to spend precious minutes of my life trying to appreciate.


Well, that's a valid personal view.

From the comment ("and more honestly converse with the public than any system of applied ornamentation"), they were indeed hoping that people would find a new type of connection with it. I think, maybe, it was much more successful in architecture than in music, since the composers themselves, like Boulez, quickly started to explore different directions (althought, of course, still retaining some elements), while Mies van der Rohe's ideas are still widely copied. Perhaps the mentioned "escapist" approach to music is one of the reasons.


----------



## fluteman

aleazk said:


> Well, that's a valid personal view.
> 
> From the comment ("and more honestly converse with the public than any system of applied ornamentation"), they were indeed hoping that people would find a new type of connection with it. I think, maybe, it was much more successful in architecture than in music, since the composers themselves, like Boulez, quickly started to explore different directions (althought, of course, still retaining some elements), while Mies van der Rohe's ideas are still widely copied. Perhaps the mentioned "escapist" approach to music is one of the reasons.


Well said as to Boulez, and as to modern architecture, for that matter. FWIW, I think that mid 20th-century modern architecture has survived more for utility reasons, especially in the very tall skyscrapers still built in urban centers as tributes to the triumph of capitalism in places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, as well as here in the US. In smaller buildings and private homes, I think there has been a much greater departure from modernism, at least here in the US, though its influence is still seen. The wealthy still build some homes in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright, but not many, and the more spartan and severe modern styles are even rarer. Again, I think this is mainly an issue of utility. And post-modern ideas, for example of the late Philip Johnson, have had a great impact on buildings of all sizes, including skyscrapers, again, at least here in the US.

All of which is to say, I don't see much point in wringing one's hands over the modernist movement in general. Like all artistic and aesthetic movements, it came, had its impact, and is now gradually being overtaken by other movements.


----------



## Enthusiast

^^^ I don't know anything about architecture but here in Britain - or maybe it is only small town Britain - it has been a matter of bowing to apparently popular preference to not build in a modernist style. Instead we build hideous and laughable Toy Town estates in mock-Regency or mock-Tudor or mock-something old of absolutely no aesthetic merit. Prince Charles was a major mover in making this happen. I guess it all mirrors what those who hate modernism in music would like to see in its place ... and I sometimes wonder whether some tendencies in American post-Minimalism (recent Glass, much Adams) does not show signs of this.


----------



## Mandryka

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I don't know anything about architecture but here in Britain - or maybe it is only small town Britain - it has been a matter of bowing to apparently popular preference to not build in a modernist style. Instead we build hideous and laughable Toy Town estates in mock-Regency or mock-Tudor or mock-something old of absolutely no aesthetic merit. Prince Charles was a major mover in making this happen. I guess it all mirrors what those who hate modernism in music would like to see in its place ... and I sometimes wonder whether some tendencies in American post-Minimalism (recent Glass, much Adams) does not show signs of this.


Well put!

Re skyscrapers, I really think the London skyline has improved through buildings like the shard. I crossed last week on The Hungerford Bridge and it's so impressive, you have parliament on one side of the Thames and the skyscrapers and St Pauls on the other.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

(I know he was talking about a different bridge -- but it's not far!)


----------



## fluteman

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I don't know anything about architecture but here in Britain - or maybe it is only small town Britain - it has been a matter of bowing to apparently popular preference to not build in a modernist style. Instead we build hideous and laughable Toy Town estates in mock-Regency or mock-Tudor or mock-something old of absolutely no aesthetic merit. Prince Charles was a major mover in making this happen. I guess it all mirrors what those who hate modernism in music would like to see in its place ... and I sometimes wonder whether some tendencies in American post-Minimalism (recent Glass, much Adams) does not show signs of this.


Interesting comments. As to mid-century modern architecture, my point was that it works well for skyscrapers, but it turned out not to be very comfortable and practical in a lot of cases for private homes, impressive though it may look in that context as well. Ironically, I have some personal experience there. The modernist architect Louis Kahn was a family friend, and of the only nine private homes he designed in his entire career, two were built for relatives of mine. And the results with concert halls was also decidedly mixed, as has often been discussed here.

I'm no expert either, but I do agree that post-modern architecture is a mixed bag. Post-modern music, too.


----------



## Woodduck

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I don't know anything about architecture but here in Britain - or maybe it is only small town Britain - *it has been a matter of bowing to apparently popular preference to not build in a modernist style. Instead we build hideous and laughable Toy Town estates in mock-Regency or mock-Tudor or mock-something* old of absolutely no aesthetic merit. Prince Charles was a major mover in making this happen. *I guess it all mirrors what those who hate modernism in music would like to see in its place ...* and I sometimes wonder whether some tendencies in American post-Minimalism (recent Glass, much Adams) does not show signs of this.


A lot of people dislike modern architecture, at least its more radical tendencies. The attempt to strip the arts down, to remove everything "extraneous" or "non-functional" in the name of "honesty," has not proven particularly heart-warming. Most people would choose wooden beams across a ceiling rather than exposed pipes and heating ducts, despite the fact that the beams have no structural function and would be condemned by the Modernist as "fraudulent." The trouble is, architecture that can dispense with everything ornamental or decorative and still be beautiful and humane - pleasing to the senses and emotions - requires genius and vision. Modernist doctrine allowed people possessing neither - but having plenty of ego in their place - to make a lot of money turning dignified cityscapes into frigid wastes of precast concrete, glass and steel.

The 20th century produced an incredible array of fascinating art, but once Modernism had stripped everything familiar and beloved away we were at a loss as to how to proceed, and Postmodern philosophy had no positive vision to offer. But what it did allow was _irony_, and so architects, seeing a new way to be _au courant,_ took to plundering traditional architectural styles and sticking fake columns and pediments - the very things Modernists abhorred but everyday folks remembered with affection - on buildings that would blend with traditional townscapes. It's cynical and dumb, and at bottom it proclaims the emptiness of contemporary culture, but people can feel unthreatened, town planners and local governments can pass bills for urban improvement without public protest, and architects can chuckle all the way to the bank.

The story of modern architecture is also the story of modern painting and modern music.


----------



## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> The story of modern architecture is also the story of modern painting and modern music.


Yes. To do something truly worthwhile in those genres requires, to use your well-chosen terms, "genius and vision". And, as you all too correctly imply, neither of those attributes is easy to come by.

Bummer.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> The idea of music as "a succession of instants" is ridiculous. Why? Because there is no such thing as an "instant." "Instant" is an abstract concept that does not describe experience, which always has duration and structure. We can isolate a sound as an individual "thing," but until there is another sound we don't have music, and when there is another sound the two sounds are experienced together as an entity with duration and structure.


Once again, an exaggeration. Of course, time doesn't "stop," we're always "moving" through it, and music is a time-based art. What's the point of these refutations? As is evidenced by the later posts, Woodduck is just not into "modernism" and wants to generally invalidate it by either comparing it to the music of the past, which seems to be Wagner and Romanticism, or by very simplistic invalidations, akin to adolescent graffiti. It's not telling us anything new except that he doesn't like it.



> The nearest thing possible to a succession of instants in music would be a succession of sounds which have no perceivable relation to one another - a "composition" in which it makes no difference whatever how the music goes. Why anyone would consider that to be something worth making needs a clearer explanation than you've provided. And why you would recommend that a listener attempt to hear the works of Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, Webern, or anyone else as if they tried to achieve this - as if the choice of which note should succeed which is arbitrary and meaningless - needs explaining as well. Do you hear their music, or any music, that way? I doubt it.


What a distortion of what I'm conveying! I'm glad you're not my waiter, or my pheasant under glass might turn out to be a cheeseburger.



> And the less said about the purposes of God, the better.


Boulez was a declared agnostic, and Stockhausen was a very rational German, so I doubt that either one of them had any concept of "God" that would interfere with anybody's agenda. If anything, I think Stockhausen would be more sympathetic to Taoism or other non-deistic ideas.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I'm not resistant to any way of listening. Obviously, music differs in its degree of narrative force or feeling of goal-directedness. I let the music tell me how it wants to be perceived. I don't see anything revelatory about this. It's probably useful to point it out to listeners who are less aware of the possible breadth of musical expression. I'm arguing here only that the phenomenon in question be described accurately and sensibly.


I think that's a disingenuous answer. I think the truth is that you don't like Boulez' or Stockhausen's music, and you are avoiding the spiritual dimension to the men and their music, for your own purposes. In discussing Western Classical music, the notion of religion or higher spiritual goals of composers is bound to come up.



> Flights of new-agey, quasi-Buddhist jargon are not helpful. Nearly all music, even music such as Messiaen's with its dwelling on harmonic color and attenuated forward pressure, has temporal structure and is not well described as a "succession of instants" (be here now, dude).


It is now obvious that you are not interested in discussing music on this thread, but in trolling the participants, and you're starting starting to sound like your "dark side" is emerging again. I'm not going to engage with it, except to say that it is out of place on this thread, like someone who has barged in on the wrong party.



> Maybe we can put some Scelsi under that rubric, but we ought to acknowledge that the determined pursuit of that aesthetic premise gives us a limited, impoverished art, regardless of who "gets into it." If it doesn't matter what the next note is, it just doesn't matter. We don't need music in order to "be here now."


Music is useful for structuring our experience of time passing, and it has to do with _much more _than "what the next note is." If that's all you can get out of Messiaen, Varese, or other music in which time seems to slow down to a succession of sonic events, then you're hopelessly trapped in a narrative notion of time which reduces the art of music down to something like a novel, or a long book. I like books, but they always make me sleepy.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> It might be germane to remember that music not structured as a "narrative" is not a 20th-century invention. What strikes me as new is the eschewal of any suggestion of consequence, any sense that the sounds being heard now are occurring as a consequence of what came before or a predictor of what must come after. A Renaissance polyphonic motet, a piano piece by Debussy, even (to an important extent) a symphonic movement by Bruckner - these have little or no overarching "narrative" and often seem to be going nowhere in particular, but they still utilize harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement.


Common practice era Western Classical music going nowhere in particular? How do you get away with saying that? When tonality is involved, there is 'development' and progress toward goals; and yes, all this produces and implies "movement." If you are making a point, it seems laced with contradictions. Your strategy of argument seems to be that Common Practice music with "little or no overarching 'narrative' which often seems to be going nowhere in particular is "okay" since it's tonal music which "still utilizes harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement," but if it is not tonal, it is meaningless. All this boils down to is your insistence that "tonal" music is the only "meaningful" music.



> ...We now have a type of music which uses none of these devices, but simply presents sounds in a sequence without an apparent governing principle...


As was stated earlier, "..._the process enacted in (serial) music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena." 
_And, no doubt, you seem to experience this music as chaotic.

Boulez and Stockhausen have eschewed the _obvious _meanings which have developed with tonality, and are delving into things which are beyond simple tonal principles. Boulez and Stockhausen were prophetic.

In referring to modern music and serial music, you declare that it is music "...without an apparent governing principle beyond, 'Well, I guess we've heard enough of that sound, so here's another one.'

That's a very simplistic example, not well-thought-out. Just an off-the-wall invalidation, like adolescent graffiti. That's really just a simple put-down of Boulez' music, because Boulez' music does not use the (tonal) "devices" which, for you, are apparently the only way music can ever begin to "have meaning" or "make sense."



> Music, an art form in which time is of the essence, has become a sort of sequential smorgasbord, with samples grouped by, at best, some quality of relatedness with respect to color or flavor.


For you, it has. Apparently, you have stumbled into the wrong restaurant.



> Of course there must be some sort of rationale for music like this, which would otherwise leave us wondering what the point might be. According to one YouTube comment, "Following the perfection of this composition's twelve-tone rows spiraling out of each other and condensing back into chordal crystals is very soothing to the mind and the soul, and effectively wipes off our heart and brain the daily aggression of mediocrity. Those for whom this is a bit challenging : do not cave in, but listen to it again during the night, in stillness, as a meditative exercise, a subtle contemplation of silence - it will reward your sincerity."
> Hmmm...


Milton Babbitt, the noted American serialist, was solely concerned with the "unfolding of 12-tone rows and their permutations," and I enjoy listening to it, without even trying to "keep track" of the rows. What's wrong with that? The "governing principles" which produced the music are not apparent to me, but there are other rewards; namely, it sounds good. It's playful, nicely textured, and beautiful.



> Scelsi says: "Reiterating a note for a long time, it grows large, so large that you even hear harmony growing inside it. … When you enter into a sound, the sound envelops you and you become part of the sound. Gradually, you are consumed by it and you need no other sound. … All possible sounds are contained in it."
> 
> Well, it had to be something like that...


Actually, this statement is true, and came from the classical musicians of India. You know, Ravi Shankar, the sitar genius? "All music can be understood in the sound of one note." Which is literally true: One note is a fundamental tone, which consists of higher, weaker harmonic components. This is also the harmonic model for all tonality; the relationship, expressed in ratios, of the harmonics to the fundamental.



> This of course is the artist speaking. Maybe the more determinedly intellectual among us will see the larger significance of such a statement, and infer from it a deep metaphysical meaning most of us never suspected.


How did you guess? But there is no "deep metaphysical" truth here: sound is a purely physical phenomenon on a purely visceral level. No metaphysics involved.



> After enough thinking and listening to this sort of music, we might come to see how completely the music of our day has liberated our perception of reality, transcended mankind's time-bound, concrete-bound, egocentric past, and allowed us finally to rise above our petty humanistic concerns, stop waging war, and experience the timeless bliss of pure Being.


No, I think Man's insanity will continue, as long as he is narcissistically in love with an outmoded notion of who he is, not unlike Wagner the man. I hear he was really a piece of work, and quite arrogant.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Theories multiversial
> Remain quite controversial
> Boulez in another dimension
> Would limit our dissension
> Since he wouldn't be accessial.


There once was a girl with a rabbitt
Upon hearing the music of Babbitt,
She exclaimed, with a scream,
"This must all be a dream!
It lies outside of my tonal habits!"


----------



## Woodduck

Well, someone seems to have got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning! But thanks for spending so much time and effort engaging with my remarks, Mr. Rainbows. You've even responded to one of my posts twice, on Sunday and again today. Flattering, I guess... I do wish, though, that you would not say things like

_"As is evidenced by the later posts, Woodduck is just not into 'modernism' and wants to generally invalidate it by either comparing it to the music of the past, which seems to be Wagner and Romanticism. It's not telling us anything new except that he doesn't like it."_

I'm very capable of telling people what I mean, Mr. Rainbows, and anyone interested in my thoughts will do much better reading my own words than your glosses on them, which are more likely than not to be inaccurate, as in this case.

As for the following, I won't comment on it, but I will quote it back to you:

_"It is now obvious that you are not interested in discussing music on this thread, but in trolling the participants, and you're starting to sound like your 'dark side' is emerging again. I'm not going to engage with it, except to say that it is out of place on this thread, like someone who has barged in on the wrong party."_

Relax and have another drink, Mr. Rainbows. The party is open to all, and the night is young. :tiphat:


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Well, someone seems to have got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning! But thanks for spending so much time and effort engaging with my remarks, Mr. Rainbows. You've even responded to one of my posts twice, on Sunday and again today. Flattering, I guess... I do wish, though, that you would not say things like
> 
> _"As is evidenced by the later posts, Woodduck is just not into 'modernism' and wants to generally invalidate it by either comparing it to the music of the past, which seems to be Wagner and Romanticism. It's not telling us anything new except that he doesn't like it."_
> 
> I'm very capable of telling people what I mean, Mr. Rainbows, and anyone interested in my thoughts will do much better reading my own words than your glosses on them, which are more likely than not to be inaccurate, as in this case.


I haven't heard any praise from you on Boulez. My interpretation of your intent on this thread is accurate. All you can do is invalidate, invalidate, without offering any substance. That's so transparent.

...and you are back in your "personal comments" comfort zone again, I see. That's an easy way of avoiding substance. I'm just revealing your anti-modernist agenda, which seem to have expanded into _architecture. _



> As for the following, I won't comment on it, but I will quote it back to you:
> 
> _"It is now obvious that you are not interested in discussing music on this thread, but in trolling the participants, and you're starting to sound like your 'dark side' is emerging again. I'm not going to engage with it, except to say that it is out of place on this thread, like someone who has barged in on the wrong party."_
> Relax and have another drink, Mr. Rainbows. The party is open to all, and the night is young. :tiphat:


Okay, give me another shot of your venomous anti-modernist rhetoric, mixed with aged bile, shaken, not stirred, in a chilled martini glass.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> I haven't heard any praise from you on Boulez. My interpretation of your intent on this thread is accurate. All you can do is invalidate, invalidate, without offering any substance. That's so transparent.
> 
> ...and you are back in your "personal comments" comfort zone again, I see. That's an easy way of avoiding substance. I'm just revealing your anti-modernist agenda, which seem to have expanded into _architecture. _
> 
> Okay, give me another shot of your venomous anti-modernist rhetoric, mixed with aged bile, shaken, not stirred, in a chilled martini glass.


Skoal! :cheers: ................


----------



## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> Common practice era Western Classical music going nowhere in particular? How do you get away with saying that? When tonality is involved, there is 'development' and progress toward goals; and yes, all this produces and implies "movement." If you are making a point, it seems laced with contradictions. Your strategy of argument seems to be that Common Practice music with "little or no overarching 'narrative' which often seems to be going nowhere in particular is "okay" since it's tonal music which "still utilizes harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement," but if it is not tonal, it is meaningless. All this boils down to is your insistence that "tonal" music is the only "meaningful" music.
> 
> As was stated earlier, "..._the process enacted in (serial) music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena."
> _And, no doubt, you seem to experience this music as chaotic.
> 
> Boulez and Stockhausen have eschewed the _obvious _meanings which have developed with tonality, and are delving into things which are beyond simple tonal principles. Boulez and Stockhausen were prophetic.
> 
> In referring to modern music and serial music, you declare that it is music "...without an apparent governing principle beyond, 'Well, I guess we've heard enough of that sound, so here's another one.'
> 
> That's a very simplistic example, not well-thought-out. Just an off-the-wall invalidation, like adolescent graffiti. That's really just a simple put-down of Boulez' music, because Boulez' music does not use the (tonal) "devices" which, for you, are apparently the only way music can ever begin to "have meaning" or "make sense."
> 
> For you, it has. Apparently, you have stumbled into the wrong restaurant.
> 
> Milton Babbitt, the noted American serialist, was solely concerned with the "unfolding of 12-tone rows and their permutations," and I enjoy listening to it, without even trying to "keep track" of the rows. What's wrong with that? The "governing principles" which produced the music are not apparent to me, but there are other rewards; namely, it sounds good. It's playful, nicely textured, and beautiful.
> 
> Actually, this statement is true, and came from the classical musicians of India. You know, Ravi Shankar, the sitar genius? "All music can be understood in the sound of one note." Which is literally true: One note is a fundamental tone, which consists of higher, weaker harmonic components. This is also the harmonic model for all tonality; the relationship, expressed in ratios, of the harmonics to the fundamental.
> 
> How did you guess? But there is no "deep metaphysical" truth here: sound is a purely physical phenomenon on a purely visceral level. No metaphysics involved.
> 
> No, I think Man's insanity will continue, as long as he is narcissistically in love with an outmoded notion of who he is, not unlike Wagner the man. I hear he was really a piece of work, and quite arrogant.


I admire Stockhausen much more over Boulez. He made wave oscillations harmonize with other parts, basically taking other natural sounds in their original context and incorporating into music. He wasn't afraid of music that is ugly. His music explores the extremes of duration and density. A true experimentalist.


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> There once was a girl with a rabbitt
> Upon hearing the music of Babbitt,
> She exclaimed, with a scream,
> "This must all be a dream!
> It lies outside of my tonal habits!"


Sat down to listen to Boulez.
Did the man think we all are foolez?
Of melody barren,
His music's like sarin
Enjoyed, I guess, mostly by ghoulez.


----------



## millionrainbows

> _I'm not resistant to any way of listening. Obviously, music differs in its degree of narrative force or feeling of goal-directedness. I let the music tell me how it wants to be perceived. I don't see anything revelatory about this. It's probably useful to point it out to listeners who are less aware of the possible breadth of musical expression. I'm arguing here only that the phenomenon in question be described accurately and sensibly._



The real problem here is the avoidance of the spiritual dimension to the men and their music, for a presumed anti-religion agenda. In discussing Western Classical music, the notion of religion or higher spiritual goals of composers is bound to come up. Note that the issue of "spiritual orientation" as in Stockhausen's music is not simply a "religious" one, but deals with the more basic and universal notion of the "self," or "being," which is not doctrinal or religious.

_



Flights of new-agey, quasi-Buddhist jargon are not helpful. Nearly all music, even music such as Messiaen's with its dwelling on harmonic color and attenuated forward pressure, has temporal structure and is not well described as a "succession of instants" (be here now, dude).

Click to expand...

_

Many of the references to "being" and other related ideas were made by Stockhausen, or were referred to by author Paul Griffiths. Again, all music has a temporal dimension (it moves in time) and the "succession of instants" is not to be taken literally.



> _Maybe we can put some Scelsi under that rubric, but we ought to acknowledge that the determined pursuit of that aesthetic premise gives us a limited, impoverished art, regardless of who "gets into it." If it doesn't matter what the next note is, it just doesn't matter. We don't need music in order to "be here now."_




Music is useful for structuring our experience of time passing, and it has to do with _much more _than "what the next note is. The music of Messiaen, Varese, or other music in which time _seems _to slow down to a succession of sonic events, is not based on an older "narrative" notion of time which reduces the art of music down to harmonic. tonal goals, or something like a novel or a long book.


----------



## millionrainbows

_




t might be germane to remember that music not structured as a "narrative" is not a 20th-century invention. What strikes me as new is the eschewal of any suggestion of consequence, any sense that the sounds being heard now are occurring as a consequence of what came before or a predictor of what must come after. A Renaissance polyphonic motet, a piano piece by Debussy, even (to an important extent) a symphonic movement by Bruckner - these have little or no overarching "narrative" and often seem to be going nowhere in particular, but they still utilize harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement.

Click to expand...

_

Common practice era Western Classical music going nowhere in particular? When tonality is involved, there is 'development' and progress toward goals; and yes, all this produces and implies "movement." This refutation is laced with contradictions. The strategy of argument seems to be that Common Practice music with "little or no overarching 'narrative' which often seems to be going nowhere in particular is "okay" since it's tonal music which "still utilizes harmonies, melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns that produce or imply movement," but if it is not tonal, it is meaningless. All this boils down to is an insistence that "tonal" music is the only "meaningful" music.

_



...We now have a type of music which uses none of these devices, but simply presents sounds in a sequence without an apparent governing principle...

Click to expand...

_

As was stated earlier, "..._the process enacted in (serial) music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena." 


_Boulez and Stockhausen have eschewed the obvious meanings which have developed with tonality, and are delving into things which are beyond simple tonal principles. 
A reference to modern music and serial music as music "...without an apparent governing principle beyond, 'Well, I guess we've heard enough of that sound, so here's another one.' is a very simplistic example, not well-thought-out. Boulez' music does not use the (tonal) "devices" which for many, are apparently the only way music can ever begin to "have meaning" or "make sense."
_




Music, an art form in which time is of the essence, has become a sort of sequential smorgasbord, with samples grouped by, at best, some quality of relatedness with respect to color or flavor.

Click to expand...






Of course there must be some sort of rationale for music like this, which would otherwise leave us wondering what the point might be. According to one YouTube comment, "Following the perfection of this composition's twelve-tone rows spiraling out of each other and condensing back into chordal crystals is very soothing to the mind and the soul, and effectively wipes off our heart and brain the daily aggression of mediocrity. Those for whom this is a bit challenging : do not cave in, but listen to it again during the night, in stillness, as a meditative exercise, a subtle contemplation of silence - it will reward your sincerity." 
Hmmm...

Click to expand...




_Milton Babbitt, the noted American serialist, was solely concerned with the "unfolding of 12-tone rows and their permutations," and I enjoy listening to it, without even trying to "keep track" of the rows. What's wrong with that? The "governing principles" which produced the music are not apparent to me, but there are other rewards; namely, it sounds good. It's playful, nicely textured, and beautiful.



> Scelsi says: "Reiterating a note for a long time, it grows large, so large that you even hear harmony growing inside it. … When you enter into a sound, the sound envelops you and you become part of the sound. Gradually, you are consumed by it and you need no other sound. … All possible sounds are contained in it."
> 
> Well, it had to be something like that...


Actually, this statement is true, and came from the classical musicians of India. You know, Ravi Shankar, the sitar genius? "All music can be understood in the sound of one note." Which is literally true: One note is a fundamental tone, which consists of higher, weaker harmonic components. This is also the harmonic model for all tonality; the relationship, expressed in ratios, of the harmonics to the fundamental.




> This of course is the artist speaking. Maybe the more determinedly intellectual among us will see the larger significance of such a statement, and infer from it a deep metaphysical meaning most of us never suspected.




There is no "deep metaphysical" truth here: sound is a purely physical phenomenon on a purely visceral level.




> After enough thinking and listening to this sort of music, we might come to see how completely the music of our day has liberated our perception of reality, transcended mankind's time-bound, concrete-bound, egocentric past, and allowed us finally to rise above our petty humanistic concerns, stop waging war, and experience the timeless bliss of pure Being.




No, I think Man's insanity will continue, as long as he is narcissistically in love with an outmoded notion of what Man is.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Sat down to listen to Boulez.
> Did the man think we all are foolez?
> Of melody barren,
> His music's like sarin
> Enjoyed, I guess, mostly by ghoulez.


In Boulez he is searching for melody;
He is very off-track now, this fellowdy.
If Melody's the name
Of a good-looking dame
Then perhaps his brain is not all jello-y.


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## Guest

Just curious to know: what was the first piece of music by Boulez that got people interested in him? Or, what's the first piece that you liked of his that tempted you to explore more?

For me it was this piece, and I want to mention this particularly because I think it is a really good example of what the OP is describing in his music as well. There's a beautiful sense of swelling, moving colours and melodic direction in this that I find particularly attractive:


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## Guest

Also, I just listened to this one:






It's a riveting performance! Nice comparison with the one above.


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## millionrainbows

For me, it was those first two Columbia Masterworks LPs, Pli selon Pli, and Le Marteau sans maitre. I liked the percussion and exotic instrumentation.


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## millionrainbows

"Music must always be tonal!"
He said with a frustrated groanal
"It must have melody,
Not like that 'Threnody 
To the Victims...' 
"You know...
Penderecki!"


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## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> There once was a girl with a rabbitt
> Upon hearing the music of Babbitt,
> She exclaimed, with a scream,
> "This must all be a dream!
> It lies outside of my tonal habits!"


A man said "no" to Stockhausen
Ligeti, Schoenberg, Boulez, Glass and
he added, "It's just
that century's a bust
that there is no music of class in."


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## Mandryka

fluteman said:


> A man said "no" to Stockhausen
> Ligeti, Schoenberg, Boulez, Glass and
> he added, "It's just
> that century's a bust
> that there is no music of class in."


That's terrible!


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## Mandryka

shirime said:


> Just curious to know: what was the first piece of music by Boulez that got people interested in him? Or, what's the first piece that you liked of his that tempted you to explore more?
> 
> For me it was this piece, and I want to mention this particularly because I think it is a really good example of what the OP is describing in his music as well. There's a beautiful sense of swelling, moving colours and melodic direction in this that I find particularly attractive:


Pli selon Pli.

,mdr en ce,n


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## Dimace

Has, at the very end, Boulez composed some great music? Do we have a conclusion? Please, do not keep me longer in agony! :lol:


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## Guest

Dimace said:


> Has, at the very end, Boulez composed some great music? Do we have a conclusion? Please, do not keep me longer in agony! :lol:


Personally I don't think there's any importance in concluding that any composer composed 'great' music, as long as we know what we love and are keen to try new things with a positive attitude then that's all that matters. Boulez's music is pretty great to me, and I think that many others must find something in it they consider 'great' because of how many performances of his music there are these days.


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## fluteman

Mandryka said:


> Pli selon Pli.
> 
> ,mdr en ce,n


In my case, perhaps not surprisingly:


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## Guest

Do people here think that it's worth trying Boulez at some point just to hear what the deal is with him?


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## KenOC

shirime said:


> Do people here think that it's worth trying Boulez at some point just to hear what the deal is with him?


Nah, why would we do that? That wouldn't be any fun at all!


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## Red Terror

shirime said:


> Do people here think that it's worth trying Boulez at some point just to hear what the deal is with him?


Why would they do such a thing? It would be sheer madness! MAAADNESSS I TELLS YA!!!


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## Larkenfield

shirime said:


> Do people here think that it's worth trying Boulez at some point just to hear what the deal is with him?


Sure. But speaking for myself, I've yet to have a deeply felt response to what he's done. I consider him more of a cerebral composer and I lost my mind years ago.  I've never felt bad or inhibited about hearing anyone or any work to sense what the composer had to say or was offering, even if it's just once. I doubt if it's possible to force an interest on anyone. There must be a natural curiosity that one is interested in pursuing or the act of hearing certain composers can become an agony. And I'm more interested in the ecstasy.


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## Guest

Red Terror said:


> Why would they do such a thing? It would be sheer madness! MAAADNESSS I TELLS YA!!!





KenOC said:


> Nah, why would we do that? That wouldn't be any fun at all!


Well, what does this mean?


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## starthrower

shirime said:


> Well, what does this mean?


It's called sarcasm. Try this piece. It's harmless like all music.


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## KenOC

shirime said:


> Well, what does this mean?


To expound on the obvious, it means that it's more enjoyable to poke fun at Boulez than to listen to his music --by a country mile. But I'm sure Pierre wouldn't mind, since he was said to be a jolly fellow with a great sense of humor...or am I thinking of somebody else?


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## starthrower

KenOC said:


> To expound on the obvious, it means that it's more enjoyable to poke fun at Boulez than to listen to his music --by a country mile.


Or insert the name of any other composer if you enjoy being petty and annoying.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> To expound on the obvious, it means that it's more enjoyable to poke fun at Boulez than to listen to his music --by a country mile. But I'm sure Pierre wouldn't mind, since he was said to be a jolly fellow with a great sense of humor...or am I thinking of somebody else?


Actually, that sounds like a good description of him! 

But yeah, I don't see the point of just openly mocking a composer in a thread about the merits of their music, _and enjoying doing so._ Out of curiosity, do you enjoy the reaction that you get?


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## Larkenfield

starthrower said:


>


I found this rather delightful with what sounded to me as animated bird-like speech and humor, perhaps from an impenetrable world. Only a master flautist could play such a difficult work with its flutter-tonguing, demanding articulation, and other effects. Once again I hear the noticeable influence of Olivier Messiaen. It sounds like more than a sonata to me with its descriptive imagery. It's the challenge of the new or modern that attracts some musicians to take their abilities to the next highest level of development.


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## KenOC

shirime said:


> But yeah, I don't see the point of just openly mocking a composer in a thread about the merits of their music, _and enjoying doing so._ Out of curiosity, do you enjoy the reaction that you get?


I'm sure that if Mozart can withstand the contumely he's been experiencing in these forums lately, Pierre can put up with a bit of good-natured jabbing. Not so sure about his fans hereabouts though! Well, except for millionrainbows of course, whose sense of humor seems unimpaired!


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## fluteman

shirime said:


> Actually, that sounds like a good description of him!
> 
> But yeah, I don't see the point of just openly mocking a composer in a thread about the merits of their music, _and enjoying doing so._ Out of curiosity, do you enjoy the reaction that you get?


It's par for the course with a lot of posters here. The theory is, Schoenberg ruined classical music, and Stockhausen, Cage and Boulez are the proof. Supposedly, it is the fault of these composers that nobody listens to Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky any longer. The trouble is, when you actually talk to people who aren't interested in classical music, you discover almost none of them have even heard of Stockhausen, Cage or Boulez, much less heard any of their music. Conversely, those few who are familiar with Stockhausen, Cage or Boulez are much more likely to be interested in classical music in general, and Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky in particular, regardless of how they feel about the modern composers.
This doesn't even slow down the conspiracy theorists here, however.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> I'm sure that if Mozart can withstand the contumely he's been experiencing in these forums lately, Pierre can put up with a bit of good-natured jabbing. Not so sure about his fans hereabouts though! Well, except for millionrainbows of course, whose sense of humor seems unimpaired!


I was under the assumption that this thread was to discuss what we find good about Boulez's music. I don't know about you, but it seems odd to me to find joy in making fun of a composer in a thread like that.


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## Johnnie Burgess

shirime said:


> I was under the assumption that this thread was to discuss what we find good about Boulez's music. I don't know about you, but it seems odd to me to find joy in making fun of a composer in a thread like that.


You should read the Alma Deutscher guestbook and how some treated her and she is a kid.


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## Guest

Johnnie Burgess said:


> You should read the Alma Deutscher guestbook and how some treated her and she is a kid.


I don't think I want to know.........


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## Dimace

shirime said:


> Personally I don't think there's any importance in concluding that any composer composed 'great' music, as long as we know what we love and are keen to try new things with a positive attitude then that's all that matters. Boulez's music is pretty great to me, and I think that many others must find something in it they consider 'great' because of how many performances of his music there are these days.





Larkenfield said:


> Sure. But speaking for myself, I've yet to have a deeply felt response to what he's done. I consider him a more cerebral composer and I've already lost my mind.  I've never felt bad about hearing anyone or work, even if it's just once. I doubt if it's possible to force an interest in anyone. There must be a natural curiosity that one is interested in pursuing or the act of hearing certain composers can become an agony. I'm more interested in the ecstasy.


I found both posts great, due to the semiology behind the words, which forces the reader (I'm the reader) to think before decide what he must answer. Personally I found no way to answer :lol: (I love you guys) and it is very ok, because, as we say in Germany, it isn't necessary to have an answer, or to speak in every occasion.

As for the music of Boulez (and generally the modern music)... As I have said, I don't like it, I don't understand it and I have no serious intention to learn it. BUT: If my good friends like it, and I'm with them somewhere (in their home, in a concert, in one event etc.) I can listen it all day long without a problem, to make them fell comfortable and to show the that I respect and appreciate their taste. This is no hypocrisy, the moment they know my opinion. It is friendship, it is human relation, it is everything music means>>>>>* BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER!!! *

I had a good friend (singer in Berliner Philharmoniker Chorus) who likes Richard's Strauss's A CAPELA Lieder. (there are special songs written only for voice) I HATE THESE SONGS, despite Richard is after Liszt one of my Gods. I have listened to them, so many times, during dinner, while we were driving his/my car, or drinking coffee and I ENJOY THEM, because my friend was enjoying them. (he is singing them and he is great baritone. I will present one time the recording...) He likes also Janowski' s Meistersinger. I hate them, with and without Marek, despite Wagner is the best happened in the history of Opera.

Our opinion, dear friends, play absolut no role! Period. It is only something used by us to have some good conversations. If my opinion was important, many hundreds in Germany, now should listen only Liszt, Thalberg, Strauss, some Wagner, etc... But this will never happen! Period. Let us enjoy OUR music, let us exchange opinions, let us forge friendship and respect, with and within the magical art of music. *What I don't like (Boulez) is a MUST and SUPER PLEASANT if you like it!* (Yes, in the desert Island, I will have no Boulez with me. But, also, no other composer. I will prefer to have some human company (a young, curved lady ideally) because music without the humans is nothing.


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## Enthusiast

My first Boulez like? For me it wasn't like that. I used to buy lots of records, anything that had a reputation for being good - performances, early music, composers I liked and composers I hadn't yet started to like, contemporary music. I would listen to them all but would probably not play the ones that I didn't immediately enjoy very often. 

In this way I explored repertoire I liked, explored which performances and performers I enjoyed and I feasted on music almost constantly. As for modern music, I explored many of the more accessible contemporary composers, because I enjoyed them on first hearing, but slowly found many of them to be ultimately disappointing. So much so that I am now quite suspicious of music that is "too accessible"! I ended up with quite a lot of records of the likes of Carter, Boulez, Birtwistle, Nono etc. And I also had records from way back in my youth (Stockhausen, Cage) - music that I enjoyed during my "rock phase" (a time when I more or less abandoned classical music). I didn't play the more difficult contemporary music all that often. It wasn't that I hated it but it mostly just did nothing for me and left me bored so that I much preferred listening to other things. I am not a disciplined listener - I listen to what I like. I still continues collecting some similar CDs. 

I have always had moods when I want to explore and some of these records would get played when I was in one of those moods. Slowly, years ago now, I started noticing that I occasionally enjoyed a record of Carter or Boulez (or one of the other musical areas where I wasn't "getting it"). That is a great feeling, when music that left me high and dry suddenly started to show itself to me! A couple of years ago I started noticing that a lot of Boulez was "as easy as Bartok". It no longer seemed alien but it did seem like a new voice that I could listen to (again and again) for pleasure. I started to enjoy several Boulez works also simultaneously. My method of listening, drawing on my own library and then exploring outwards for things I start to like has me colonising all sorts of areas in the repertoire, for pleasure and enjoyment and to enrich my life. Of course, some music gets rejected along the way ... and I think there does come a time when I feel able to say "I don't like that very much" and probably for that to be a final view ... or maybe not!


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## starthrower

Perhaps it would be wise for OP's and posters in general to refrain from the impulse towards hyperbole. We like to think of ourselves as intelligent, thoughtful people who enjoy the finer things in life, yet the worn out adjective "great" is tossed in to every conversation countless times. It appears twice in the title of this thread. 

Boulez's music is what it is. We can listen or not, analyze, enjoy, criticize, but terms such as "great" are entirely too vague and subjective and really don't communicate much to the listener.


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## Enthusiast

^^ What's wrong with enthusiasm? And actually this thread has been a fairly sane one with lots of exchange and a few new converts to music that is surely now too old to frighten us. A more moderate thread title - "Do You Like Boulez?" - would have quickly become another "open season on modern music" thread. I'm not saying it is the title that made the thread work but I don't think it hindered it.


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## Mandryka

starthrower said:


> Perhaps it would be wise for OP's and posters in general to refrain from the impulse towards hyperbole. We like to think of ourselves as intelligent, thoughtful people who enjoy the finer things in life, yet the worn out adjective "great" is tossed in to every conversation countless times. It appears twice in the title of this thread.
> 
> Boulez's music is what it is. We can listen or not, analyze, enjoy, criticize, but terms such as "great" are entirely too vague and subjective and really don't communicate much to the listener.


it wasn't my intention to irritate you. I'd also like to say, without appearing to be unduly self deprecating, that I'm sure you are more intelligent and thoughtful and discerning than I am.

However I do think that his music was very very great!


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## starthrower

How about listeners that have no interest in a particular composer refrain from posting? I don't care whether people like a composer or not. But if you do, and I want to learn, I'll read something worthwhile and informative. Our friend Woodduck never says great this and great that but his enthusiasm or lack there of is based on years of educated listening and the knowledge accrued. His enthusiasm is a given. He doesn't have to hit people over the head with hyperbole.

Now if someone wants to tell me Mozart or some other composer is great that's alright, but I'll take it with a grain of salt if I haven't listened to, or warmed to the music. But I'm not going to jump into the thread and say people are better off plugging their ears when Mozart is played. I don't see the point of antagonism. Some extremely reactionary members have been banned for this, and thankfully others of a similar ilk haven't joined up here.


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## starthrower

Mandryka said:


> it wasn't my intention to irritate you. I'd also like to say, without appearing to be unduly self deprecating, that I'm sure you are more intelligent and thoughtful and discerning than I am.
> 
> However I do think that his music was very very great!


I'm not irritated in the least. And I'm certainly not more intelligent or knowledgeable than anybody else. I know my limitations, and there are many more knowledge members here than myself. I personally have no problem with your thread title. I just want to read educated responses instead of this composer sucks. And I thank all responsible for their informative posts.


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## Mandryka

starthrower said:


> How about listeners that have no interest in a particular composer refrain from posting? I don't care whether people like a composer or not. But if you do, and I want to learn, I'll read something worthwhile and informative. Our friend Woodduck never says great this and great that but his enthusiasm or lack there of is based on years of educated listening and the knowledge accrued. His enthusiasm is a given. He doesn't have to hit people over the head with hyperbole.
> 
> Now if someone wants to tell me Mozart or some other composer is great that's alright, but I'll take it with a grain of salt if I haven't listened to, or warmed to the music. But I'm not going to jump into the thread and say people are better off plugging their ears when Mozart is played. I don't see the point of antagonism. Some extremely reactionary members have been banned for this, and thankfully others of a similar ilk haven't joined up here.


I think this is a interesting idea. Would you mind awfully making it somewhere else? Sorry to trouble you about this. This thread may not be the most appropriate place because it's really about Boulez's compositions.

Dear dear woodduck is always finds the golden mean, you're right. He doesn't have a dark side, et en plus, il a de beaux yeux, tu sais?


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## starthrower

Mandryka said:


> I think this is a interesting idea. Would you mind awfully making it somewhere else? Sorry to trouble you about this. This thread may not be the most appropriate place because it's really about Boulez's compositions.


Yeah, that's what I was hoping to get back to, because a quick perusal of these 28 pages reveals several derogatory posts by folks that have no interest in the music. Even a stupid limerick mocking Boulez. But getting back on track, an album I enjoy listening to is on Sony. I find these pieces easier to follow than some of his other works. Theysound less abstract to my mind.


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## fluteman

starthrower said:


> Yeah, that's what I was hoping to get back to, because a quick perusal of these 28 pages reveals several derogatory posts by folks that have no interest in the music. Even a stupid limerick mocking Boulez. But getting back on track, an album I enjoy listening to is on Sony. I find these pieces easier to follow than some of his other works. Theysound less abstract to my mind.


I agree that music is worth a listen, as is the music of Bruno Maderna, to whom Rituel is dedicated. And if the "stupid limerick" to which you refer was my (admittedly) stupid (or at least silly) limerick, that was just an attempt to keep things light, and make a good-humored response to a couple of similarly silly limericks.

As for the attacks on Boulez and/or his music, I certainly don't mind that people have those opinions, but the endless repetition, "Boulez stinks!" "Boulez stinks!" adds little to the conversation and gets boring. I did my best to briefly describe my own reaction to his music, or at least his earlier music that first made him (in)famous, such as the Sonatine for flute and piano and Le marteau sans maitre. I tried to suggest a cultural context for his work and that of other modernists. Someone brought up the topic of modern architecture (well, I guess I did, but someone expanded on it).

I'm no expert, but I try to approach his and all music and art with an open mind, eyes and ears, and think about context. 
The limerick was just to show I have no need to be pompous about it. Sorry if it offended you.


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## starthrower

fluteman said:


> The limerick was just to show I have no need to be pompous about it. Sorry if it offended you.


I don't think it was yours I was referring to, but it's not a matter of being offended. It's just tiresome as you stated. So on with Boulez...


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## Guest

I have a hobby of comparing a piece with it's expanded/revised version(s). What do you think of these?










This piece is so lyrical and melodic it makes me wish that Boulez composed some more vocal music in the last couple of decades he was active as a composer.


----------

