# Why League Tables may be worthwhile.



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Damian Thompson's article Bach's music is in a league of its own in today's Telegraph covers a lot of ground familiar to regular users of this site:



> the idea of a league table of classical composers is offensive and frivolous





> I was in heaven: flinging insults and nitpicking about classical music - two of my favourite activities magically combined!





> our ... debate was enormous fun - we were rude but not nasty, a tricky balance to maintain online


but his last point is the most telling:



> Too many of us struggled to develop it (our love of classical music) , because - as I keep saying - the standard of music teaching in our schools is shamefully low.
> 
> How we put this right I don't know, but introducing children to the silly game of constructing composers' league tables might be a good place to start.


I wonder if he has something there. Are league tables a good way to develop understanding of classical music? As he says:



> Artistic rankings are subjective judgments informed by cultural consensus.


so do we by arguing the league tables out both develop our subjective judgements and also improve our knowledge of the cultural consensus?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I think he may have something, because rivalry comes naturally to human beings, and so does friendly rivalry - banter & chaffing - which is also tremendous fun. Once, when I was teaching an anthology of Victorian poets at A-level, I sorted my 16-18 year old students into teams & asked the teams to spend one lesson in discussion among themselves of their allotted poet - Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne & Clough, as I recall. We then had another double lesson where each team presented their argument in favour of their man, and it was opened up to debate, and finally a vote (where you had to vote for some other team's poet). The clear (& expected) winner was Browning, but I do think now that it was the lesson activity that most advanced my students' knowledge of the poets, of their similarities & differences, of the ethos of Victorian literature, and of poet-craft in general.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I'm sorry, but what is a league table? I understand it's some way of ranking composers, but what is it exactly and is it really an epidemic among grade school music education? I've never heard of them.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

> How we put this right I don't know, but introducing children to the silly game of constructing composers' league tables might be a good place to start.





> Artistic rankings are subjective judgments informed by cultural consensus.


The thought processes going into producing lists etc are a good thing, but always there's the peril that such "league tables" will themselves inform the cultural consensus, a feedback loop.

What I'd be interested in is letting children construct their league tables without any reference to cultural consensus. If they had no prior knowledge that Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart were "supposed to be" great composers, would they work it out themselves?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

violadude said:


> I'm sorry, but what is a league table? I understand it's some way of ranking composers, but what is it exactly and is it really an epidemic among grade school music education? I've never heard of them.


Yes, sorry - only with hindsight does one see that all is not clear.

Damian Thompson is not talking about an actual procedure, but rather taking issue with a fashionable educational mindset, as I understand it. For some time now there has been a mainstream view that it is unfair or hurtful to praise one type of music at the expense of another - or say that in any objective sense one composer is 'better' than another - or to single out excellence in pupils for public praise; a sort of cultural relativism has held sway. So from his exhilarating experience defending Bach on twitter, Thompson turns to what he sees as the dire straits of music teaching in UK schools, which sometimes seems to see promoting classical music as wrong, and within classical music deplores analysis & comparison. He's saying that it would be better to bring rigour and challenge back into music teaching by asking students to compare & contrast composers and compile their own, or their school's, league tables.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> The thought processes going into producing lists etc are a good thing, but always there's the peril that such "league tables" will themselves inform the cultural consensus, a feedback loop.
> 
> What I'd be interested in is letting children construct their league tables without any reference to cultural consensus. If they had no prior knowledge that Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart were "supposed to be" great composers, would they work it out themselves?


It's a nice idea, but is it really possible?

In my 'poets debate', even though my pupils knew nothing about Victorian poetry before the course started, logistics meant we had to look at the major players, the ones in the anthology; and also some of them would have heard the names of Tennyson & Browning. The reason I expected Browning to come top was because his macabre & outspoken qualities appealed to teenagers, as opposed to Tennyson's lyrical beauty - I rate Tennyson's poetry more highly, myself!

Children don't exist in a vacuum & will have heard of the great names. So I think it's more feasible to start students compiling a 'league table' by saying 'Bach, Beethoven & Mozart are supposed to be great composers, but we want you to report on whether their reputation is justified by comparing other so-called minor composers with them'.

That gives them a challenge & the possibility of turning the tables.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Thompson's column is always entertaining & usually provocative. One of his running jokes, for example, is the idea that David Cameron, our prime minister, is addicted to custard - Thompson claims to have a 'source' in the kitchen of 10, Downing Street!

So please do read his article, as he gives his personal opinion on who should go into Classical Composers League One. There should be something there to set your teeth on edge in the nicest possible way! 

For example, this paragraph:
*'Wagner and Bruckner make my Premier League because they touch the sublime (which I can't define; I just know it when I hear it). Chopin, one of my favourite composers, doesn't move me spiritually. Neither does Mahler: too neurotic. Schumann I adore, but what a mess he creates. Brahms's music is too brown and droopy. They're all Championship. So is Handel, who falls into the category of great masters who send me to sleep.'*

Ouch, Handel! How *could* he? 

And does Brahms have any TC champions to defend him from the charge of 'brown droopiness'? :devil:


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Oh, alright. Thanks for the explanation, Ingelou.

I think that kind of thing could be useful to a point. I like the idea of kids learning what to listen for in music and what makes certain music better written, more crafty, than other music. 

However, once you start trying to fit composers from Machaut to Cage into a set of definite and absolute "tiers" on a hierarchy, that's where it gets ludicrous in my opinion.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

You're right, of course, violadude. It makes no sense to compare Shakespeare with Gerard Manley Hopkins, say. But within styles or genres, analysis & trying to provide concrete reasons for one's opinion would be fruitful.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

I don't think so. It turns things into a silly competitive-sports event rather the love for creativity. It can be fun for already mature listeners to play around with, but to instill that type of "competitive art" attitude in children isn't the way to go. Composers will be like the next franchise football league… how awful.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think so. It turns things into a silly competitive-sports event rather the love for creativity. It can be fun for already mature listeners to play around with, but to instill that type of "competitive art" attitude in children isn't the way to go. Composers will be like the next franchise football league… how awful.


It *would* be awful if taken to extremes; most educational ideas would be. But to correct the current sloppy situation in British schools, and to make learning about music fun, Thompson might have a point, imo.
After all, TalkClassical is full of mock-battles about the relative merits of composers, most of the exchanges not unpleasant, and just look at how much everyone learns on this forum. :tiphat:


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> It *would* be awful if taken to extremes; most educational ideas would be. But to correct the current sloppy situation in British schools, and to make learning about music fun, Thompson might have a point, imo.
> After all, TalkClassical is full of mock-battles about the relative merits of composers, most of the exchanges not unpleasant, and just look at how much everyone learns on this forum. :tiphat:


I see your point, for sure. I just think music is way too beautiful to potentially muck it up and confine it with segregative systems. Like throwing a lovely swan in a rusty cage. I guess I have a more romantic view about music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

No sensible person (read Yankee) uses the phrase 'league table'. With that out of the way, I state unequivocally that a Rating Table for composers is useless and indeed meaningless whenever it goes beyond one-on-one comparisons. Even then, if the rating uses 'If this, then that' to lengthen the list of composers in a stack, a quality loop-back will show up within 3 or 4 steps. A mess it becomes, a mess I tell you.

:scold:

(I like that emoticon, but when it jumps it ceases to represent me.)


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Ukko said:


> (I like that emoticon, but when it jumps it ceases to represent me.)


:scold: I like it too - but it only represents me *when* it jumps.

 This one - the face represents me, but not the rest (I have more hair, thankfully).

 This one represents me only while I'm applying my mascara.

The idea of putting something challenging & adventurous into music teaching *does* represent my feelings; the idea of making *regulated comparisons* as part of some dead exam system *doesn't*.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ingélou said:


> [...]
> The idea of putting something challenging & adventurous into music teaching *does* represent my feelings; the idea of making *regulated comparisons* as part of some dead exam system *doesn't*.




"Putting something challenging and adventurous into music teaching" needs to be discussed beforehand with the Principal (or whatever that person is called in your system). There are troglodytes everywhere, including on school boards.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Next question, I suppose, is which composer is the equivalent of Man Utd this season? :devil:


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

violadude said:


> I'm sorry, but what is a league table? I understand it's some way of ranking composers, but what is it exactly and is it really an epidemic among grade school music education? I've never heard of them.


A league table shows the ranking of sports teams within their division based upon results against other teams in the same division.

I think American sport is organised differently.

The UK education system uses this term to rank schools by exam results. However, these are simple rankings, as is the suggestion in the OP, so strictly speaking, not really league tables.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> Thompson's column is always entertaining & usually provocative. So please do read his article, as he gives his personal opinion on who should go into Classical Composers League One. There should be something there to set your teeth on edge in the nicest possible way!
> 
> For example, this paragraph: 'Wagner and Bruckner make my Premier League because they touch the sublime (which I can't define; I just know it when I hear it). Chopin, one of my favourite composers, doesn't move me spiritually. Neither does Mahler: too neurotic. Schumann I adore, but what a mess he creates. Brahms's music is too brown and droopy. They're all Championship. So is Handel, who falls into the category of great masters who send me to sleep.'
> 
> Ouch, Handel! How *could* he?


I don't really like this idea. It seems that it is one infecting all corners of British life at present (I can't speak for anywhere else). Everything has to be ranked, compared, idealised or denigrated. I can't see that it would be helpful to children to see musical appreciation as a competition to be won or lost.



Ingélou said:


> And does Brahms have any TC champions to defend him from the charge of 'brown droopiness'?


No-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-o! 

I do think Brahms' music is brown and droopy, I'm with Thompson on that one!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> Yes, sorry - only with hindsight does one see that all is not clear.
> 
> Damian Thompson is not talking about an actual procedure, but rather taking issue with a fashionable educational mindset, as I understand it. For some time now there has been a mainstream view that it is unfair or hurtful to praise one type of music at the expense of another - or say that in any objective sense one composer is 'better' than another - or to single out excellence in pupils for public praise; a sort of cultural relativism has held sway. So from his exhilarating experience defending Bach on twitter, Thompson turns to what he sees as the dire straits of music teaching in UK schools, which sometimes seems to see promoting classical music as wrong, and within classical music deplores analysis & comparison. He's saying that it would be better to bring rigour and challenge back into music teaching by asking students to compare & contrast composers and compile their own, or their school's, league tables.


His solution seems to me about as dreadful as the politically correct tyranny which says one does not evaluate anything by comparison, i.e. it sounds like a throwback to some pre WWII mindset about how one educates.

The proposal also more than somewhat assumes that people know of and are following the rules of debate, which is clearly not general knowledge as demonstrated right here on TC by many a native English speaker 

I am the sort who, as a child or now, finds the league table as educational tool both a bit repellent, and condescending. It instantly turns learning or discussion on art to sport. When I was in middle or high school, I would have found that kind of presentation "stoopid" and plain old yet again condescending towards us poor need to be educated youngsters... i.e. it seems educators think they must come up with games as teaching tactic to get through to younger students as if those students were really not yet ready for school at all.

I think you should wait to catch up with the general American social trend (good or ill, England takes these on about ten years after they start in the states, the PC and the falling off of teaching music in the schools) and then there will be near to no music courses in the schools at all.

Then people will be free to discover what they want and when they want, untainted by biased teaching (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven 'the greatest') or going all twee and condescending toward teaching students about music and composers via a league table format.

But just as Ingelou's "poets contest" had Browning coming out on top, I can guarantee that the composer's contest between Bach Mozart and Beethoven, among teenagers, would have the Rhenish peasant coming out on top each and every time -- because it's always Beethoven, isn't it?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Ah well - at least we have a discussion going! 

Maybe for teenagers it is 'always Beethoven', but they will change their mind probably as they get older & at least they should be given the chance to get acquainted with classical composers, which they don't all that often here in the UK. 
When I was an undergraduate, I thought Wordsworth was boring and Keats was the bee's knees. I still love Keats but I see what a young, young man he was, and Wordsworth holds much more interest for me now. No doubt my students - now in their late thirties - may be seeing a lot more in Tennyson these days!


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> Ah well - at least we have a discussion going!
> (Maybe I'll put my hat on the next time I post, though...)


I too don't agree with the suggestion on this thread, but it is an interesting question as to how music should be taught in schools. I recall being exposed to Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart in primary school, aged 8 or 9, by my class teacher who was musical. It was good, a mixture of the composers' lives and some of their work.

It seems to me that a broad education in music is entirely sensible and desirable, though to be honest I feel extremely out of touch with the modern ways of education so may be completely wrong...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I think it varies, and you were lucky you had a good teacher. I only ever got class singing (which I enjoyed) and those composers whose pieces we played in violin lessons - Bach & Handel gavottes etc & a few Pleyell duets! Yet in every other subject I got an excellent education. Now a lot of attention is given to music making & world music, I believe, which is certainly good, but classical music can be a bit neglected...


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Kempff is here to argue against the charge that Brahms is brown and droopy


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> Ah well - at least we have a discussion going!
> 
> Maybe for teenagers it is 'always Beethoven', but they will change their mind probably as they get older & at least they should be given the chance to get acquainted with classical composers, which they don't all that often here in the UK.
> When I was an undergraduate, I thought Wordsworth was boring and Keats was the bee's knees. I still love Keats but I see what a young, young man he was, and Wordsworth holds much more interest for me now. No doubt my students - now in their late thirties - may be seeing a lot more in Tennyson these days!


Yea, I can definitely appreciate where you're coming from, as I feel you have a love of sharing music wherever you can. But as stated before, we just need to be careful of turning something beautiful into a knotted pig-skin.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

If you've gotta "sell in the language of the buyer" and acknowledge that Beethoven will have the edge over Mozart and Bach in the mind of the average teenager, then getting people to assemble and defend a 'league table' is fine. After all, what is it except a technique for getting kids to listen to someone else's choice; to argue against it, sure, but most of all to listen critically?
When they're older it will seem silly, but it might be the first time some 14-year old has to listen to Stravinsky, or Messiaen, or Locatelli, or whoever. There's no telling what they might have to listen to as part of this exercise, and the effect it might have. Presenting composers as some graven image or marble statue is unlikely to cut it, I reckon...
GG


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> In my 'poets debate', even though my pupils knew nothing about Victorian poetry before the course started, logistics meant we had to look at the major players, the ones in the anthology; and also some of them would have heard the names of Tennyson & Browning. The reason I expected Browning to come top was because his macabre & outspoken qualities appealed to teenagers, as opposed to Tennyson's lyrical beauty - I rate Tennyson's poetry more highly, myself!


I can't help but be reminded of Shaw's comments on Mendelssohn:

"We now see plainly enough that Mendelssohn, though he expressed himself in music with touching tenderness and refinement, and sometimes with a nobility and pure fire that makes us forget all his kid glove gentility, his conventional sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio mongering, was not in the foremost rank of great composers. He was more intelligent than Schumann, as Tennyson is more intelligent than Browning: he is, indeed, the great composer of the century for all those to whom Tennyson is the great poet of the century."​
I would've gone for Swinburne, who, according to Huneker, is akin to Chopin: "Chopin wrote many perfect lines; he is, above all, the faultless lyrist, the Swinburne, the master of fiery, many rhythms, the chanter of songs before sunrise, of the burden of the flesh, the sting of desire and large-moulded lays of passionate freedom."

And, speaking of Huneker, I would add that making music lessons more intresting comes down to the teacher in the end. If Huneker was giving lessons, I doubt anyone would be bored. The man is the exact opposite of boring. As Mencken wrote: "I have never encountered a man who was further removed from dullness; it seemed a literal impossibility for him to open his mouth without discharging some word or phrase that arrested the attention and stuck in the memory."

Now that I've heard all the tales of the lessons you have given, I think your lessons were very intriguing too :tiphat:



Ingélou said:


> When I was an undergraduate, I thought Wordsworth was boring and Keats was the bee's knees. I still love Keats but I see what a young, young man he was, and Wordsworth holds much more interest for me now. No doubt my students - now in their late thirties - may be seeing a lot more in Tennyson these days!


Aye, let us sing with Matthew Arnold:

Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?​
(Though Goethe's sage mind will never be "restored"; Thomas Mann was quite right when he spoke of Goethe as "Erasmus and Luther in one person, a combination of the urbane and the demonic, of an appealing grandeur that has never been duplicated in the history of civilization." Nor will it ever be duplicated! Goethe is irreplaceable; how frivolous of that usually keen Matthew Arnold!)

I must say though, that all this talk of Romantic poets has got me itching to read some of Shelley's poetry! Perhaps Coleridge's table-talk too, and Leigh Hunt's essays, and Landor's imaginary conversations!

--------------------------------------------------------
I had one year of "music lessons" - my freshman year of High School. I hardly remember a thing; it certainly didn't teach me how to read musical notation, as it should have. They never played anything by an actual classical composer, either: John Williams and other such musicians were chosen instead, probably because they were thought to be more accessible. Of course, if they had played some Beethoven or Bruckner, Schnittke or Shostakovich, Debussy or Dvorak, I may very well have started listening to classical music much earlier than I did! A wasted opportunity.

In my English class - standard IB now - the only poet we've gone through was Edgar Allen Poe, who T.S. Eliot quite nicely characterized as both "the _reductio ad absurdum_ and the artistic perfection of this [ the romantic] movement." The reasoning is once more that poets are less accessible, and generally less liked. Unfortunately for me my least favorite literary form is the novel, which gets all the attention because it is the one most widely read among students.

Truth to be told, I once thought every worthwhile subject could be made interesting by the right teacher, but I am no longer sure. Perhaps Nietzsche was right when he pointed out the need in man for "the courage to allow himself and his work to be considered tedious". Some people may never be receptive; and those that are, generally are in such massively divergent ways that teaching seems almost impossible. I don't envy your jobs! I do know that school led me far, far away from literature and music for a long time - exactly the opposite of the intended direction, of course! I had to find it by myself, in my own way.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Lovely post - it reminded me too that one of the poets in the anthology was Arnold, whom I only got to study when I taught that class. I adored 'The Scholar Gypsy'. (Come to think of it, I'd like to *be* a scholar gypsy! )

I think you're right about tedium. One valuable lesson that my generation learned when at (grammar) school was how to deal with being bored; how to sit quietly with an attentive mask on one's face while pursuing one's own thoughts - yet when the teacher challenges, your over-memory will supply the right answer, while the inner mind sails free. 

A great deal of life is boring & it's no use expecting something outside yourself to provide constant stimulation or entertainment. (I'm talking about my g-generation!  )


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I generally don't like competition in schools, art and the like, but I don't think the league tables in this case were so harmful. I see this as more a case of students trying to establish premier league, first, second and third division for composers. As students listen they group their composers into leagues. After more times listening, some composers gets promoted, some demoted. 

Debate occurs when students promote and demote their composers.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

GraemeG said:


> If you've gotta "sell in the language of the buyer" and acknowledge that Beethoven will have the edge over Mozart and Bach in the mind of the average teenager, then getting people to assemble and defend a 'league table' is fine. After all, what is it except a technique for getting kids to listen to someone else's choice; to argue against it, sure, but most of all to listen critically?
> When they're older it will seem silly, but it might be the first time some 14-year old has to listen to Stravinsky, or Messiaen, or Locatelli, or whoever. There's no telling what they might have to listen to as part of this exercise, and the effect it might have. Presenting composers as some graven image or marble statue is unlikely to cut it, I reckon...
> GG


14 is _*way toooooo late!*_

All of this is best presented in pre-school or kindergarten, first grade, and without much teaching syllabus scheduled clap trap about era, history, composer bio, etc. IF any of that comes up as a student's question, it should be readily (and as briefly as possible) answered. Further curiosity on the part of one of those young students, imo, should be privately addressed, the general presentation of the music, without much or any qualifications, is the thing.

It is best if similar is done in the home before a toddler even begins school, and again, is presented in a non-contextual non academic manner as "just music."

Like with a direct and regular exposure to religion, if you 'get them young' you will have affected their imagination forever. After that, and a few years with a bit more of the near same exposure in the lower grades, it should be left to the students if they wish to pursue it or not.


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