# Looking at music "through the lens" of other music you are more familiar with



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

*Looking at music "through the lens" of other music you are more familiar with*

A while back, I got into a heated discussion with someone who had an interesting point that I wasn't prepared for. I had been describing music to someone else as though it was like an evolutionary tree of life, with the different composers. Pointing out all that Strauss actually inherits from Brahms, for example, or how Beethoven manages to form his own radical vision with similar harmonic language to Mozart and Haydn. I do not claim these descriptions were precise in anyway, and was merely speculating and hoping to strike upon the truth of this or that, to help one person understand a new way of perceiving this or that music. But the third party listening, the fellow who took issue with what I was saying, said that he didn't like the analogy to a family tree and found it potentially harmful. 1)He told me that you have to appreciate a composer on their own terms, otherwise it doesn't do justice. Medtner is Rachmaninoff without the tunes and laborious qualities of Brahms, Shostakovich 7 an ungainly hybrid of Stravinsky and Mahler, ect. Conversely you can have the positive ways of looking at composers through the lens of other composers, which are equally blinding to getting to know that music for what it is(I had mentioned how a symphony by Samuel Wesley could cause one to consider him "the English Mozart"). And then there is the matter of imposing historical facts on music, extramusical ideas, and other big picture stylistic contexts.

But I still felt I had some ground to stand on, and told him that I perceived these lens's as a way to get you accustomed to new composers. They were just training wheels. Why should they not lead into a more genuine appreciation where you can shed those lens's that are no longer needed? He believed in the more direct method of trying to be as uninfluenced by external ideas about other music and other things, while getting to know a new composer. And also seemed to think that it isn't so easy to unlearn prejudices that have been imposed.

So, it is really fascinating to me to compare styles. I think that's useful. But perhaps he's right and that is only something you should privilege yourself to do after you really know both composer's or pieces you are comparing?

I don't know, any thoughts?

Its also interesting when you realize what prejudices or listening habits involuntarily were underlying your impressions of unfamiliar music. Maybe you were focusing too much on the emotional thrill you got from a Brahms piece, and when the same level of thrill and inspiration is cloaked in another musical style, you can't quite pick up on it. I find it frustrating sometimes.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Funnily I had a somewhat similar experience at the Adés concert the other day, when he played a piano work, "Traced Overhead", but in a positive way;






immediately starting to hear it as some sort of "updated late Scriabin", slightly more fragmented but with the same sense of meditative stasis behind it, and it all easily became very accessible, a succession of very beautiful moods. Maybe I´m wrong in these musical associations, technically speaking, but at least it worked ;-).


----------



## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Doubtlessly, composers had their influences. Therefore I can't see it as incorrect to make that acknowledgement. 
Perhaps it is particularly the unique combination of different influences, in combination with the addition of an individual, new approach to previous music, that constitutes the overall style of each composer.


----------



## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Interestingly, your OP actually raises a number of important issues. However, I think they should be thought of separately...

Yes, composers influenced each other. And yes, there are commonalities between composers. But it is not a good idea to expect the greatness of Mozart when listening to Beethoven, even though Mozart influenced Beethoven.

So Shostakovitch may have been influenced by Mahler and Stravinsky, but it would indeed be wrong to dismiss him as an "ungainly hybrid". Maybe we should think of the technical tools of composers to be inherited and related, but the artistic visions as distinct.


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Yes, composers influenced each other. And yes, there are commonalities between composers. But it is not a good idea to expect the greatness of Mozart when listening to Beethoven, even though Mozart influenced Beethoven.


Substitute "greatness" with "distinctive or characteristic sound" and I'm right there with you.

It was a barrier that I had to break down when I was newer to classical, I don't expect Beethoven's storminess and particular expressive qualities when listening to Bach or Mozart. I don't expect to hear Bruckner's particular "grand" sound when listening to Brahms, nor do I expect Debussy's highly distinctive sonorities when listening to Schubert. I find it best to listen to composers without preconception, it's what helped me break into modern and contemporary era classical like Schoenberg, Nono, Berio, Ligeti, etc.


----------



## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

DiesIraeCX said:


> I find it best to listen to composers* without a preconception*, it's what helped me break into modern and contemporary era classical like Schoenberg, Nono, Berio, Ligeti, etc.


I completely agree. On a similar note, sometimes I find that some famous, "great" works are bitterly disappointing, especially when I expect too much of them.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think it is fine to look at composers through the lens of other composers - in fact I think it heightens understanding of how music works in general - no composer completely invents anything that is entirely new - if they did it would generally not be recognized as music. So I think it is more realistic to view music as a tradition that involves a lot of people building upon what others have done in the past. I think this is a 'truer' perspective and more healthy than seeing all these composers as little islands.

I feel it is completely possible to perceive an artist on their own terms while still acknowledging the influences - I think most people will have those composers that just naturally speak to them with little to no effort on the part of the listener whereas for other composers outside of ones subjective tastes one may have to put in a little more effort to understand where a composer is coming from and what sets them apart from their predecessors.

Ultimately though I agree with you clavi and disagree with your colleague - I think it is entirely possible to perceive a composers influences yet still appreciate whatever unique attributes they have in their music.


----------



## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I totally see how composers are influenced by others, predecessors and contemporaries.

I didn't get the music of Varese until I heard his music "through the lens" of Stravinsky, particularly the Rite of Spring. This doesn't mean his music his inspired by the Rite. But Varese must have heard it, and it helped me understand where Varese was coming from. 

Chausson was influenced by Wagner, and when know this, his symphony comes to life, in my opinion. Lekeu's violin sonata is heavily influenced by Wagner. This piece makes so much more sense heard with that in mind. 

Ravel wrote his second violin sonata after hearing some jazz. What more can I say? Certainly not written in a vacuum.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It isn't very long after our brains are confronted with the world, in infancy, that we begin to associate one sensation with another and to perceive things in terms of relationships and patterns. That's the basis of human mental activity (and possibly even earthworm mental activity, on some level). After a certain amount of experience of the world, nobody hears a piece of music or a piece of anything without preconception - without the mind automatically calling up associations suggested by that piece, whether these associations are conscious or, as they mostly are, unconscious. The nearest we can come to that is to learn to identify our preconceptions and set them aside to a degree. I think that's a skill we can cultivate, and it's a good way of "clearing away the cobwebs" and getting a fresh view of things. But on the whole our experience of things is richest when we can balance our appreciation of a thing's uniqueness against our understanding of its possible contexts and meanings. 

I have never found my appreciation of a composer's music hampered by a perception of how it's influenced by the music of other composers. Conceivably, thinking too much about such influences could prevent someone from noticing what's unique and original in a work, but that problem isn't peculiar to music appreciation. Not approaching everything with rigid preconceptions is a good habit to cultivate when approaching anything in life.

If someone doesn't know what to make of a piece of music, pointing out its relationship to music they already have a grasp of may help them get a handle on it. Once they have some basis for relating to it, it's entirely up to them whether they develop a more personal relationship with it on further acquaintance.


----------



## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

it's quite interesting to think of.....nothing comes from vacuum , true. Then all these interconnections and influences come generally from very very far past..... it can be easily traced back to renaissance, even earlier, then let's continue and we encounter Gregorian chant together with Ambrosian chants . What does it say? Church music. and where do its roots come from? from chants of hours, from psalmodies , in short from early Christian tradition. from where does this early christian music come from? sure people say it was invented by early christians....but not that easy....from B.C. era, back to Pythagoras. and what was before? something definitely was. But it's not the point of this comment as everyone can easily trace it back. The point is that influence can come from a very distant past and what we see as an obvious influence from one composer on another such as Bach on Beethoven or Tchaikovsky on Taneev are just very obvious examples of these influences from the point of view of a listener. Just a visible part of an iceberg. We can even think of chains of composers who influenced one another Bach-Mozart-Beethoven-Wagner-Mahler-Strauss, etc, etc. and in many cases we hear an influence of one composer on many others... Sometimes even a composer himself hardly can answer this question of influences and if he can quite consciously think about it and aware of it, then he is not an authentic composer but an imitator or is in a phase of studying....as for what can play part of a certain kind of influence on his style is more intricate and often includes various factors where direct musical influence is just a visible part and many other aspects are left unseen....

What it is good of making such connections , finding common things is that from educational side it can be quite helpful to have something to stick to when a new composer seems to be incomprehensible from the beginning....may be that's the way.....


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I believe in maximizing lenses whenever possible. 

Of course we should listen to each individual work on its own terms. 

But we can also listen to it though the lenses of the composer's other works, the composer's biography, the cultural and political context, the works that influenced it, the works that it influenced, what later works used it (including movies, commercials, whatever) or alluded to it (novels or whatever), what our friends have said about it, who posted it in current listening, comparing one performer's version to another performer's, comparing various traditions of performance standards, and anything else we can think of.


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

^^^
I like the way you think, as always.

Right now, I'm listening to Beethoven sonatas with a particular combination of lenses. The resulting distorted impression of his Pastorale Sonata as observed through, 1) I must learn to play a Beethoven sonata, 2) Beethoven's music is the manly essence of classicism 3) I'm a man and classicism is where it's most often at with me, and other such thoughts have allowed me to zero in on the piece in a new way. Once I zero in, I can discard the lens or whatever it was that made this more intimate appreciation possible.


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Occasionally, I have said that many new composers sound like imitations of other great composers of the last century, and I recognized the inconsistency in my utterances; for, I relish and enjoy finding connections between composers I love and ones I also love or am getting to know. I like hearing a composer's own voice, but finding a limb to hang from keeps me from toppling from the tree. While it is not essential, it does give me a start to appreciating a hitherto unfamiliar composer.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Like any way of thinking, it can have both good and bad aspects. If seeing composer X in composer Y is a way of helping you enjoy or understand composer Y's music, this is a good thing; conversely, expecting composer X in composer Y, but not finding it, might be a hindrance.
Perhaps the biggest problem - and maybe this was where your third party was coming from - is where one's first encounter with composer Y is through someone else's lens. I suppose the classic example is Schoenberg: how many people have dismissed his music too readily because they first heard from someone else that it was difficult/atonal/not proper music/whatever? So in that sense, yes, it's preferable to take composers on their own terms.
But at the same time, I think it's impossible to do that _in practice_, because we're each a muddle of memories, experiences and tastes, and none of us can know whether or why we'll connect with any given music.


----------



## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> Like any way of thinking, it can have both good and bad aspects. If seeing composer X in composer Y is a way of helping you enjoy or understand composer Y's music, this is a good thing; conversely, expecting composer X in composer Y, but not finding it, might be a hindrance.
> Perhaps the biggest problem - and maybe this was where your third party was coming from - is where one's first encounter with composer Y is through someone else's lens. I suppose the classic example is Schoenberg: how many people have dismissed his music too readily because they first heard from someone else that it was difficult/atonal/not proper music/whatever? So in that sense, yes, it's preferable to take composers on their own terms.
> But at the same time, I think it's impossible to do that _in practice_, because we're each a muddle of memories, experiences and tastes, and none of us can know whether or why we'll connect with any given music.


yeah, that's a question of influences as well, but in this case of being influenced by other person's opinion . Sometimes -especially when it doesn't relate to our tastes -this sort of influences and perception of music through them becomes "a second hand " experience... it's sad. and it even has something in common with a phenomenon of gossiping. Once one hears a gossip about something, believes it and bases one's opinions on it, and suddenly one day discovers quite the opposite of what he was previously "informed" .....


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Not much to add here, though I must say that when I am listening to one of the lesser known composers and finding the work pleasant but not exceptional, I often wonder how I would feel about the same work if someone played it for me "blind" and told me it was a relatively unknown work by a composer I normally favor.

I can also think of a couple of works that I get excited about partially because of the great artwork on the CD or LP album cover.

I'm so shallow.


----------

