# "Genius"



## Captainnumber36

1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?
2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?


I am still in the habit of claiming my favorites as geniuses, but something tells me that it only clouds our objectivity in measuring a work (I'm applying this strictly to the arts). Perhaps it's easier to measure in Science.


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## KenOC

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?
> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?
> 
> I am still in the habit of claiming my favorites as geniuses, but something tells me that it only clouds our objectivity in measuring a work (I'm applying this strictly to the arts). Perhaps it's easier to measure in Science.


Sometimes it seems the presence of genius in the composition of music is recognized widely and early. The term comes up fairly often in contemporary reviews of Beethoven's work, even before the Eroica. Sometimes he is referred to as "genial" (genial in the sense of "displaying or marked by genius") and sometimes more directly.

From a contemporary review of his Op. 35 Prometheus Variations for piano written in 1802: "Inexhaustible imagination, original mood, profound inner feeling, and passion -- those are the individual features of the genial physiognomy that characterize almost all of Hr. v. B's works. These works secure him one of the highest ranks among first-rate instrumental composers. In his later works, particularly, his care to keep to the chosen character of a work, his combination of the freest style with purity of phrasing, and, I would like to say, his ability to combine this with contrapuntal elegance are undeniable. One can find all these traits to a high degree in this work. Even the form of the whole, which deviates so very much from common fare, bears witness to his undeniable genius."

I'm not sure what is gained by using the term, but it certainly sets the subject apart from the crowd. I don't know of any of Beethoven's contemporaries who might have been described in similar terms. And still today, when we hear this work, we can cry along with those who first heard Glenn Gould, "That nut's a genius!"


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## Weston

Wikipedia claims there is no objective measure or definition of the term. It’s still as valuable a term to me as ingenuity, creativity or any number of other subjective terms we use to describe the arts, else we are reduced to referring to Salieri as pretty good, but Mozart and Beethoven are more pretty good. A problem only arises when terms are overused to the point where meaning becomes diluted.


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## RICK RIEKERT

> I don't know of any of Beethoven's contemporaries who might have been described in similar terms.


Ken, this from Charles Rosen in correspondence on the subject of genius as a social achievement: "It is a fact that Beethoven was more effective than almost anyone else at handling the socially constructed tonal system as he received it from Haydn and Mozart, and this fact was recognized very early. What gave him his ultimate superiority, however, was his radical originality. Many of his contemporaries were at first appalled-and most of them later fascinated-by his innovations, but this was expected of a "genius" as the concept was developed in literary and artistic circles in Germany and the rest of Europe. The demand for innovation that shocked and even repelled was already traditional by 1800. What some writers on the subject do not sufficiently realize is that the controversy over Beethoven was considered as a proof of genius, and by 1798 the attacks against Beethoven always treated him as a considerable figure that had to be reckoned with. The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."


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## Nereffid

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?


No.



Captainnumber36 said:


> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?


Yes, in the sense that it reveals someone's opinion. If someone is prepared to call a composer a genius, then it might be worthwhile investigating why that might be.


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Ken, this from Charles Rosen in correspondence on the subject of genius as a social achievement: "It is a fact that Beethoven was more effective than almost anyone else at handling the socially constructed tonal system as he received it from Haydn and Mozart, and this fact was recognized very early. What gave him his ultimate superiority, however, was his radical originality. Many of his contemporaries were at first appalled-and most of them later fascinated-by his innovations, but this was expected of a "genius" as the concept was developed in literary and artistic circles in Germany and the rest of Europe. The demand for innovation that shocked and even repelled was already traditional by 1800. What some writers on the subject do not sufficiently realize is that the controversy over Beethoven was considered as a proof of genius, and by 1798 the attacks against Beethoven always treated him as a considerable figure that had to be reckoned with. The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."


So the essence of genius, according to Rosen, is innovating in a way which fascinates the critical community? We might say that Cage was a genius, but maybe not a great composer. And that Brahms was a great composer but not a genius.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Rosen's comments were made with specific reference to Beethoven and his milieu, so I don't think one should extrapolate to include other instances of putative musical genius.


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## Larkenfield

Personal definition: Genius refers to a combination of different creative attributes masterfully and superlatively used and considered unique to that composer—an overall quality that unmistakably separates and distinguishes a Mozart from a Beethoven from a Chopin from a Schumann from a Brahms from a Shostakovich, etc.—a unique gestalt that one composer has that no one else has—a unique combination of individuality and originality that is instantaneously recognizable in virtually everything they wrote and which elevates them above their peers.


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## KenOC

RICK RIEKERT said:


> (quoting Rosen) "The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."


I'm not sure how it could be otherwise. You might equally say that green is green because everybody agrees that it is. Does this mean that the concept of "green" is in some way invalid?

BTW, re a different post, Beethoven was a hit among the musical public, not just (or even primarily) the critics. Publishers paid him top dollar because they knew they could sell scads of his music. Even for his first opus, the three trios, he was paid enough to live decently for half a year, per Cooper.


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## Mandryka

KenOC said:


> I'm not sure how it could be otherwise. You might equally say that green is green because everybody agrees that it is. Does this mean that the concept of "green" is in some way invalid?
> 
> .


Things aren't green because everyone agrees, they're green because of the wavelengths of light they emit. Electromagnetic wavelength is a fact of nature independent of any consensus. Rosen's idea is, I think, that there's nothing analogous to wavelength for genius (ie a property which is independent of people's responses.) It's a complex area this, there's a can of worms not too far beneath the surface.


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## MarkW

Genius is both a subjective judgment and a fairly widely shared one, that so names outliers on the bell curve distrubution of ability/attainment for any of a wide variety of skills. Obviously a mathematical genius is not usually also a musical one, a scientific one, a philosophical one, an artistic one, etc. Beethoven couldn't solve quantum gravity or hit a major league fastball -- but Richard Feynman couldn't write a string quartet. And I can't do any of the above.


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Rosen's comments were made with specific reference to Beethoven and his milieu, so I don't think one should extrapolate to include other instances of putative musical genius.


Awwww, the temptation's irresistible.


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## KenOC

Mandryka said:


> Things aren't green because everyone agrees, they're green because of the wavelengths of light they emit. Electromagnetic wavelength is a fact of nature independent of any consensus. Rosen's idea is, I think, that there's nothing analogous to wavelength for genius (ie a property which is independent of people's responses.) It's a complex area this, there's a can of worms not too far beneath the surface.


People agreed green was green long before such things were known.


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## Botschaft

Mandryka said:


> So the essence of genius, according to Rosen, is innovating in a way which fascinates the critical community? We might say that Cage was a genius, but maybe not a great composer. *And that Brahms was a great composer but not a genius.*


Charles Rosen would have disagreed: "Although Brahms is still dealing with almost all the traditional elements of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century music, he tends to play with them, to manipulate them, dislocating their traditional relationships with each other and setting them off one against the other for purposes that no composer before him had ever envisaged. Brahms is both subverting the Classical tradition and at the same time exploiting it with a learning greater than that of any of his contemporaries."


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## Faustian

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." - Arthur Schopenhauer


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## David Phillips

KenOC said:


> Sometimes it seems the presence of genius in the composition of music is recognized widely and early. The term comes up fairly often in contemporary reviews of Beethoven's work, even before the Eroica. Sometimes he is referred to as "genial" (genial in the sense of "displaying or marked by genius") and sometimes more directly.
> 
> From a contemporary review of his Op. 35 Prometheus Variations for piano written in 1802: "Inexhaustible imagination, original mood, profound inner feeling, and passion -- those are the individual features of the genial physiognomy that characterize almost all of Hr. v. B's works. These works secure him one of the highest ranks among first-rate instrumental composers. In his later works, particularly, his care to keep to the chosen character of a work, his combination of the freest style with purity of phrasing, and, I would like to say, his ability to combine this with contrapuntal elegance are undeniable. One can find all these traits to a high degree in this work. Even the form of the whole, which deviates so very much from common fare, bears witness to his undeniable genius."
> 
> I'm not sure what is gained by using the term, but it certainly sets the subject apart from the crowd. I don't know of any of Beethoven's contemporaries who might have been described in similar terms. And still today, when we hear this work, we can cry along with those who first heard Glenn Gould, "That nut's a genius!"


Mozart was called a genius by a Viennese newspaper on the morning after his death.


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## Mandryka

Improbus said:


> Charles Rosen would have disagreed: "Although Brahms is still dealing with almost all the traditional elements of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century music, he tends to play with them, to manipulate them, dislocating their traditional relationships with each other and setting them off one against the other for purposes that no composer before him had ever envisaged. Brahms is both subverting the Classical tradition and at the same time exploiting it with a learning greater than that of any of his contemporaries."


I'm sure Brahms made musical innovations.

I don't have his book on Romantic Style to see what he says. Does he argue that "many of *rahms contemporaries were at first appalled-and most of them later fascinated-by his innovations"? As a matter of fact I can't remember reading contemporary criticism of Brahms which focused on innovations. The negative criticisms I've seen were about the emotional content of his music -- they either said he was too sentimental or too dry.

You see the suspicion is that although Brahms did lots of sound new things with harmony, rhythm etc, they weren't as disorienting and intriguing as the Rosen Genius Criterion (RGC) demands.

(I can imagine that the late piano music could be the place to focus on, or the 1st piano concerto.)*


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## Mandryka

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Ken, this from Charles Rosen in correspondence on the subject of genius as a social achievement: "It is a fact that Beethoven was more effective than almost anyone else at handling the socially constructed tonal system as he received it from Haydn and Mozart, and this fact was recognized very early. What gave him his ultimate superiority, however, was his radical originality. Many of his contemporaries were at first appalled-and most of them later fascinated-by his innovations, but this was expected of a "genius" as the concept was developed in literary and artistic circles in Germany and the rest of Europe. The demand for innovation that shocked and even repelled was already traditional by 1800. What some writers on the subject do not sufficiently realize is that the controversy over Beethoven was considered as a proof of genius, and by 1798 the attacks against Beethoven always treated him as a considerable figure that had to be reckoned with. The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."


I wonder if Rosen thought it was possible that there could be an _undiscovered _genius.


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## Agamemnon

When talking about art/music I think the important thing is to distinguish the artisan from the genius. Like Schopenhauer implied in the quote above, the artisan does a proper job but the genius brings forth something that no one has ever seen and which astonishes. The idea is that the genius has a deeper view - a hidden knowledge - than we as ordinary men do (which already Plato suggests) but this knowledge is not learned but an 'intuition'. The genius participates in the (intuitive) divine knowledge: he immediately sees the essence of things and like God created this universe by thinking it, the genius creates his own universe by thinking it. It is not necessary that the genius is a skilled craftsman: the idea is more important than the execution which gave way to romantic and modern art, i.e. abstract art.


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## Larkenfield

(quoting Rosen) "The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."

Rosen goes too far, IMO. I believe the educational factor could be said of any composer of high status—that the widespread response to them is somehow conditioned. But he also seems to be suggesting that there are no qualities in Beethoven’s work, or perhaps anyone’s work, that are uniquely inherent—and I personally haven’t found that to be true by having a direct rather than ‘conditioned’ experience with the composer and liking his individuality for reasons other than what others have said about him. I recommend cutting out the sometimes meddlesome middlemen who often view most things as conditioning, of course without likely ever questioning or examining their own. The educators can talk about Beethoven status all they want as being the product of a system of values, but if there were not something uniquely inherent in his music in the first place—something he was born with that was not conditioned—listeners would probably have abandoned him years ago as being little but the product of hype. Rosen was doing fine until his last sentence. If one subtracts the inherent factor in a composer’s genius, then absolutely anything a composer does could be considered the result of “conditioning”, and that could never possibly explain the genius of a Mozart, who was performing before kings and queens by the age of five and six and his talent was inherently far greater than could be attributed to his surrounding conditioning from his father and from listening to others.


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## Botschaft

Mandryka said:


> I'm sure Brahms made musical innovations.
> 
> I don't have his book on Romantic Style to see what he says. Does he argue that "many of *rahms contemporaries were at first appalled-and most of them later fascinated-by his innovations"? As a matter of fact I can't remember reading contemporary criticism of Brahms which focused on innovations. The negative criticisms I've seen were about the emotional content of his music -- they either said he was too sentimental or too dry.
> 
> You see the suspicion is that although Brahms did lots of sound new things with harmony, rhythm etc, they weren't as disorienting and intriguing as the Rosen Genius Criterion (RGC) demands.
> 
> (I can imagine that the late piano music could be the place to focus on, or the 1st piano concerto.)*


*

Famous Brahms detractor George Bernard Shaw wrote once in his later years:

"In every composer's work there are passages that are part of the common stock of music of the time; and when a new genius arises, and his idiom is still unfamiliar and, therefore, even disagreeable, it is easy for a critic who knows that stock to recognize its contributions to the new work and fail to take in the original complexion put upon it. Beethoven denounced Weber's Euryanthe overture as a string of diminished sevenths. I had yet not got hold of the idiosyncratic Brahms. I apologize."

Of course Brahms cannot have been too sentimental and too dry at the same time. He was only perceived as such because of the unique and elusive character of his work.*


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## Larkenfield

George Bernard Shaw later apologized for many of his condescending and withering remarks that he stated as a music critic about Brahms. Some critics forget how advanced Brahms was as a composer and accompanist in his early 20s that so impressed Robert Schumann, and Schumann obviously considered Brahms a genius or he wouldn’t have written so glowingly about him after hearing some of Brahms’ early piano sonatas.


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## Woodduck

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?
> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?


If any word of that should be questioned, it's not "genius" but "objective." Why should we care whether anything nonphysical is "objectively" quantifiable?

"Genius" is extraordinary mental development, and music that exhibits extraordinary imaginative and technical accomplishment is music of genius. What's to be gained by the attempt to measure it? If you can't hear it, measuring it won't help you.


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## arnerich

Bach died pretty unceremoniously, his music would wait 100 years before recognition. Van Gogh only sold one painting in his life time. When the Wright brother's made their first flight it took a few years before anybody even cared (and it wasn't in the US but in France). Does genius exist? I don't know. But it certainly doesn't without recognition.


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## JeffD

arnerich said:


> But it certainly doesn't without recognition.


So does genius exist without recognition. If so, then recognition is discovery. If not, then recognition is invention.


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## Captainnumber36

JeffD said:


> So does genius exist without recognition. If so, then recognition is discovery. If not, then recognition is invention.


I prefer looking at it with the latter.


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## PlaySalieri

Larkenfield said:


> (quoting Rosen) "The status of Beethoven as a great composer is not a fact of nature but the result of a system of values and an ideology in which we have been educated and by which we continue to judge, think, and behave."
> 
> Rosen goes too far, IMO. I believe the educational factor could be said of any composer of high status-that the widespread response to them is somehow conditioned. But he also seems to be suggesting that there are no qualities in Beethoven's work, or perhaps anyone's work, that are uniquely inherent-and I personally haven't found that to be true by having a direct rather than 'conditioned' experience with the composer and liking his individuality for reasons other than what others have said about him. I recommend cutting out the sometimes meddlesome middlemen who often view most things as conditioning, of course without likely ever questioning or examining their own. The educators can talk about Beethoven status all they want as being the product of a system of values, but if there were not something uniquely inherent in his music in the first place-something he was born with that was not conditioned-listeners would probably have abandoned him years ago as being little but the product of hype. Rosen was doing fine until his last sentence. If one subtracts the inherent factor in a composer's genius, then absolutely anything a composer does could be considered the result of "conditioning", *and that could never possibly explain the genius of a Mozart, who was performing before kings and queens by the age of five and six and his talent was inherently far greater than could be attributed to his surrounding conditioning from his father and from listening to others*.


what Mozart was doing as a child - is regularly being done by scores of young kids in todays world - and there are better child players today than Mozart was as a child - probably even better composers, to a point. but what none of these modern kid wonders have done - is take a quantum leap beyond their performance achievements and become fully fledged great composers leaving behind a treasury of music regarded as the product of *supreme* genius.


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## tdc

I believe genius could exist without recognition, for example if no one ever noticed Bach's music it would not change the notes on the page. It would not alter the quality or 'genius' of the music.


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## Guest

The word 'genius' has been either corrupted by misuse or evolved and morphed by use, so that we have lost the idea that the 'genius' was inhabited by a spirit (the genius _was _the spirit) and the implications that has for more precisely describing what it is about an individual that makes the genius identifiable. It has also lost the notion of something 'innate' as opposed to learned, and the connection with either the supernatural and the divine.

If 'genius' is applied when all that is meant is 'exceptional' or 'exceptionally good' then it is being misapplied.


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## KenOC

To say that a composer is a “genius” is like saying a work is “great.” In my view, it’s simply a label we assign based on a consensus view, a label with which not all will agree and which is subject to change over time.

From this, I’d say that there can be no such thing as “undiscovered genius.” A genius must be discovered, by definition, to be assigned that label.


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## tdc

When I use the term 'genius' I do mean it in the spiritual sense, with a connection to the divine or what one might term our higher selves. I think everyone has a connection to the divine to some degree, (which can be enhanced or degraded depending on our choices in life) and everyone has the potential to manifest some kind of genius in some area. It is a matter of bringing down that which we can perceive only with our intuition and making it manifest. If I was to speculate I think some composers were likely even chosen to be the channels for their music pre-birth.

I think to say that humans are the final judge of what is genius is flawed. I think there is a higher intelligence, and an architect of creation, therefore genius could exist whether or not people acknowledge it.


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## KenOC

So, if "genius" is defined by a "higher intelligence," can I assume that we mere humans are not allowed to know what the criteria are in this determination? And who, precisely, is a "genius"? Is that something sent down to us from on high, carved in stone tablets?

More likely, I think, is that some of us decide who's a "genius" and somehow assume that our determination comes from God. And no, I won't get into who or what "God" is for fear of raging moderators!


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## beetzart

tdc said:


> When I use the term 'genius' I do mean it in the spiritual sense, with a connection to the divine or what one might term our higher selves. I think everyone has a connection to the divine to some degree, (which can be enhanced or degraded depending on our choices in life) and everyone has the potential to manifest some kind of genius in some area. It is a matter of bringing down that which we can perceive only with our intuition and making it manifest. If I was to speculate I think some composers were likely even chosen to be the channels for their music pre-birth.
> 
> I think to say that humans are the final judge of what is genius is flawed. I think there is a higher intelligence, and an architect of creation, therefore genius could exist whether or not people acknowledge it.


Really? What is the divine then? How would this work; are our brains celestial antennas? Beethoven was a genius all of his own doing. There are supposedly thousands of gods, there is only one Beethoven.


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## Blancrocher

beetzart said:


> Beethoven was a genius all of his own doing. There are supposedly thousands of gods, there is only one Beethoven.


In Beethoven's case, I think the designation "super-genius" might be more appropriate.


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## Woodduck

It's all very well to bring up the "original" meaning of words, but that never tells us how we ought to use them now. If a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration," we'd better just stop talking about genius. But guess what? We aren't going to do that.

Bach was a musical genius, Shakespeare was a literary genius, and Einstein was a scientific genius. They all had exceptional - very exceptional - mental powers which allowed them to create or comprehend things beyond the power of nearly all the rest of us to create or to imagine. There's no misapplication of the word in referring to such highly exceptional people. Neither is there anything wrong with using the word more loosely - "he has a genius for picking winners at the race track" - since we all know we're not talking about Sir Isaac Newton or Michelangelo.

I think most of the peculiar dislike of the idea of "genius" - and of "greatness" - comes from people who either can't discriminate between degrees of excellence (and of course none of us is adequate in this respect) or who feel that they or their favorite cultural figures or products aren't getting the recognition they deserve. I mean, gosh, how come there isn't a bust of Stockhausen in Symphony Hall between Mozart and Wagner? After all, isn't the _Licht_ cycle even longer than the _Ring?_


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## arnerich

beetzart said:


> Really? What is the divine then? How would this work; are our brains celestial antennas? Beethoven was a genius all of his own doing. There are supposedly thousands of gods, there is only one Beethoven.


I'm more proud of the fact that Beethoven was a man. I prefer not to deify him.



Blancrocher said:


> In Beethoven's case, I think the designation "super-genius" might be more appropriate.


Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the music of Beethoven. But being so quick to label him "super-genius" overlooks the fact that he was a hard worker. He fought and struggled with his ideas. He made thousands of sketches. Composing didn't come naturally in the same way it did for Mozart. Beethoven was a passionate persistent hard worker.


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## beetzart

arnerich said:


> Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the music of Beethoven. But being so quick to label him "super-genius" overlooks the fact that he was a hard worker. He fought and struggled with his ideas. He made thousands of sketches. Composing didn't come naturally in the same way it did for Mozart. Beethoven was a passionate persistent hard worker.


I agree, yet apart from the rare howler he got it right, over and over again. There is no need to change a single note of 99.99% of his output.


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## Blancrocher

arnerich said:


> Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the music of Beethoven. But being so quick to label him "super-genius" overlooks the fact that he was a hard worker. He fought and struggled with his ideas. He made thousands of sketches. Composing didn't come naturally in the same way it did for Mozart. Beethoven was a passionate persistent hard worker.


Scholars try to wriggle out of Beethoven being a genius this way all the time (and they even refer to Mozart as a "working stiff" to humanize him). But it also takes genius (or "super-genius," to use my preferred term) to make such nice-sounding music seem like such hard work!


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## Captainnumber36

Woodduck said:


> It's all very well to bring up the "original" meaning of words, but that never tells us how we ought to use them now. If a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration," we'd better just stop talking about genius. But guess what? We aren't going to do that.
> 
> Bach was a musical genius, Shakespeare was a literary genius, and Einstein was a scientific genius. They all had exceptional - very exceptional - mental powers which allowed them to create or comprehend things beyond the power of nearly all the rest of us to create or to imagine. There's no misapplication of the word in referring to such highly exceptional people. Neither is there anything wrong with using the word more loosely - "he has a genius for picking winners at the race track" - since we all know we're not talking about Sir Isaac Newton or Michelangelo.
> 
> I think most of the peculiar dislike of the idea of "genius" - of and "greatness" - comes from people who either can't discriminate between degrees of excellence (and of course none of us is adequate in this respect) or who feel that they or their favorite cultural figures or products aren't getting the recognition they deserve. I mean, gosh, how come there isn't a bust of Stockhausen in Symphony Hall between Mozart and Wagner? After all, isn't the _Licht_ cycle even longer than the _Ring?_


If we label genius as the exceptional, I can agree with that. But I think we need more criteria...is Jackson Pollock a genius? Was his work the product of the exceptional?


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## Captainnumber36

Also, Geniuses are fallible humans is something we forget to remember.


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## Agamemnon

Woodduck said:


> Bach was a musical genius, Shakespeare was a literary genius, and Einstein was a scientific genius. They all had exceptional - very exceptional - mental powers which allowed them to create or comprehend things beyond the power of nearly all the rest of us to create or to imagine.


I think I speak on behalf of these men that they definitely didn't have exceptional mental powers (certainly Einstein would have objected to it). They only used their ordinary minds in a different way. In the philosophy of science Kuhn recoined the word 'paradigma' as the normal way of doing science: trying to get all the data to fit the accepted theory (which is a form of puzzle solving). The genius Einstein was a different kind of scientist: he didn't try to fit the data into the old theory but invented a new theory in which all data fit (this is 'revolutionary' science). And Einstein famously came to his new theory by very simple Gedankenexperimente.

Thus the genius isn't more intelligent than other people (perhaps Einstein was actually quite dumb as he himself would reckon in his modesty: e.g. in his teens he found maths difficult and also later in life he couldn't follow up on the new developments in physics). But he had a free mind: he developed his work out of his imagination instead of out of the accepted theories.


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## beetzart

Diabelli Variations. I haven't listened to them is a long while. Now I have reaffirmed to myself as to why Beethoven is so special, sometimes I can't help but cry at his almost entirely original output. Listen to them for yourselves if need be; they show why he is a genius. No one else comes close.


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## arnerich

beetzart said:


> Diabelli Variations. I haven't listened to them is a long while. Now I have reaffirmed to myself as to why Beethoven is so special, sometimes I can't help but cry at his almost entirely original output. Listen to them for yourselves if need be; they show why he is a genius. No one else comes close.


I remember playing parts of the diabelli variations in high school. I was playing the 28th variation and somebody said "what is this crap!?" :lol:I love that variation but it is particularly thorny for first time listeners.


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## Art Rock

As usual, a lot of subjective opinions are posted as if they were objective truths. The same holds for the label 'genius' - there is no objective criterion for it.


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## Agamemnon

Art Rock said:


> As usual, a lot of subjective opinions are posted as if they were objective truths. The same holds for the label 'genius' - there is no objective criterion for it.


The funny/ironic thing is that the genius is exactly that person that creates Truth instead of 'objectively' identifying Truth (like Jesus in the Bible: "I am the Truth'). We ordinary men cannot create truth: we can and must only try to be objective but can never wander into the Absolute as the Genius does.


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## Blancrocher

I'm willing to give Beethoven some genius-points for being deaf while he composed some of his best works.


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## jdec

beetzart said:


> Diabelli Variations. I haven't listened to them is a long while. Now I have reaffirmed to myself as to why *Beethoven is so special*, sometimes I can't help but cry at his almost entirely original output. Listen to them for yourselves if need be; they show why he is a genius. *No one else comes close.*




Talking about 'genius'...


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## beetzart

Art Rock said:


> As usual, a lot of subjective opinions are posted as if they were objective truths. The same holds for the label 'genius' - there is no objective criterion for it.


Yes but there is still a hierarchy in subjectiveness. Not everyone has to like/love something for it to be the greatest, best, most ingenious etc. Take football (how well a team plays is subjective), I can't stand Manchester United but you can't take away the fact that they are the most decorated team in English football over the last 25 years or so. Beethoven is better than many composers past and present whether people like his music or not. If there were a way to quantify music like in a league table I bet my last fiver Beethoven would be top.


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## jdec

beetzart said:


> Really? What is the divine then? How would this work; are our brains celestial antennas? Beethoven was a genius all of his own doing. *There are supposedly thousands of gods, there is only one Beethoven.*


..and only J.S.Bach, and only one W.A.Mozart, only one Brahms, etc, etc..


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## Captainnumber36

I think in the arts, we should only focus on discussing why a particular work "does it" for the person who enjoys the work. There is nothing objective other than objectively stating why you enjoy a work.

Genius isn't really a necessary term in the arts, but perhaps in the sciences it is more useful.


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## Agamemnon

Captainnumber36 said:


> Genius isn't really a necessary term in the arts, but perhaps in the sciences it is more useful.


I think Leonardo da Vinci, who was artist and scientist in one person and even one act of study/creation, is the genius par excellence.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> It's all very well to bring up the "original" meaning of words, but that never tells us how we ought to use them now. *If a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration," we'd better just stop talking about genius. *But guess what? We aren't going to do that.


I already composed a long reply to this, but it got lost in a "server too busy" error, and I can't face writing it again. Suffice to say that I don't think we'd better stop talking about 'genius' "if a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration,"". I fail to see your logic - unless your logic is simply that _you _don't want to talk about it.


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## DavidA

arnerich said:


> I'm more proud of the fact that Beethoven was a man. I prefer not to deify him.
> 
> Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the music of Beethoven. But being so quick to label him "super-genius" overlooks the fact that *he was a hard worker.* He fought and struggled with his ideas. He made thousands of sketches. Composing didn't come naturally in the same way it did for Mozart. Beethoven was a passionate persistent hard worker.


Yes but most geniuses are. Mozart was an extremely hard worker at what he was good at - composing. Bach was again a very hard worker. Indeed Bach once said that anyone who worked as hard as he did could produce the same results! The fact is that genius often expresses itself in hard work.


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## DavidA

Blancrocher said:


> I'm willing to give Beethoven some genius-points for being deaf while he composed some of his best works.


I believe Bach composed The Art of Fugue when blind! These guys 'heard' the music they wrote without hearing it!


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## DavidA

I think we must remember the word 'genius' is a relative term. Certainly there are some people who are absolutely outstanding in their talent and ability. But, for example, I have heard the word used of someone like Leonard Bernstein. He was certainly a fabulous musician but a genius? He himself never put himself alongside the likes of Mozart. But listening to West Side Story you can exclaim 'genius'! So genius can be major or minor - compared to the rest of us!


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## Phil loves classical

i agree with some previous posts that there is no objective use of the word Genius in art. Genius is commonly used 
when the composer pushes your buttons and seems to know your thoughts and expectations. But sometimes we listeners grow out of a certain state, and the music doesn't move us like before. I used to think Mozart was God, but in recent years, he hasn't got that power over me anymore, and there have been some that push my buttons more lately. But I wouldn't call them genius where Mozart isn't. They are equal in incomparable ways.

One such composer able to push my buttons better than Mozart lately is Juilan Scriabin, who died when he was 12 years old. So to me he is a genius in every sense of the word.


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## Daniel Atkinson

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?


No



Captainnumber36 said:


> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?


Outside of colloquially, no

Daniel


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## Daniel Atkinson

DavidA said:


> He himself never put himself alongside the likes of Mozart.


This is likely how he failed as a composer, as he took to pastiche rather than innovation


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## KenOC

Daniel Atkinson said:


> This is likely how he failed as a composer, as he took to pastiche rather than innovation


Bernstein failed as a composer? Oh my.


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## Woodduck

Agamemnon said:


> I think I speak on behalf of these men that *they definitely didn't have exceptional mental powers (certainly Einstein would have objected to it). They only used their ordinary minds in a different way.* In the philosophy of science Kuhn recoined the word 'paradigma' as the normal way of doing science: trying to get all the data to fit the accepted theory (which is a form of puzzle solving). *The genius Einstein was a different kind of scientist: he didn't try to fit the data into the old theory but invented a new theory in which all data fit (this is 'revolutionary' science).* And Einstein famously came to his new theory by very simple Gedankenexperimente.
> 
> *Thus the genius isn't more intelligent than other people* (perhaps Einstein was actually quite dumb as he himself would reckon in his modesty: e.g. in his teens he found maths difficult and also later in life he couldn't follow up on the new developments in physics). But he had a free mind: *he developed his work out of his imagination instead of out of the accepted theories.*


Are you saying that imagination is not a mental power?


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## Blancrocher

Conservative estimate, I'd say there are 70 or so composers who were/are obviously geniuses. It's when you move outside that elite company that you start having to find evidence and make objective arguments.


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## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> I already composed a long reply to this, but it got lost in a "server too busy" error, and I can't face writing it again. Suffice to say that I don't think we'd better stop talking about 'genius' "if a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration,"". I fail to see your logic - unless your logic is simply that _you _don't want to talk about it.


My logic is simple. I said "If a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration," we'd better just stop talking about genius." The point is that there's no point in talking about something predicated on something that doesn't exist. The source of the concept of genius is etymologically interesting, but few people nowadays evoke it to explain what Beethoven was doing.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> My logic is simple. I said "If a genius has to be inhabited by spirits, or be a vessel for "divine inspiration," we'd better just stop talking about genius." The point is that there's no point in talking about something predicated on something that doesn't exist. The source of the concept of genius is etymologically interesting, but few people nowadays evoke it to explain what Beethoven was doing.


You're assuming I was willing to take the idea literally.


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## tdc

arnerich said:


> I'm more proud of the fact that Beethoven was a man. I prefer not to deify him.


On the other hand, one could say that your perspective puts him on more of a pedestal than mine, as it gives all the credit to him as a person, and none to the creator. Therefore you have elevated Beethoven to a divine like status.


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## DeepR

^ Good edit, let's not even go there...


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## PlaySalieri

tdc said:


> When I use the term 'genius' I do mean it in the spiritual sense, with a connection to the divine or what one might term our higher selves. I think everyone has a connection to the divine to some degree, (which can be enhanced or degraded depending on our choices in life) and everyone has the potential to manifest some kind of genius in some area. It is a matter of bringing down that which we can perceive only with our intuition and making it manifest. If I was to speculate I think some composers were likely even chosen to be the channels for their music pre-birth.
> 
> I think to say that humans are the final judge of what is genius is flawed. I think there is a higher intelligence, and an architect of creation, therefore genius could exist whether or not people acknowledge it.


Noted - though for those of us who are atheists - we must look elsewhere.


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## Guest

tdc said:


> When I use the term 'genius' I do mean it in the spiritual sense, with a connection to the divine or what one might term our higher selves. I think everyone has a connection to the divine to some degree, (which can be enhanced or degraded depending on our choices in life) and everyone has the potential to manifest some kind of genius in some area. It is a matter of bringing down that which we can perceive only with our intuition and making it manifest. If I was to speculate I think some composers were likely even chosen to be the channels for their music pre-birth.
> 
> I think to say that humans are the final judge of what is genius is flawed. I think there is a higher intelligence, and an architect of creation, therefore genius could exist whether or not people acknowledge it.


Whether one accepts the idea of genius as a manifestation of a connection to a 'real' divine, or a 'figure of speech' divine, I'm not clear that we're any nearer describing the manifestation itself, beyond the (IMO) lame idea that it's just a synonym for 'exceptional'. That is, there is nothing to go on that exemplifies what it is we hear in the composition that marks it as 'out of the ordinary' or 'super-natural'.


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## arnerich

tdc said:


> On the other hand, one could say that your perspective puts him on more of a pedestal than mine, as it gives all the credit to him as a person, and none to the creator. Therefore you have elevated Beethoven to a divine like status.


I can't control how people interpret everything I say... but if you want to hear it from the horses mouth (I'm the horse) by humanizing Beethoven we take him off the pedestal and place his two feet down on the earth with the rest of us


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## beetzart

tdc said:


> On the other hand, one could say that your perspective puts him on more of a pedestal than mine, as it gives all the credit to him as a person, and none to the creator. Therefore you have elevated Beethoven to a divine like status.


Beethoven had two creators: his parents. I certainly give Beethoven the lion share of the credit apart from those that he was influenced by. There is nothing divine to this unless you only mean divine as a simple adjective and not a noun.


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## DavidA

Daniel Atkinson said:


> This is likely how he failed as a composer, as he took to pastiche rather than innovation


You think West Side Story was a failure? :lol:


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## DavidA

arnerich said:


> I can't control how people interpret everything I say... but if you want to hear it from the horses mouth (I'm the horse) by humanizing Beethoven we take him off the pedestal and *place his two feet down on the earth with the rest of us *




Of course Beethoven was like the rest of us. In fact, apart from his musical genius he was an inadequate individual in the way he lived and related to others. Just produced some of the greatest music ever but that doesn't mean he was above everyone else.


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## Daniel Atkinson

DavidA said:


> You think West Side Story was a failure? :lol:


Commercially, no.

Daniel


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## Blancrocher

While I agree that Beethoven walked with two feet on the ground like the rest of us (if with some difficulty, toward the end), I think we should seriously entertain the idea that Mozart was a super-intelligent space alien masquerading as a human.


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## Forss

For my part, I consider "genius" to be ultimately a question of _ethics_, and as such a very real potential (entelechy) in every human being. Schopenhauer certainly made some rather important contributions on the subject, but I still think that Weininger, in his _Geschlecht und Charakter_, has made the most profound insights. Talent is hereditary and may be the common possession of a family (the Bachs), he says, but genius is not transferable, it is never generic, but always individual (Johann Sebastian). Genius is an altogether higher form of existence, not only in an intellectual but also in a _moral_ sense. A genius completely reveals the _idea_ of humanity. He manifests what a human being is - the _subject_ whose _object_ is the _whole_ universe - and he establishes that fact for all eternity.

For genius is, he concludes, nothing but a complete fulfillment of the idea of humanity, and therefore genius is something which every human being _ought_ to be and which _must in principle be possible for every human being to become_. Genius is the highest morality and therefore everybody's duty. A human being becomes a genius through a supreme _act of the will, by affirming the whole universe in himself_. However paradoxical this may sound: a human being is a genius if he _wants_ to be one.

Coda: "As Pascal remarks most aptly: the more original a man is, the more original he also thinks the _others_ to be. And compare this with Goethe's saying that perhaps only a genius can understand a genius."

This is also why, in my view, Beethoven is a genius, and Wagner not. Beethoven's ethics is about sublimating sensual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection.


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## chill782002

DavidA said:


> I believe Bach composed The Art of Fugue when blind! These guys 'heard' the music they wrote without hearing it!


Indeed. Some people with a high degree of musical knowledge and training can actually hear the music in their heads just by looking at the score and the same applies to composing. It's rather like the difference between reading out loud and reading silently.


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## RICK RIEKERT

For Weininger, who has been dubbed "the patron saint of Jewish self-hatred", memory was the sine qua non of genius. Among Weininger's "insights" into the nature of genius was his belief that the elevated consciousness of the genius implied a flawless memory. He asserted that a genius could remember everything he had ever experienced: "his entire past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt". These memories were in some mysterious way one great whole of consciousness. Because Weininger hated women, no woman could possibly have such a memory and therefore no woman could ever be a genius. In fact, he maintained that women did not really have memories at all because they thought in "henids", by which Weininger meant confused units of mental and psychical data that women needed men to clarify for them into usable ideas. If, as Weininger insisted, "no male is quite without a trace of genius", it seems often to be a genius for making dumb remarks about women.


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## Blancrocher

As an aside for anyone interested in memory, I'm fascinated by the mnemonic feats of the best participants in the World Memory Championships.

http://www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk/home.php

There are lots of hilarious Youtube clips to explore as well.


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## Agamemnon

Forss said:


> For my part, I consider "genius" to be ultimately a question of _ethics_, and as such a very real potential (entelechy) in every human being. Schopenhauer certainly made some rather important contributions on the subject, but I still think that Weininger, in his _Geschlecht und Charakter_, has made the most profound insights. Talent is hereditary and may be the common possession of a family (the Bachs), he says, but genius is not transferable, it is never generic, but always individual (Johann Sebastian). Genius is an altogether higher form of existence, not only in an intellectual but also in a _moral_ sense. A genius completely reveals the _idea_ of humanity. He manifests what a human being is - the _subject_ whose _object_ is the _whole_ universe - and he establishes that fact for all eternity.
> 
> For genius is, he concludes, nothing but a complete fulfillment of the idea of humanity, and therefore genius is something which every human being _ought_ to be and which _must in principle be possible for every human being to become_. Genius is the highest morality and therefore everybody's duty. A human being becomes a genius through a supreme _act of the will, by affirming the whole universe in himself_. However paradoxical this may sound: a human being is a genius if he _wants_ to be one.
> 
> Coda: "As Pascal remarks most aptly: the more original a man is, the more original he also thinks the _others_ to be. And compare this with Goethe's saying that perhaps only a genius can understand a genius."
> 
> This is also why, in my view, Beethoven is a genius, and Wagner not. Beethoven's ethics is about sublimating sensual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection.


The forbidden/dangerous books are coming back and I like it. In my country there was some riot as Spengler's The Decline of The West has been translated in Dutch. I mention this because - whether you like Spengler's ideas or not - Spengler was a genuine genius, perhaps the greatest genius of the 20th century (together with Einstein). The fact that Spengler is so controversial is in a way a proof of his genius: as a genius Spengler has a totally original vision which therefore is different than all other visions. He has such a strong will that he only says things that nobody wants him to say.

Weininger is perhaps a genius too but he was not original in his idea of genius as you present it: it is very much a copy of what Nietzsche meant by the 'Ubermensch'. The Ubermensch is the man who creates his own morals, the man who has such a strong will (to power) that he organizes himself and his surroundings, the man who accepts and confirms all reality and thereby reshaping the cosmos by his will and vision.

This recreation of the universe - man becomes subject and carries/recreates the whole world by his representation of it - is essential to modern philosophy (Descartes). As I said earlier in this thread Leonarda da Vinci is actually the first modern man and therefore the first genius: Leonardo is - in your/Weininger's words - the fulfillment of the idea of humanity by affirming the whole universe in himself (and reveils this by representing the whole universe as his object in his art and science).


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## Botschaft

Forss said:


> For my part, I consider "genius" to be ultimately a question of _ethics_, and as such a very real potential (entelechy) in every human being. Schopenhauer certainly made some rather important contributions on the subject, but I still think that Weininger, in his _Geschlecht und Charakter_, has made the most profound insights. Talent is hereditary and may be the common possession of a family (the Bachs), he says, but genius is not transferable, it is never generic, but always individual (Johann Sebastian). Genius is an altogether higher form of existence, not only in an intellectual but also in a _moral_ sense. A genius completely reveals the _idea_ of humanity. He manifests what a human being is - the _subject_ whose _object_ is the _whole_ universe - and he establishes that fact for all eternity.
> 
> For genius is, he concludes, nothing but a complete fulfillment of the idea of humanity, and therefore genius is something which every human being _ought_ to be and which _must in principle be possible for every human being to become_. Genius is the highest morality and therefore everybody's duty. A human being becomes a genius through a supreme _act of the will, by affirming the whole universe in himself_. However paradoxical this may sound: a human being is a genius if he _wants_ to be one.
> 
> Coda: "As Pascal remarks most aptly: the more original a man is, the more original he also thinks the _others_ to be. And compare this with Goethe's saying that perhaps only a genius can understand a genius."
> 
> This is also why, in my view, Beethoven is a genius, and Wagner not. Beethoven's ethics is about sublimating sensual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection.


You can of course always redefine words to suit your views, but this has no bearing on what words actually mean.


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## Larkenfield

Short definition. 

Genius = the elimination of the nonessentials — knowing what to keep, eliminate, or revise. :cheers:


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## beetzart

Listen to the Erioca and tell me the man wasn't a genius. He was a once in a millennium birth. Sorry, is it still ok to talk about LvB?


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## Art Rock

beetzart said:


> Listen to the Erioca and tell me the man wasn't a genius. He was a once in a millennium birth. Sorry, is it still ok to talk about LvB?


We could all post similar things about our favourite composers. Doesn't make them all geniuses (and if it does, the term does not mean much anyway).


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## Botschaft

Art Rock said:


> We could all post similar things about our favourite composers. Doesn't make them all geniuses (and if it does, the term does not mean much anyway).


We could, but that doesn't mean we all should. Talent isn't arbitrary.


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## Woodduck

Forss said:


> For genius is, he concludes, nothing but a complete fulfillment of the idea of humanity, and therefore* genius is something which every human being ought to be and which must in principle be possible for every human being to become*. *Genius is the highest morality and therefore everybody's duty.* *A human being becomes a genius through a supreme act of the will,*_ by affirming the whole universe in himself_. However paradoxical this may sound: a human being is a genius if he _wants_ to be one.
> 
> This is also why, in my view, *Beethoven is a genius, and Wagner not.* *Beethoven's ethics is about sublimating sensual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection.*


So anyone willing to assume the duty of sublimating sexual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection can be a genius?

Hmmm. That sounds a lot like Wagner's _Parsifal,_ that astonishing work of - what, _mere talent?_


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## Agamemnon

I think in history and philosophy 'genius' is quite well-defined as the conflation (identity) of subject and object; historically the genius defines modern man. Again this is all about 'The Death of God' which urges us to become gods ourselves: if God no longer has created the world and it's order then we must do it ourselves (and originally in ancient times the term 'genius' referred simply to the divine core of every man and every thing). In modern times it has become a task for every man to become a genius (to become a god): as christians we must follow Jesus' example to "make the world anew". BTW Nietzsche's Ubermensch is also a word Nietzsche simply borrowed from christian theology which identified Jesus as the Ubermensch. 

For the modern idea of 'genius' as a exceptional individual I quote The Encyclopédie (a project of the Enlightenment in the 18th century):
"he whose soul is more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost."

Note that the essence of the genius is somebody who is like a sponge, absorbing everything, but is also all emotion and radiating everything so subject and object (and actually the whole universe) merges into unity in this person (which has also a long tradition in christian theology as being the essence of Jesus).


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## Forss

Agamemnon said:


> The forbidden/dangerous books are coming back and I like it. In my country there was some riot as Spengler's The Decline of The West has been translated in Dutch. I mention this because - whether you like Spengler's ideas or not - Spengler was a genuine genius, perhaps the greatest genius of the 20th century (together with Einstein). The fact that Spengler is so controversial is in a way a proof of his genius: as a genius Spengler has a totally original vision which therefore is different than all other visions. He has such a strong will that he only says things that nobody wants him to say.
> 
> Weininger is perhaps a genius too but he was not original in his idea of genius as you present it: it is very much a copy of what Nietzsche meant by the 'Ubermensch'. The Ubermensch is the man who creates his own morals, the man who has such a strong will (to power) that he organizes himself and his surroundings, the man who accepts and confirms all reality and thereby reshaping the cosmos by his will and vision.


Spengler is very dear to me also, and I revere his _Decline of the West_, and, like him, I think that much of Weininger's account is misunderstood. I can see the connection with Nietzsche, sure, in his repudiation (or even _fear_) of the "weaker" sides of human nature, but I certainly don't see _his_ account as a mere restatement of Nietzsche's concept of the _Übermensch_. Weininger's ethical principles are more in line with Christianity, in my opinion. Spengler even labeled his (noble) work as that of a "Late" religiousness.


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## Forss

Woodduck said:


> So anyone willing to assume the duty of sublimating sexual desire into art in the quest for ethical perfection can be a genius?
> 
> Hmmm. That sounds a lot like Wagner's _Parsifal,_ that astonishing work of - what, _mere talent?_


Why, of course, _Parsifal_ is certainly a true work of art. No question about that, so to speak. My point, however, was simply that _I_, whenever _I_ listen to Wagner's music, never get the feeling that I am in the presence of real moral greatness.


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## tdc

Sounds like Nietzsche became a mouth piece for the rich and powerful in society, who sought to legitimize their corruption and savage treatment of the earth and its inhabitants. It is convenient for them because now they can be looked at not as the morally degraded sub humans they are but as gods, gods who get to create their own morals, therefore need answer to no one, because there is no one and nothing in the universe higher than them.


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## Agamemnon

RICK RIEKERT said:


> For Weininger, who has been dubbed "the patron saint of Jewish self-hatred", memory was the sine qua non of genius. Among Weininger's "insights" into the nature of genius was his belief that the elevated consciousness of the genius implied a flawless memory. He asserted that a genius could remember everything he had ever experienced: "his entire past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt". These memories were in some mysterious way one great whole of consciousness. Because Weininger hated women, no woman could possibly have such a memory and therefore no woman could ever be a genius. In fact, he maintained that women did not really have memories at all because they thought in "henids", by which Weininger meant confused units of mental and psychical data that women needed men to clarify for them into usable ideas. If, as Weininger insisted, "no male is quite without a trace of genius", it seems often to be a genius for making dumb remarks about women.


So Google is our genius? Yet it rhymes with Nietzsche's concept of the Ubermensch who confirms and accepts all reality instead of morally rejecting some of it and with the Enlightenment thinkers who kinda defined the genius as the great sponge. And it seems to refer to the classical notion of the universal intellect or soul which - by it's very definition - can not be individual and thus an entity which transcends individual consciousness and of which wise men strive to participate in and to become one with.

The part about women reminds me of Simone de Beauvoir but I think it would depart too much from the topic to go into that.


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## Botschaft

Forss said:


> Why, of course, _Parsifal_ is certainly a true work of art. No question about that, so to speak. My point, however, was simply that _I_, whenever _I_ listen to Wagner's music, never get the feeling that I am in the presence of real moral greatness.


Good thing then that all music is completely amoral.


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## Blancrocher

Improbus said:


> Good thing then that all music is completely amoral.


With the exception of Pachelbel's Canon, of course, which is an evil and deliberately malevolent earworm.


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## Agamemnon

tdc said:


> Sounds like Nietzsche became a mouth piece for the rich and powerful in society, who sought to legitimize their corruption and savage treatment of the earth and its inhabitants. It is convenient for them because now they can be looked at not as the morally degraded sub humans they are but as gods, gods who get to create their own morals, therefore need answer to no one, because there is no one and nothing in the universe higher than them.


Of course some nazi's legitimized their acts by referring to Nietzsche's philosophy. But at the same time we assume that Nietzsche would have condemned the nazi's for at least some of their (resentful) ideas. Nietzsche longed for a new aristocracy (the Ubermensch) but this should be a genuine aristocracy (not a gang of thugs who usurps power). For sure Nietzsche was thinking about Goethe (and himself) as a typical Ubermensch (anf thus not Hitler)!

Above all Nietzsche was Dionysian (an anarchist you could say) who undermines all established order.


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## Woodduck

Forss said:


> Why, of course, _Parsifal_ is certainly a true work of art. No question about that, so to speak. My point, however, was simply that _I_, whenever _I_ listen to Wagner's music, never get the feeling that I am in the presence of real moral greatness.


That is a fascinating observation. It raises the difficult question of what aspects of our subjective experience music is capable of representing. Morality is a complex concept, and I'm not aware of any serious attempts to show how music, purely as music, can present it to our awareness. I'm happy to accept your remarks as a personal impression of some differences between the music of Beethoven and that of Wagner, but I'd be very interested to hear what elements of their music you feel might be indicative of moral traits.

There's no question about Wagner's rather, shall we say, unconventional sense of right and wrong, or about his posthumous personal reputation (which is unquestionably biased by cultural developments since his death), and it's beyond dispute that people's views of his character, based on that reputation, have led many to hear in his music things which no unbiased listener would suspect of being there. Similarly, our inherited views of Beethoven as a battler with fate and idealistic culture hero easily lead us to hear his music in certain ways.

My own observation on this would be that I hear in Beethoven's music an architectural strength, correlated with a powerful expressive drive which nevertheless permits no emotional indulgence, which suggests a person of intense purposefulness, and one focused on values which transcend the sufferings of the moment. Those values may well be regarded as moral values. Wagner, on the other hand, seems to want to explore the passions, even to their extremes; but it should be noted that he is never satisfied merely to do that (as, say, Tchaikovsky can be), but is, over the course of a work (a dramatic work, in his case), always seeking a resolution, a salvific state which will finally transcend passion and justify it in the end. It's a religious quest, in a non-dogmatic sense, and I would not hesitate to call it a moral one, albeit one which, along the way, makes us experience both the voluptuous thrill and the corrosive horror of evil, a project that neither Beethoven nor any other pre-Romantic composer could attempt.

Perhaps that project in itself is not one that could even be entertained by a person without a deeply contradictory, flawed character. But such a character may nonetheless possess an undergirding nobility of aspiration which is probably the one essential for moral greatness, even if we judge that true greatness is never attained. And I would suggest that without this moral dimension Wagner's work - not only in its dramatic ideas, but in the music which expresses them - would not have the overwhelming power that so many find it to have.

Even accepting for the moment Weininger's (I think partially valid) contention that moral greatness is an essential quality of genius, I have no hesitation in calling Wagner's music, as well as Beethoven's, an expression of genius.


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## Guest

Forss said:


> For my part, I consider "genius" to be ultimately a question of _ethics_, [etc...]


I like this post because it makes a contribution to defining genius. I can't say I recognise or agree with the idea itself, because it seems to say that 'genius' is recognised more in the morals of the person who wrote the music than in the work of art itself.


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## Botschaft

MacLeod said:


> I like this post because it makes a contribution to defining genius. I can't say I recognise or agree with the idea itself, because it seems to say that 'genius' is recognised more in the morals of the person who wrote the music than in the work of art itself.


In which case a malevolent genius becomes a contradiction in terms, even though it's a well-established and perfectly valid concept. I'd prefer that we refrain from redefining words at whim.


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## Guest

Improbus said:


> In which case a malevolent genius becomes a contradiction in terms, even though it's a well-established and perfectly valid concept. I'd prefer that we refrain from redefining words at whim.


In what way have I redefined 'genius'?


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## Botschaft

MacLeod said:


> In what way have I redefined 'genius'?


If sound morality is a prerequisite for genius, as suggested by Forss, a genius cannot be evil; but this contradicts the established idea of genius.


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## Guest

Improbus said:


> If sound morality is a prerequisite for genius, as suggested by Forss, a genius cannot be evil; but this contradicts the established idea of genius.


That's an important 'if' (though I still fail to see that I have redefined 'genius'...or am I misunderstanding something here?) Forss refers to a single writer's view of genius. Perhaps it is Weininger that is doing the undesirable redefining, or it is simply that it does not apply here, wrt the OP. If it is claimed by the ordinary TC member that 'Mozart is a genius', I would assume that they are referring to the standard of his music, not to his morals, or to the moral direction of any literal attendant spirit.


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## Botschaft

MacLeod said:


> If it is claimed by the ordinary TC member that 'Mozart is a genius', I would assume that they are referring to the standard of his music, not to his morals, or to the moral direction of any literal attendant spirit.


And I think that's what almost anyone would mean, TC member or not.


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## Guest

Improbus said:


> And I think that's what almost anyone would mean, TC member or not.


Fortunately, I only have to consider the views of those sharing them with me here. So, just to be clear, it's not me but Forss who's redefining you're objecting to?


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## Botschaft

MacLeod said:


> Fortunately, I only have to consider the views of those sharing them with me here. So, just to be clear, it's not me but Forss who's redefining you're objecting to?


Yes, that's correct.


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## beetzart

Doesn't it sound a bit odd to say Beethoven was NOT a genius? Well if he wasn't then no other composer was either, or painter, sculptor, writer, philosopher, etc.


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## Forss

Woodduck said:


> Even accepting for the moment Weininger's (I think partially valid) contention that moral greatness is an essential quality of genius, I have no hesitation in calling Wagner's music, as well as Beethoven's, an expression of genius.


Thank _you_ for your thoroughgoing reply, Woodduck. Funnily enough, whenever I _read_ Wagner's essays, I actually feel that I am in the presence of moral greatness (i.e., to recommend Art as the great help out of our present difficulties, so as to establish the Universal Brotherhood of Man), but it is something about his "music dramas" that leaves me cold. Perhaps I can't, on a most personal level, come to terms with his, shall we say, somewhat _problematic_ character and political outlook, and I am certainly the first to acknowledge this obvious contradiction.


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## Blancrocher

beetzart said:


> Doesn't it sound a bit odd to say Beethoven was NOT a genius? Well if he wasn't then no other composer was either, or painter, sculptor, writer, philosopher, etc.


It can be quite obnoxious, especially when the aversion to "genius" manifests itself in ordinary life. For example, I have friends who will actually spend time at parties going on about how much they work and how hard it is for them to be away from whatever it is they're working on.


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## Botschaft

Forss said:


> Perhaps I can't, on a most personal level, come to terms with his, shall we say, somewhat _problematic_ character and political outlook, and I am certainly the first to acknowledge this obvious contradiction.


It's good that you admit to simply being biased against Wagner.


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## Guest

beetzart said:


> Doesn't it sound a bit odd to say Beethoven was NOT a genius? Well if he wasn't then no other composer was either, or painter, sculptor, writer, philosopher, etc.


Maybe. So what do you take the word to mean, and what it is about LvB's music that qualifies him for the label?


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## beetzart

MacLeod said:


> Maybe. So what do you take the word to mean, and what it is about LvB's music that qualifies him for the label?


What do you mean by convincing you or just in general? I will take the word to mean what it says in the Oxford English Dictionary.

a 'An exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability or tendency'
b 'A person having this'

The dictionary I took this from was published in 2003.

Beethoven fits that criteria. Next.

EDIT: I can't believe, on a classical music forum, we are actually picking nits over whether Beethoven was a genius.


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## Art Rock

beetzart said:


> Beethoven fits that criteria. Next.


What other classical composers would you say fit the criteria? Where do you draw the line?


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## beetzart

Art Rock said:


> What other classical composers would you say fit the criteria? Where do you draw the line?


I would say many fit the bill, wouldn't you then?


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## Blancrocher

I said upthread that there are probably 70 composers who are/were certainly geniuses, though I could be persuaded to go higher. I feel the term would lose meaning if we went much higher than 200, though.


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## Larkenfield

Geniuses with obvious command and mastery over their creative faculties also are known for contributing far more to music than they took from others. Is it that mysterious who are these composers who stand head and shoulders above their peers? — and yet the entire subject gets so twisted around with complexities by the human intellect and monkey mind that it becomes a complete muddle. Sometimes things have to be felt and not just thought about for something to be understood.


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## beetzart

Blancrocher said:


> I said upthread that there are probably 70 composers who are/were certainly geniuses, though I could be persuaded to go higher. I feel the term would lose meaning if we went much higher than 200, though.


I would go with 100/125 great composers. So over a 400 year period that makes for a tiny ratio when compared to how many people were born and survived childhood during that time. So the percentage of people who were composers who were geniuses is quite tiny. It is arbitrarily subjective.

Also, there shouldn't be no need to justify whether Beethoven was a genius or not; it should be how much of one he was.


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## Blancrocher

beetzart said:


> I would go with 100/125 great composers.


125 is about the number of composers represented in my music collection, so I'm willing to go along with it. 125 it is.

You drive a hard bargain, my friend.


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## Strange Magic

Would it be helpful to ascertain how many and which architects were/are geniuses? Painters? It might aid us in establishing cross-discipline criteria.


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## arnerich

It's like that da Vinci painting that recently sold for 500 million dollars. Is the painting a work of genius? Is it really worth that much? I mean it once sold for less than $10,000 before experts were convinced of it's authenticity. In my opinion if the painting was really worth that much, and a work of true genius, it could have sold for 500 million regardless of the artist.

I think it's really just a fine example of renaissance painting and nothing more.

I want to pose this question; can we really call composers genius, say Mozart, if they are simply the product of their era? In many ways one could argue that they were in the right place at the right time and chosen by their generation. 

If an authentic lost piece by Mozart was discovered but experts were unable to verify it's authenticity would it simply be a fine example of the classical era and nothing more?


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## Phil loves classical

beetzart said:


> Doesn't it sound a bit odd to say Beethoven was NOT a genius? Well if he wasn't then no other composer was either, or painter, sculptor, writer, philosopher, etc.


Going by my previous definition, I think Beethoven was a great manipulator through his music, which makes him a genius to many. Stravinsky was to me just as much, or more, of a genius. I don't think consensus can define what a genius in music is. Mahler could be a genius or a nut, and I see him as both.


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## Guest

beetzart said:


> What do you mean by convincing you or just in general? I will take the word to mean what it says in the Oxford English Dictionary.
> 
> a 'An exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability or tendency'
> b 'A person having this'
> 
> The dictionary I took this from was published in 2003.
> 
> Beethoven fits that criteria. Next.
> 
> EDIT: I can't believe, on a classical music forum, we are actually picking nits over whether Beethoven was a genius.


No, I'm not asking to be "convinced" - just seeking an explanation that is more than "Beethoven had an exceptional intellectual, creative power." It needs to go further than simply asserting that he meets the criteria. It really isn't nit-picking to ask what it is about his music that exemplifies his 'exceptional creative power'.


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## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> No, I'm not asking to be "convinced" - just seeking an explanation that is more than "Beethoven had an exceptional intellectual, creative power." It needs to go further than simply asserting that he meets the criteria. It really isn't nit-picking to ask what it is about his music that exemplifies his 'exceptional creative power'.


A personal experience: I was recently listening to the first movement of LvB's "Ghost" piano trio. It seemed as if I could see a circus strongman bending thick iron bars, easily, into loops and various shapes. Amazing. Then I noticed that the bent iron shapes were of astonishing imagination and delicacy, offering an intense esthetic experience. Doubly amazing.

My response on hearing that, the first time and the hundredth: "How'd he do that???"


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## Art Rock

beetzart said:


> I would say many fit the bill, wouldn't you then?


No, because imo the term 'genius' loses its value if it is applied to hundreds of people in one small subsection of human achievements (classical music). YMMV of course (and for some it clearly does).


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> A personal experience: I was recently listening to the first movement of LvB's "Ghost" piano trio. It seemed as if I could see a circus strongman bending thick iron bars, easily, into loops and various shapes. Amazing. Then I noticed that the bent iron shapes were of astonishing imagination and delicacy, offering an intense esthetic experience. Doubly amazing.
> 
> My response on hearing that, the first time and the hundredth: "How'd he do that???"


I'll have to listen to that and see if I hear a circus strongman. The only piece of music I can recall prompting such an image is this...






Odd, really, since gladiators were hardly suitable material for circuses of the modern clowning variety, and the music doesn't conjure gladiators in my mind at all. Perhaps that's why Fucik wasn't a genius and Beethoven was?


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## beetzart

MacLeod said:


> No, I'm not asking to be "convinced" - just seeking an explanation that is more than "Beethoven had an exceptional intellectual, creative power." It needs to go further than simply asserting that he meets the criteria. It really isn't nit-picking to ask what it is about his music that exemplifies his 'exceptional creative power'.


Is this just down to the semantics of how we interpret one word in the English language now? Do you want my reasons why Beethoven was a genius or some general consensus you have yet to come across or? I take it you are familiar with Beethoven's music? Have a listen to his last five string quartets and grosse fugue, follow the scores as well if you can read music, and then say that isn't a work of exceptional talent...hang on I've changed something. Is it ok to say Beethoven had exceptional talent or can that be brushed aside as a by product of his era? By exceptional talent I mean genius, too, they are interchangeable. No other human on this planet has ever written a body of music like Beethoven's last quartets, yet that seemingly that still doesn't make him genius. Ok, well he virtually wrapped up the piano sonata, every sonata to follow the 32nd could not improve on it. He arguably wrote more masterpieces as a ratio to his output then any other composer. His music was groundbreaking. He was industrious as a composer, but he got it right, piece after piece after piece. The Diabelli variations.

If the last quartets don't convince you, listen to them again. Are you playing Devil's Advocate or do you genuinely not feel that Beethoven was a genius at all?


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## beetzart

Art Rock said:


> No, because imo the term 'genius' loses its value if it is applied to hundreds of people in one small subsection of human achievements (classical music). YMMV of course (and for some it clearly does).


Not really if you look at the problem by using ratios. Even if you applied the term genius to a 1000 composers and performers compared to the total number of people who survived childhood over 400 years it would be miniscule.


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## Guest

beetzart said:


> Is this just down to the semantics of how we interpret one word in the English language now? Do you want my reasons why Beethoven was a genius or some general consensus you have yet to come across or? I take it you are familiar with Beethoven's music? Have a listen to his last five string quartets and grosse fugue, follow the scores as well if you can read music, and then say that isn't a work of exceptional talent...hang on I've changed something. Is it ok to say Beethoven had exceptional talent or can that be brushed aside as a by product of his era? By exceptional talent I mean genius, too, they are interchangeable. No other human on this planet has ever written a body of music like Beethoven's last quartets, yet that seemingly that still doesn't make him genius. Ok, well he virtually wrapped up the piano sonata, every sonata to follow the 32nd could not improve on it. He arguably wrote more masterpieces as a ratio to his output then any other composer. His music was groundbreaking. He was industrious as a composer, but he got it right, piece after piece after piece. The Diabelli variations.
> 
> If the last quartets don't convince you, listen to them again. Are you playing Devil's Advocate or do you genuinely not feel that Beethoven was a genius at all?


If you have followed my posts on the topic (which is, by the way, about "_any objective measure of Genius_" and "_any value we gain from using the word Genius_" - so 'semantics' might be relevant here) you will see that what I am interested in is not in proving or disproving claims made that this or that composer is a genius, but to have a meaningful discussion about what the use of the term implies. As I have already observed, the only two arguments advanced so far are that 'genius' is really only a synonym for 'exceptional'; and that it is self-evident what genius is in music - just listen to it. I did refer to another idea - that a genius composer is somehow possessed - _metaphorically speaking _- with a spirit that is evident in his works, and which takes the listener to some 'higher plane' - but there were no takers.

These just don't seem very satisfactory reasons to insist on the use of this particular word instead of all the other synonyms available. If it means nothing more than 'great', why are some people so attached to it as a label?

BTW, I love the works of LvB. He is the first composer I set out to listen to with the intention of coming to know more about his works than just his most popular symphonies, but I can't claim to be so familiar with his quartets or sonatas to be able to judge their worth.


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## beetzart

> I did refer to another idea - that a genius composer is somehow possessed - metaphorically speaking - with a spirit that is evident in his works, and which takes the listener to some 'higher plane' - but there were no takers.


No takers because that is heading towards really murky waters. Personally, Beethoven can sometimes make me feel very euphoric, but so can other composers, to do that to anyone takes genius. I suppose that could be a reference to a 'higher plane' as you suggest. I don't know how that would work though. I tend to see it as Beethoven could hear the music in his head like a series of never ending hallucinations, so this would be down to certain levels of dopamine and serotonin maybe? He could hear it because of his genes that probably produced very unique proteins that caused him to hear his masterpieces as if he had headphones on. How else can the compositions of the last 10 years of his life be explained, unless he had huge amounts of help? To hear the music in his brain and then put it to paper without much help of a piano because he was practically deaf takes something special. That ruddy 9th symphony. A deaf man not only writes a piece that lasts an hour but how many parts did he create in the final movement? Monstrous. Yes, the man was a genius.


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## Guest

beetzart said:


> No takers because that is heading towards really murky waters. Personally, Beethoven *can sometimes make me feel very euphoric, but so can other composers, to do that to anyone takes genius*. I suppose that could be a reference to a 'higher plane' as you suggest. I don't know how that would work though. I tend to see it as Beethoven could hear the music in his head like a series of never ending hallucinations, so this would be down to certain levels of dopamine and serotonin maybe? He could hear it because of his genes that probably produced very unique proteins that caused him to hear his masterpieces as if he had headphones on. How else can the compositions of the last 10 years of his life be explained, unless he had huge amounts of help? To hear the music in his brain and then put it to paper without much help of a piano because he was practically deaf takes something special. That ruddy 9th symphony. A deaf man not only writes a piece that lasts an hour but how many parts did he create in the final movement? Monstrous. Yes, the man was a genius.


So here's a criteria worth considering - the listener reports that they 'feel euphoric'. Given the number of pieces of music that have made me feel euphoric in some way or another - classical and rock - 'genius' might be more commonplace than you might suppose.

I'm not sure why 'that is heading towards murky waters'. Those who report some kind of transcendent experience have experienced something that is worth explaining. The fact that some here will claim it connects with their religious beliefs and others will claim it doesn't shouldn't mean we shy away from trying to understand it.


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## beetzart

Really you could objectivise it to pure maths if you was some kind of genius. Hearing the music does something to the brain chemistry which could be, no would eventually be to do with quantum mechanics. The random movement of a single calcium atom could make all the difference. I am just hypothesizing.


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## Phil loves classical

beetzart said:


> Is this just down to the semantics of how we interpret one word in the English language now? Do you want my reasons why Beethoven was a genius or some general consensus you have yet to come across or? I take it you are familiar with Beethoven's music? Have a listen to his last five string quartets and grosse fugue, follow the scores as well if you can read music, and then say that isn't a work of exceptional talent...hang on I've changed something. Is it ok to say Beethoven had exceptional talent or can that be brushed aside as a by product of his era? By exceptional talent I mean genius, too, they are interchangeable. No other human on this planet has ever written a body of music like Beethoven's last quartets, yet that seemingly that still doesn't make him genius. Ok, well he virtually wrapped up the piano sonata, every sonata to follow the 32nd could not improve on it. He arguably wrote more masterpieces as a ratio to his output then any other composer. His music was groundbreaking. He was industrious as a composer, but he got it right, piece after piece after piece. The Diabelli variations.
> 
> If the last quartets don't convince you, listen to them again. Are you playing Devil's Advocate or do you genuinely not feel that Beethoven was a genius at all?


I have little doubt if Beethoven's late quartet's and sonatas were written by somebody else, they would not receive as much attention. I reduce tonal music down to progressions, and I found the progressions in Shostakovich Piano Concerto 2, 2nd movement to be as interesting as Beethoven's 14th String Quartet 1st movement (which is really the only exceptional movement to me). The rhythm of that movement in Beethoven's was definitely not exceptional compared to a lot of other music. His slow movements of the late sonatas again show unique progressions, but the direction is ambiguous, and if they weren't attributed to the illustration of Beethoven searching for God late in his life, they may be taken as music from a madman.
BTW check out Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas 6, 7, 8, To me they are way above Beethoven's late sonatas (whatever that means).



beetzart said:


> Really you could objectivise it to pure maths if you was some kind of genius. Hearing the music does something to the brain chemistry which could be, no would eventually be to do with quantum mechanics. The random movement of a single calcium atom could make all the difference. I am just hypothesizing.


I don't think you can objectively reduce music to a math and find genius. The brain chemistry inducing emotions is a subjective thing. I've been in churches a band just playing 2 chords over and over and the congregation goes euphoric.


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## beetzart

Phil loves classical said:


> I have little doubt if Beethoven's late quartet's and sonatas were written by somebody else, they would not receive as much attention. I reduce tonal music down to progressions, and I found the progressions in Shostakovich Piano Concerto 2, 2nd movement to be as interesting as Beethoven's 14th String Quartet 1st movement (which is really the only exceptional movement to me). The rhythm of that movement in Beethoven's was definitely not exceptional compared to a lot of other music. His slow movements of the late sonatas again show unique progressions, but the direction is ambiguous, and if they weren't attributed to the illustration of Beethoven searching for God late in his life, they may be taken as music from a madman.
> BTW check out Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas 6, 7, 8, To me they are way above Beethoven's late sonatas (whatever that means).


Your first claim is rather a non-sequitur I think or at least a moot point. Then you've jumped from Beethoven to 20th Century composers. Is there nothing in between then? When you say progressions, sorry if this sounds simple, I take it you mean the harmonic shifts from the tonic? I will have to listen to those Prokofiev Piano Sonatas and if they are 'way above' Beethoven's then I should be in for a treat. It is a sweeping claim but what Beethoven did in his late (meaning they were the last) sonatas was like nothing before it.



Phil loves classical said:


> I don't think you can objectively reduce music to a math and find genius. The brain chemistry inducing emotions is a subjective thing. I've been in churches a band just playing 2 chords over and over and the congregation goes euphoric.


No, you missed the point. It would take a genius to reduce music to maths not to find it.


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## EdwardBast

MacLeod said:


> If you have followed my posts on the topic (which is, by the way, about "_any objective measure of Genius_" and "_any value we gain from using the word Genius_" - so 'semantics' might be relevant here) you will see that what I am interested in is not in proving or disproving claims made that this or that composer is a genius, but to have a meaningful discussion about what the use of the term implies. As I have already observed, the only two arguments advanced so far are that 'genius' is really only a synonym for 'exceptional'; and that it is self-evident what genius is in music - just listen to it. I did refer to another idea - that a genius composer is somehow possessed - _metaphorically speaking _- with a spirit that is evident in his works, and which takes the listener to some 'higher plane' - but there were no takers.
> 
> *These just don't seem very satisfactory reasons to insist on the use of this particular word instead of all the other synonyms available.* If it means nothing more than 'great', why are some people so attached to it as a label?
> 
> BTW, I love the works of LvB. He is the first composer I set out to listen to with the intention of coming to know more about his works than just his most popular symphonies, but I can't claim to be so familiar with his quartets or sonatas to be able to judge their worth.


I agree completely. As for why people are so attached to the label genius, here is my cynical take: Composers are ego extensions for some listeners, listeners who feel in some unacknowledged way possessed of superior discernment and taste to the extent their ego extensions surpass those of others. Being incapable of adequately expressing the basis of such superiority in musical or aesthetic terms, they choose quasi-mystical terms of approbation like genius, banking on the cache that has historically accrued to the term (deriving from your other idea of being possessed with a spirit or divine gift) while conflating and confusing it with precociousness and marshaling the opinions of a parade of authorities who also have used this term with respect to their chosen ego extension. The term genius is thus a pragmatic aid to pompous posturing and personal puffery by proxy.


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## Phil loves classical

beetzart said:


> Your first claim is rather a non-sequitur I think or at least a moot point. Then you've jumped from Beethoven to 20th Century composers. Is there nothing in between then? When you say progressions, sorry if this sounds simple, I take it you mean the harmonic shifts from the tonic? I will have to listen to those Prokofiev Piano Sonatas and if they are 'way above' Beethoven's then I should be in for a treat. It is a sweeping claim but what Beethoven did in his late (meaning they were the last) sonatas was like nothing before it.
> 
> No, you missed the point. It would take a genius to reduce music to maths not to find it.


Yes I mean harmonic progressions. I'm not saying Beethoven wasn't great or a genius, I'm just saying there is work by others that appear to me just as great, but don't get as much credit as Beethoven does.


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## Phil loves classical

EdwardBast said:


> I agree completely. As for why people are so attached to the label genius, here is my cynical take: Composers are ego extensions for some listeners, listeners who feel in some unacknowledged way possessed of superior discernment and taste to the extent their ego extensions surpass those of others. Being incapable of adequately expressing the basis of such superiority in musical or aesthetic terms, they choose quasi-mystical terms of approbation like genius, banking on the cache that has historically accrued to the term (deriving from your other idea of being possessed with a spirit or divine gift) while conflating and confusing it with precociousness and marshaling the opinions of a parade of authorities who also have used this term with respect to their chosen ego extension. The term genius is thus a pragmatic aid to pompous posturing and personal puffery by proxy.


You should submit that definition to Webster.


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## DavidA

There is far too much playing on words here I feel. Surely when someone writes, "Beethoven had great genius" most intelligent people know what is meant without splitting hairs about definitions.


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## Guest

DavidA said:


> There is far too much playing on words here I feel. Surely when someone writes, "Beethoven had great genius" most intelligent people know what is meant without splitting hairs about definitions.


If that's the case, it's such a shame that "most intelligent people" here at TC don't care to elaborate in the way that the OP has requested.


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## Larkenfield

-—-duplicate—--


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## Larkenfield

There have been plenty of elaborations without having to stretch them out like a band of elastic around the world. But it does require that one be able to make a distinction between the unique qualities and attributes of one composer and their peers—something they could do that no one else could do that brought them great fame, accolades and distinction. And no, this could not be said of just any competent or excellent composer. The genius has a special inner voice that they always obey and which guides them in knowing what to write without doubt or uncertainty. Those who are expecting exact mathematical definitions are likely studying in the wrong field.


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## Phil loves classical

Maybe just me, but I still don't get how Beethoven was a unique genius, when I see works by Debussy, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Haydn, Ravel, Bartok, Handel, Shostakovich, Monteverdi, Henze (not to mention Mozart and Bach) that are equal in my view. Maybe he was more consistent, that I wouldn't deny, but to me consistency is not a quality of genius, and more like a product of hard work and great work ethic. Was there something he had that was really special that other composers didn't have?


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## Botschaft

Phil loves classical said:


> I have little doubt if Beethoven's late quartet's and sonatas were written by somebody else, they would not receive as much attention.


That goes for anything Beethoven wrote.



> His slow movements of the late sonatas again show unique progressions, but the direction is ambiguous, and if they weren't attributed to the illustration of Beethoven searching for God late in his life, they may be taken as music from a madman.


_You_ might take them that way, but to me they are crystal clear and some of the most meaningful and profound music ever composed, especially the third movement of the Hammerklavier sonata (it's probably my favorite piece of music and I'm in awe of it like no other). You might want to check out Ronald Brautigam's recordings of the late sonatas if you haven't already.


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## Blancrocher

EdwardBast said:


> I agree completely. As for why people are so attached to the label genius, here is my cynical take: Composers are ego extensions for some listeners, listeners who feel in some unacknowledged way possessed of superior discernment and taste to the extent their ego extensions surpass those of others. Being incapable of adequately expressing the basis of such superiority in musical or aesthetic terms, they choose quasi-mystical terms of approbation like genius, banking on the cache that has historically accrued to the term (deriving from your other idea of being possessed with a spirit or divine gift) while conflating and confusing it with precociousness and marshaling the opinions of a parade of authorities who also have used this term with respect to their chosen ego extension. The term genius is thus a pragmatic aid to pompous posturing and personal puffery by proxy.


Since you put it so well, I won't report you for contravening the ToS in your analysis of my motivations :lol:


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## Larkenfield

From personal listening experiences and observations: Geniuses are unique unto themselves, first and foremost, or one couldn’t tell the unique attributes of a Beethoven from the unique attributes of a Chopin or a Debussy that have never been heard in the world before. It’s often new or unprecedented in its power. Unless someone can admit to a composer having such a high degree of distinctive qualities, then the attributes of genius will probably remain subject to confusion or off one’s radar. 

The composers of genius are all the same in terms of being unique in some special recognized way that separates them from others. Composers who are not recognizable in the same way, at least for experienced listeners rather than novices, do not possess such distinctive attributes that can be consistently heard practically throughout to the entire range of their output—and that’s what most listeners appreciate and are drawn to, whether they are consciously aware of that or not. Who wants to listen to a composer who reminds the listener of somebody else? I don’t. I’m not interested in a copy of someone who is overly influenced by others rather than being an avenue for bringing something new into the world through their own unique channel. 

The true genius is not mistaken for any other composer because they are uniquely and strongly directly connected with Source, or the music wouldn’t live. Composers just don’t think everything up intellectually but are receptive to influences from an invisible dimension as inspiration. Then it’s their mind and intellect that shapes those ideas or merely writes them down. Those who are the most obedient to that process are the geniuses and their music cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s by experienced listeners. 

Does this mean that someone necessarily likes their music? No! But that’s an entirely other matter than how well or masterfully a composer is capable of carrying out his or her own ideas to their own satisfaction, no matter what their means are.


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## Phil loves classical

What was the name of that one critic or musicologist who had this system that he analyses the music of composers, and found Bach, Beethoven Mozart and Chopin as being the greatest? It was a German guy, can’t recall his name.


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## Botschaft

Phil loves classical said:


> What was the name of that one critic or musicologist who had this system that he analyses the music of composers, and found Bach, Beethoven Mozart and Chopin as being the greatest? It was a German guy, can't recall his name.


I don't know who it was, but I know he must've had Chopin mixed up with someone else.


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## Phil loves classical

Improbus said:


> I don't know who it was, but I know he must've had Chopin mixed up with someone else.


ok, got it. Heinrich Schenker. With his analysis, he came up with those 4 as the superior composers. He was very patriotic, and was convinced German classical was superior. Chopin was an adopted German in his view.


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## Botschaft

Phil loves classical said:


> ok, got it. Heinrich Schenker. With his analysis, he came up with those 4 as the superior composers. He was very patriotic, and was convinced German classical was superior. Chopin was an adopted German in his view.


Do you remember any of his criteria?


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## KenOC

I recently came across a discussion of Schenkerian analysis in an otherwise unrelated musical biography. At first I thought, this is interesting. But soon my eyes glazed over...


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## KenOC

Phil loves classical said:


> Maybe just me, but I still don't get how Beethoven was a unique genius...


It's possible that "genius" is simply an honorific bestowed on a particular composer by general acclamation -- for as long as that acclamation lasts.

For instance, we once believed that Bach was a genius. Today, of course, we know better. His trick of mixing multiple musical lines together seemed impressive at first but quickly became tiring, really of no more significance than a seal's talent for balancing a rubber ball on its nose. :devil:


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## Phil loves classical

Improbus said:


> Do you remember any of his criteria?


I just read some general commentary of his conclusions, the analyses were quite technical and involving, plus i was pretty skeptical to begin with.


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## KenOC

Phil loves classical said:


> I just read some general commentary of his conclusions, the analyses were quite technical and involving, plus i was pretty skeptical to begin with.


Much easier to buy my exclusive Great-o-Meter, which can instantly determine the greatness of any work. Three scales reading from one milliludwig to three ludwigs, although the last scale is seldom needed*. Buy now and your first recalibration is free! Shipping charges apply. PayPal accepted.

* It's kind of a "just in case" thing.


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> I agree completely. As for why people are so attached to the label genius, here is my cynical take: Composers are ego extensions for some listeners, listeners who feel in some unacknowledged way possessed of superior discernment and taste to the extent their ego extensions surpass those of others. Being incapable of adequately expressing the basis of such superiority in musical or aesthetic terms, they choose quasi-mystical terms of approbation like genius, banking on the cache that has historically accrued to the term (deriving from your other idea of being possessed with a spirit or divine gift) while conflating and confusing it with precociousness and marshaling the opinions of a parade of authorities who also have used this term with respect to their chosen ego extension. The term genius is thus a pragmatic aid to pompous posturing and personal puffery by proxy.


As always, you are, of course, right, EB, but - my goodness! I must be very careful now, lest I unthinkingly let slip an offhand reference to the genius of Bach or Wagner, and be taken for one of those pragmatic pompous posturing proxy puffers! It could cost me the last shred of my precarious credibility among those postmodern iconoclasts who would not be caught dead admitting that Bach and Wagner really might represent a higher level of...um...genius than Vivaldi and Ravel, and who can't tolerate the fact that some people are not only able to discern the difference but are insensitive enough to mention it.

But - and I do mean _but_ - banning the term "genius" as a predeconstructivist paradigm of phallogocentric cultural hegemony (not that anyone _here_ is guilty of that, God forbid) may be as much an ego-exhibition as dropping it nonchalantly between margaritas (which I would never do, since I am never between margaritas or addressing anyone who is).

I think the right attitude toward using words like "genius" and "greatness" is, as in so many things we do, to adhere to the golden mean. Aristotle thought so - and, as we all know, Aristotle was a genius.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> banning the term "genius"


Fortunately, no-one here is suggesting banning its use...are they? In another thread, some posters have been exercised by the ideas that Jansons has been 'censored' (he hasn't) and that 'feminism' is taking over from common sense about equalities with regard to women conductors (it isn't).

I'm not sure what the technical term is for such an approach to debate, but I'm sure it's undesirable.


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## DeepR

When it comes to science it seems reasonable to me to trust the opinion of the experts that Einstein was a genius. Being largely uneducated and uninformed in the field, what else can I do? Well, besides studying, learning and trying to understand it myself. In another life, perhaps...
But when it comes to the arts I feel less compelled to trust the experts, because of the more subjective nature of it all. Yet when I'm listening to Mozart's or Beethoven's best music, I come to the same conclusion as the experts anyway.


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## Phil loves classical

DeepR said:


> When it comes to science it seems reasonable to me to trust the opinion of the experts that Einstein was a genius. Being largely uneducated and uninformed in the field, what else can I do? Well, besides studying, learning and trying to understand it myself. In another life, perhaps...
> But when it comes to the arts I feel less compelled to trust the experts, because of the more subjective nature of it all. Yet when I'm listening to Mozart's or Beethoven's best music, I come to the same conclusion as the experts anyway.


From my personal experience, I used to agree with them about the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, who were Gods to me. But upon discovering more composers music, and analysing more, I find myself less and less enamored of Mozart and Ludwig, and less trusting of the experts. I feel I was manipulated by Mozart and Beethoven, which is why I've been defining genius as the abiliy to manipulate (at least in the arts).

I've heard about one acquaintance crying over one of those paintings of just one colour splashed on the canvas. And from my earlier example, been in a church organization that goes euphoric on 2 alternating chords by the church band, a church member later telling me that is the music of God (CCM).


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## Guest

DeepR said:


> When it comes to science it seems reasonable to me to trust the opinion of the experts that Einstein was a genius.


If it requires the opinion of experts to determine 'genius', perhaps it's not so self-evident as is sometimes claimed (for artists and scientists alike)?


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## Phil loves classical

I'm going to ramble a bit more, and say the reason the big 3 composers are considered the big 3 is they wrote music which is easier for non-experts to grasp, and is generally more accessible and tuneful. If you analyze the works of some modern composers, they are just as brilliant, but don't sound as sweet to the ears, since their intent was to expand the boundaries of music more than to please (manipulate) listeners.


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## Captainnumber36

Phil loves classical said:


> I'm going to ramble a bit more, and say the reason the big 3 composers are considered the big 3 is they wrote music which is easier for non-experts to grasp, and is generally more accessible and tuneful. If you analyze the works of some modern composers, they are just as brilliant, but don't sound as sweet to the ears, since their intent was to expand the boundaries of music more than to please (manipulate) listeners.


I feel a lot of my instrumentals are very tuneful. Also, my taste in Classical is moving towards the more tuneful sides of it such as Mozart's 41st or Beethoven's 6th.


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## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> I'm going to ramble a bit more, and say the reason the big 3 composers are considered the big 3 is they wrote music which is easier for non-experts to grasp, and is generally more accessible and tuneful. If you analyze the works of some modern composers, they are just as brilliant, but don't sound as sweet to the ears, since their intent was to expand the boundaries of music more than to please (manipulate) listeners.


Nothing could equal the boldness and novelty of this explanation. If anyone has ever before suggested that the centuries-long reputation for supreme greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven rested on their being more accessible, sweet, and tuneful, more manipulative, and more suitable for non-expert listeners, than everyone else, I'm unaware of it. This insight is - if I may be permitted to use an overworked term - genius!

But it's going to be hard now, listening to the music of these composers, not to feel manipulated and distinctly non-expert.


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## Captainnumber36

Woodduck said:


> Nothing could equal the boldness and novelty of this explanation. If anyone has ever before suggested that the centuries-long reputation for supreme greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven rested on their being more accessible, sweet, and tuneful, more manipulative, and more suitable for non-expert listeners, than everyone else, I'm unaware of it. This insight is - if I may be permitted to use an overworked term - genius!
> 
> But it's going to be hard now, listening to the music of these composers, not to feel manipulated and distinctly non-expert.


You don't have to feel bad for enjoying something. The only reason to listen to music is for enjoyment, not to study it solely as a scholar.


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## Woodduck

Captainnumber36 said:


> You don't have to feel bad for enjoying something. The only reason to listen to music is for enjoyment, not to study it solely as a scholar.


Hmmm... Thanks for the reassurance. I see that I need to go back and add an emoji.

Done. :angel:


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## Larkenfield

The expert opinion of one’s peers, those in the same field, can often be highly illuminating about the genius of a colleague, no matter in what profession, creative or otherwise. The geniuses are the ones who can rise to any creative challenge with mastery and originality and do so repeatedly throughout a lifetime. Experts in the same field know what greatness takes, or are those in the field of music the exceptions to the rule? How about prodigies? Aren’t they geniuses? Mozart improvising in front of kings and queens as a child and amazing them, isn’t genius? If not, then I’d say that no one is a genius in any field or creative profession.

"Talent works, genius creates.”

"It is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about.” 

—Robert Schumann


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## Captainnumber36

However, you can rest assured that even though we are listening to something that was and is still accessible, some genres of music appeal to different types of crowds. Classical appeals to a classy audience who carry themselves with care.

I'm one that jumps in and out of a mixture of crowds, but it's all about being classy for me in my taste in art. (Jazz, Art Rock, Classical).


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## Phil loves classical

Woodduck said:


> Nothing could equal the boldness and novelty of this explanation. If anyone has ever before suggested that the centuries-long reputation for supreme greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven rested on their being more accessible, sweet, and tuneful, more manipulative, and more suitable for non-expert listeners, than everyone else, I'm unaware of it. This insight is - if I may be permitted to use an overworked term - genius!
> 
> But it's going to be hard now, listening to the music of these composers, not to feel manipulated and distinctly non-expert.


Can't remember which composer thought a musical genius was one who appealed to both experts and laymen, not only experts, which is a point I'm challenging, from my own limited perspective, of course. Does genius have to be narrowly defined as what that composer thought?


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## Phil loves classical

Captainnumber36 said:


> However, you can rest assured that even though we are listening to something that was and is still accessible, some genres of music appeal to different types of crowds. *Classical appeals to a classy audience who carry themselves with care.*
> 
> I'm one that jumps in and out of a mixture of crowds, but it's all about being classy for me in my taste in art. (Jazz, Art Rock, Classical).


Stravinsky had a radically different view.


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## Captainnumber36

Phil loves classical said:


> Stravinsky had a radically different view.


In our modern times, at least, my comment holds very true.


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## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> Can't remember which composer thought a musical genius was one who appealed to both experts and laymen, not only experts, which is a point I'm challenging, from my own limited perspective, of course. Does genius have to be narrowly defined as what that composer thought?


You may be referring to Mozart, who nonchalantly boasted that his music would have melodies pleasing to general audiences but also subtleties which more knowledgeable listeners would appreciate. He was certainly right about that, and it may well account for much of his popularity, but it doesn't really explain why those knowledgeable listeners consider him one of a handful of music's supreme geniuses.


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## ArtMusic

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?
> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?
> 
> I am still in the habit of claiming my favorites as geniuses, but something tells me that it only clouds our objectivity in measuring a work (I'm applying this strictly to the arts). Perhaps it's easier to measure in Science.


Yes there are objective measures of genius but they may or may not be agreed on by people.

Genius is instantly recognizable, their astounding originality and insight are shoulders above the regular masses.


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## Timothy

Captainnumber36 said:


> Classical appeals to a classy audience who carry themselves with care.
> 
> I'm one that jumps in and out of a mixture of crowds, but it's all about being classy for me in my taste in art.


I think you've indirectly just answered my question about why classical concerts/audiences are so insipid and phony.


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## Captainnumber36

Timothy said:


> I think you've indirectly just answered my question about why classical concerts/audiences are so insipid and phony.


I'm definitely into music that doesn't have classy crowds, but I personally find the music to be of high standard! (example, Phish is a favorite band of mine that appeals to hippies, but I do fine their jams and some compositions to be of a very high standard).


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## arnerich

When ever this topic floats back up to the top it always reminds me of this.


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## KenOC

arnerich said:


> When ever this topic floats back up to the top it always reminds me of this.


"Johann van Beethoven was not, by general recognition, a man of great intellect. When, after purchasing the estate in Gneixendorf, he signed a letter to Ludwig, 'From your brother Johann, landowner', Ludwig signed his reply, 'From your brother Ludwig, brain owner'."


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## Phil loves classical

There are many geniuses in music. There was not one or 3 that did it all (not even close). ‘Perfection’ is in the ears of the hearer (ok not really, but it usually comes at a cost)


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## Tallisman

Faustian said:


> "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." - Arthur Schopenhauer


God I love Schopenhauer


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## RICK RIEKERT

"If a great product of genius is recommended to the ordinary mind, it will take as much pleasure in it as the victim of gout receives in being invited to a ball" - Schopenhauer

Of course, none of us has an ordinary mind.


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## Forss

I am currently reading Schoenberg's (most wonderful) essay on Mahler, and I found this rather fascinating passage on the difference between mere _talent_ and _genius_: "Talent is the capacity to learn, genius the capacity to develop oneself. Talent grows by acquiring capacities which already existed outside of itself; it assimilates these, and finally even possesses them. Genius already possesses all its future faculties from the very beginning. It only develops them; it merely unwinds, unrolls, unfolds them. While talent, which has to master a limited material (namely, what is already given) very soon reaches its apex and then usually subsides, the development of genius, which seeks new pathways into the boundless, extends throughout a lifetime. And therefore it comes about that no one single moment in this development is like another. Each stage is simultaneously a preparation for the next stage. _It is an eternal metamorphosis_*, an uninterrupted growth of new shoots from a single kernel."

*My emphasis.


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## Strange Magic

Personally, I do not recognize the term "genius" as applicable to the vast sea of subjectivity that is art and music. Genius is much more clearly a valid descriptor of those who bring forth quite new and then later validated insights into both nature (science) and mathematics--Einstein being of course the type specimen.


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## Larkenfield

Exactly. Like Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t a genius nor Michelangelo—they got their exceptionally well-executed and stunning inspiration from others rather than something that sprung spontaneously within them as their own personal genius.  On the other hand, the word genius can be quite convenient and accurate when certain artists are so far above the level of superiority of their peers, and not only that but extremely productive. But evidently there’s no word for that in the vocabulary of the skeptics who cannot seem to imagine that such a creative miracle could happen on earth or that such an obvious level of superiority actually exists, whether or not such brilliance can be measured with a mathematical precision. But to others the word genius is entirely useful—or the word probably wouldn’t exist in the first place—and can say more in one word than an entire page of intellectual praise or denials.


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## ArtMusic

Strange Magic said:


> Personally, I do not recognize the term "genius" as applicable to the vast sea of subjectivity that is art and music. Genius is much more clearly a valid descriptor of those who bring forth quite new and then later validated insights into both nature (science) and mathematics--Einstein being of course the type specimen.


So Mozart is not a genius according to your view of the application of genius.


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## Strange Magic

ArtMusic said:


> So Mozart is not a genius according to your view of the application of genius.


No. I think we need a different term than genius to characterize the exceptional artist. Genius as a word should be reserved for those who reveal/discover/elucidate fully the almost entirely or the wholly new, and I find it more difficult to apply the term to Einstein, Newton, Mendeleev, Euler, Darwin, and then in the same way and sense so label Mozart or Beethoven. The da Vinci of the notebooks has a stronger claim. Mozart clearly was a prodigy as a child, as were several other composers. He and quite a number of composers were also hugely prolific; some, like Mozart and Prokofiev, in a wide spectrum of genres and forms. But are there instances in the arts of a profoundly novel view of the world--one that overturns all pre-existing paradigms--such as the discovery and confirmation that matter is composed of atoms? It may be that a number of artists and composers are similar in nature to the inventor Thomas Alva Edison--Edison who by dint of an enormous appetite for work, perseverance, and an intense physicality and engagement was able to "invent" so many fixtures of modern life, yet who was not a genius in the sense to which I believe that word should be restricted. The invention of perspective in painting by who? could be considered, though, an act of genius. No, we need another word to best describe those who are widely held to be pre-eminent in music and the arts, but, even so, there will be much argument over who makes the cut and who doesn't.


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## Larkenfield

For some, no artist or musician _ ever_ makes the cut-even a Picasso-nor is it possible to provide a better word or it would have already been provided. Whether one makes the cut or not is a different matter than whether such a thing as genius exists at all. Robert Schumann didn't seem to have that problem: "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius"-Schumann's review of Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" by Mozart.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I think we need a different term than genius to characterize the exceptional artist. Genius as a word should be reserved for those who reveal/discover/elucidate fully the almost entirely or the wholly new... But *are there instances in the arts of a profoundly novel view of the world--one that overturns all pre-existing paradigms*--such as the discovery and confirmation that matter is composed of atoms? It may be that a number of artists and composers are similar in nature to the inventor Thomas Alva Edison--Edison who by dint of an enormous appetite for work, perseverance, and an intense physicality and engagement was able to "invent" so many fixtures of modern life, yet who was not a genius in the sense to which I believe that word should be restricted.


I think you underestimate the paradigm-changing achievements of several composers. Beethoven and Wagner come readily to mind: the former's late works are stunningly unlike any music ever composed before, as well as profound and forever baffling masterworks, and the latter's music dramas, beginning with _Tristan und Isolde,_ changed music, revolutionized the idea of musical theater, and reverberated throughout Western culture in ways that require volumes of analysis to take proper account of.

But I find paradigm-changing a curious requirement for the use of the term "genius," even if it's clearly applicable in some cases. Of course you're free to be as niggardly as you like in applying it. I'd rather not overthink the matter, and simply grant that people whose mental powers and resulting achievements leave me (no dummy, thank you) dumbfounded and humbled are geniuses.


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> And of course it doesn't to those who are unable to recognize and surrender to sublime and prolific creativity because everything must be measured through the dry intellect and exact weights and measures. What a mess has been made out of the word with endless equivocations, quantifications and analyses taking the joy out of it and substituting confusion instead


I don't think anyone (certainly not "those who are unable to recognize and surrender to sublime and prolific creativity") has made a mess at all - if they have, you might offer some evidence to show this. What some of us have raised is the question of what the word means (and we now know it means different things to different people); whether it is worth using more carefully and sparingly, and not just randomly as a plain synonym for 'excellent'; and what the criteria are that justify its application in particular cases.

If anyone's making a mess, it's those who refuse to justify its use, so that their eulogising is as meaningful as the hyperbole heaped every weekend on yet another "unbelievable" and "fantastic" sporting incident.


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## Strange Magic

Larkenfield, if you look again, I believe you'll find Newton makes the cut after all.

I did ask for examples where artists overturned paradigms in the same manner as did the geniuses of science and mathematics such that everything was different from that historical moment on. I also am awed and humbled before the examples of Beethoven, Michelangelo, Picasso in their fecundity, and grateful for it, but still--in my dry, joyless, ****-retentive way--believe their "genius" to be of a different sort and measure from that of, again, Einstein. No physicist following Einstein understands the world or practices in it--ditto with Darwin--the way it was done before. With the arts, until recently, there was a general tide that swept all along in its path and power, bearing along the exceptional Beethovens (I hear many premonitions of Beethoven in the introductory measures of the symphonies of Haydn) with the unexceptional alike, but then came a fragmenting of that impulse resulting in a multiplication of ways of seeing the world rather than a focusing upon a few singular controlling views or principles. Of course science today is involved also in a vast multiplicity of fields of interest, but they all are subsumed under a restricted number of overarching general theories about how the world works--a different situation than in the arts. It is this difference between the arts and the sciences that suggests to me anyway the need for different terms to express the different ways that very rare excellence expresses itself--and can express itself--in the arts as opposed to science.


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## Blancrocher

Strange Magic said:


> I did ask for examples where artists overturned paradigms in the same manner as did the geniuses of science and mathematics such that everything was different from that historical moment on.


Debussy comes to mind-one of that small number of composers who really made people hear and interpret sounds differently.


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## Agamemnon

Blancrocher said:


> Debussy comes to mind-one of that small number of composers who really made people hear and interpret sounds differently.


I agree. And I don't grasp the difference between art and science that Strange Magic talks about. First of all, in science there isn't any real invention as well: as Newton famously put it himself: "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants". Every scientist follows the paths his precedessors went. Even Einstein did so. And e.g. no modern scientist invented atomism: atomism was an ancient philosophical concept that entered modern age when philosophers rediscovered these ancient texts.

Yet Strange Magic brings up the interesting concept of paradigm shift which Kuhn famously described in his study of scientic progress. In science sometimes a concept gains a new definition (e.g. 'mass' in Einsteinian physics) through which everything gains a new perspective. The idea of paradigma comes from Gestalt and developmental psychology: as a child grows up he sometimes enters a new phase in which he perceives things in a new way and he typically cannot return to his old perceptions anymore. A paradigm shift in science does the same thing: once you see the world by Einstein's physics you can not see the world by Newton's physics anymore. In fact this is not totally true of course: we all can see the world in a Newtonian way because this is very much the 'normal' way to see the world while Einstein's physics are quite counter-intuitive. But Kuhn is right that it apllies to e.g. Aristotle's physics: we modern men have great difficulties seeing the world by Aristotle's physics. Yet it can be done.

I think the same thing apllies to art and music. People like Debussy really gave music a new paradigma and I think all composers after Debussy cannot ignore his new aesthetics (so Debussy is not just an option but has changed all music). And yes, we can return to older styles but this can get harder when we go further back in time (at least this is true for me).


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## Strange Magic

If by "in science there is never any real invention", we mean that all scientists have predecessors upon whose work--correct or incorrect--new theories are built, then that statement is both true and quotidian. Certainly the idea of atoms was put forward by Democritus millennia ago. But it was the experimental and theoretical work of Rutherford and his colleagues that established atoms as facts and began the detailing of their components. Einstein also built upon the existing physics of his day, but his conjectures upon riding a ray of light and what might derive from that were unparalleled and unprecedented, and they changed the world (at least for all other physicists). Many sciences trace similar histories of a succession of brilliant insights by "geniuses" building upon their predecessors' work: the example of Newton working behind Kepler springs to mind, and chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy all offer their examples.

Turning to Debussy, all other composers did not drop what they were doing and begin composing a la Debussy. Ravel even went as far as to gently suggest that he was the earlier of the two to compose in a "Debussyan" manner, and the music of the 20th and 21st centuries is marked by extreme eclecticism rather than by adherence to Debussyan principles. I still do not see in music or other arts the same sort of truly profound insight indicative of genius that typifies scientific genius. To throw in another example, we have Mendeleev's astonishing vision regarding the properties of the different elements that resulted in the periodic table that suddenly brought order to the seeming chaos of the chemistry of the day. Art and music do not offer, to me anyway, similar instances (though I'm open to more suggestions).


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## Blancrocher

Strange Magic said:


> Turning to Debussy, all other composers did not drop what they were doing and begin composing a la Debussy. Ravel even went as far as to gently suggest that he was the earlier of the two to compose in a "Debussyan" manner


Don't make me bring up Gottfried Leibniz, Strange Magic...


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## Strange Magic

Blancrocher said:


> Don't make me bring up Gottfried Leibniz, Strange Magic...


Thank you, Blancrocher! And let's not forget Darwin/Wallace also. Sometimes genius occurs in pairs--the _Zeitgeist?_.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> If by "in science there is never any real invention", we mean that all scientists have predecessors upon whose work--correct or incorrect--new theories are built, then that statement is both true and quotidian. Certainly the idea of atoms was put forward by Democritus millennia ago. But it was the experimental and theoretical work of Rutherford and his colleagues that established atoms as facts and began the detailing of their components. Einstein also built upon the existing physics of his day, but his conjectures upon riding a ray of light and what might derive from that were unparalleled and unprecedented, and they changed the world (at least for all other physicists). Many sciences trace similar histories of a succession of brilliant insights by "geniuses" building upon their predecessors' work: the example of Newton working behind Kepler springs to mind, and chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy all offer their examples.
> 
> Turning to Debussy, *all other composers did not drop what they were doing and begin composing a la Debussy.* Ravel even went as far as to gently suggest that he was the earlier of the two to compose in a "Debussyan" manner, and the music of the 20th and 21st centuries is marked by extreme eclecticism rather than by adherence to Debussyan principles. * I still do not see in music or other arts the same sort of truly profound insight indicative of genius that typifies scientific genius.* To throw in another example, we have Mendeleev's astonishing vision regarding the properties of the different elements that resulted in the periodic table that suddenly brought order to the seeming chaos of the chemistry of the day. *Art and music do not offer, to me anyway, similar instances (though I'm open to more suggestions).*


I think your desire to assign "genius" to scientists and not to artists, because the former can alter universally accepted paradigms, fails to take into consideration the simple fact that there_ are no universal paradigms in the arts to be overturned._ There are, however, prevalent and dominant ones, which can definitely be changed. It should therefore be enough that some artists (some composers have been mentioned here) have done exactly that.

Science describes the physical world, which it tries incessantly to understand in terms of the most economical system of principles possible. Art is in a sense the opposite of science; it describes - or rather symbolizes and evokes - the mental and emotional world (using physical phenomena only as a vehicle), and seeks not to reduce the inner world to principles but to explore and represent its manifestations and possibilities.

The scientific genius discovers and explicates new principles by which to understand the phenomena we observe, and thus changes the way we think about them. The artistic genius represents phenomena which had never been represented before, allows us to experience those phenomena in a new way, and changes the way artists thenceforth represent our inner lives.

The intellectual achievements of Einstein and Beethoven are obviously of an entirely different order, and I see no value whatever in claiming the term "genius" for the one kind of achievement and not for the other. Might you be biased by the fact that you're more of a scientist than an artist?

(A remarkable afterthought: by your definition, Wallace and Darwin are geniuses, but Mozart and Wagner are not! To this, I just don't know what to say.)

(Actually, what I would say is that Mozart and Wagner are geniuses of a magnitude that Wallace and Darwin don't even approach. But then, I'm a musician.)


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## Blancrocher

Isaac Newton was genius enough in his own time, I agree--but now he's basically just a tedious college textbook to me. Debussy, by contrast, is still Debussy, only with better performances and recorded sound.


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## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> I don't think anyone (certainly not "those who are unable to recognize and surrender to sublime and prolific creativity") has made a mess at all - if they have, you might offer some evidence to show this. *What some of us have raised is the question of what the word means (and we now know it means different things to different people); whether it is worth using more carefully and sparingly, and not just randomly as a plain synonym for 'excellent'*; and what the criteria are that justify its application in particular cases.
> 
> *If anyone's making a mess, it's those who refuse to justify its use, so that their eulogising is as meaningful as the hyperbole heaped every weekend on yet another "unbelievable" and "fantastic" sporting incident.*


A desire to use words in ways that can be "justified" is admirable. But I wonder how much "justification" would satisfy you - or, more precisely, what you would consider a genuine justification for applying the word "genius," or any word for that matter.

Whether we like it or not, the first and final justification for the use of any word is the way in which the word is most generally used by those who use it. Given this, any argument over "proper" usage comes down to asserting that some uses are more necessary or conducive to clear understanding than others. We may grant that using "genius" as a synonym for "excellence" is unhelpful, but it's pretty obvious that such a usage is hardly more serious than the ubiquitous use of "awesome" to describe anything impressive. It also seems not to have much currency; has anyone asserted here that any excellent achievement is a a work of genius? Once we eliminate that, we can perhaps safely narrow the field to the ways in which "genius" is used by more thoughtful people. This narrowing still leaves us with a multifaceted phenomenon, and it's hardly legitimate to try to eliminate any of its facets in the name of a spurious correctness.

It's generally recognized that "intelligence" is not a simple, unitary faculty, but a range of mental skills which exist in different people in varying proportions. Two people of great intelligence are not necessarily good at tackling the same sorts of intellectual challenges. It's in direct acknowledgement of the multifaceted nature of intelligence that we commonly attribute _genius_ to people of very different accomplishments, accomplishments which have in common only that they seem to be beyond the intellectual capacity of "normal" people. The bad news here - for the pedantically inclined - is that "normality" is also a term about which there can be endless argument. And that argument will be about as useful - and offer as many pitfalls and as much opportunity for grinding our personal axes - as the attempt to make "genius" mean one sort of extraordinariness and not another.

What if, after we've looked at genius from every angle, we are finally left with nothing more to agree upon than this:

"The word genius can be quite convenient and accurate when certain artists are so far above the level of superiority of their peers, and not only that but extremely productive. But evidently there's no word for that in the vocabulary of the skeptics who cannot seem to imagine that such a creative miracle could happen on earth or that such an obvious level of superiority actually exists, whether or not such brilliance can be measured with a mathematical precision. But to others the word genius is entirely useful-or the word probably wouldn't exist in the first place-and can say more in one word than an entire page of intellectual praise or denials." (Larkenfield)

What if "genius" is not a discrete thing with definable boundaries at all, but a recognition of a range of phenomenal achievements of the mind and spirit for which no other word in our language will do? Must we work so hard to reclaim the word from the ignorant, the careless, and the merely innocent that we end up denying it to (fill in your preferred genius)?


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## KenOC

Blancrocher said:


> Isaac Newton was genius enough in his own time, I agree--but now he's basically just a tedious college textbook to me.


Newton was a pretty smart boy. Working from his own development of orbital mechanics, he demonstrated how a cannonball, fired from the top of a very high mountain and with sufficient velocity, might circle the earth indefinitely. The first artificial satellite, if only in a thought experiment - in 1687.


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## tdc

I'm not 100% certain, but it would appear that those who are suggesting the musical greats were genius are individuals who are musicians, or have at least dabbled in music, and those who are suggesting they are not genius (as far as I know) are not musicians or composers. 

I just think when one has hands on experience in a given field they have a better understanding of the craft and the challenges involved. I know if I didn't have that experience I would likely not really understand to the same extent I do the staggering accomplishments musically of a Bach or Mozart and might be hesitant to call them genius. But having dabbled in music and composition myself and knowing the vast difference between an average piece of music and what the established masters of classical music consistently achieved I have zero hesitation in applying the label of genius to them. These are just not the achievements of normal human intellect or creativity.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck, you help make my case by aiding me in differentiating between those areas of human excellence where there are universal paradigms to be overthrown, and the arts where there are none. "The intellectual achievements of Einstein and Beethoven are obviously of an entirely different order," you write, then, in a non-sequitur, you "see no value in claiming the term 'genius' for the one kind of achievement and not for the other". Maybe we're dealing with a lumper/splitter dichotomy here--you want to retain "genius" as an undefined, undifferentiated synonym for excellence, fecundity, early demonstration of ability, regardless of context, and I choose to retain the term for that truly profound overturning of our fundamental understanding of the actual world as opposed to the invented world of art and the artist. And, yes, by my conjecture, I rate Darwin and Wallace, Einstein and Bohr, as geniuses, and not Mozart or Wagner. BTW, I can still really, really love the art and music and poetry that I do, and honor and cherish their several great creators--maybe even more than somebody else does--without necessarily regarding them as "geniuses". If it is a consolation, remember that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Genius quote, yes?


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## Strange Magic

Perhaps a list of those composers who are clearly not geniuses will help us to further clarify those criteria which differentiate the genius from the merely adequate. Any takers?


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## Blancrocher

Strange Magic said:


> Perhaps a list of those composers who are clearly not geniuses will help us to further clarify those criteria which differentiate the genius from the merely adequate. Any takers?


In my opinion, that would include most of the composers on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_composers_by_name (not that I've actually listened to many of them). Looking through the W's, I see 3 out of 4 composers with the last name Wagner who probably aren't geniuses.


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## ArtMusic

Strange Magic said:


> No. I think we need a different term than genius to characterize the exceptional artist. Genius as a word should be reserved for those who reveal/discover/elucidate fully the almost entirely or the wholly new, and I find it more difficult to apply the term to Einstein, Newton, Mendeleev, Euler, Darwin, and then in the same way and sense so label Mozart or Beethoven. The da Vinci of the notebooks has a stronger claim. Mozart clearly was a prodigy as a child, as were several other composers. He and quite a number of composers were also hugely prolific; some, like Mozart and Prokofiev, in a wide spectrum of genres and forms. But are there instances in the arts of a profoundly novel view of the world--one that overturns all pre-existing paradigms--such as the discovery and confirmation that matter is composed of atoms? It may be that a number of artists and composers are similar in nature to the inventor Thomas Alva Edison--Edison who by dint of an enormous appetite for work, perseverance, and an intense physicality and engagement was able to "invent" so many fixtures of modern life, yet who was not a genius in the sense to which I believe that word should be restricted. The invention of perspective in painting by who? could be considered, though, an act of genius. No, we need another word to best describe those who are widely held to be pre-eminent in music and the arts, but, even so, there will be much argument over who makes the cut and who doesn't.


So basically you are saying the term genius cannot be applied to the arts. That implies there is no greatness either. I doubt that is true.


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## Strange Magic

ArtMusic said:


> So basically you are saying the term genius cannot be applied to the arts. That implies there is no greatness either. I doubt that is true.


It implies no such thing.


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## tdc

Strange Magic said:


> Perhaps a list of those composers who are clearly not geniuses will help us to further clarify those criteria which differentiate the genius from the merely adequate. Any takers?


As I've defined it earlier in this thread I see genius more as a spectrum and something people can tap into to different extents (ie - the saying so and so had a "flash of genius"). So I think a lot of different classical composers qualify, but not to the same extent as say a Bach or Debussy.

If we look at much of the work of amateurs (for example much of the music in the Todays Composers section of this forum) we can say this work is clearly not genius. (No offense intended and I applaud the work of these composers, and acknowledge their potential to improve.)


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## Blancrocher

Strange Magic said:


> And, yes, by my conjecture, I rate Darwin and Wallace, Einstein and Bohr, as geniuses, and not Mozart or Wagner. BTW, I can still really, really love the art and music and poetry that I do, and honor and cherish their several great creators--maybe even more than somebody else does--without necessarily regarding them as "geniuses".


For **********, just admit Mozart and Wagner are geniuses :lol:


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## Strange Magic

Blancrocher said:


> In my opinion, that would include most of the composers on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_composers_by_name (not that I've actually listened to many of them). Looking through the W's, I see 3 out of 4 composers with the last name Wagner who probably aren't geniuses.


I would agree that most won't make the cut as geniuses, using the criteria of that word's supporters of its use in describing composers. So let's ask the obvious next question....


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## millionrainbows

Genius is a human thing, and if you've ever been in the presence of it, you will know it, believe me. For me, it was Itzhak Perlman.

Genius is the manifestation of being. The only way to define or analyze it is in terms of "being."

In the absence of actual physical being, as is the case with Beethoven and Wagner, it seems the path to their "genius" standing was paved by their presence while they were alive, established, then carried on by remembrance and whatever evidence was left: the musical ideas, which were an expression of that being.


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## Strange Magic

Blancrocher said:


> For **********, just admit Mozart and Wagner are geniuses :lol:


I admit it! You can put away the electrodes now! :lol:


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## KenOC

Ravel had his own ideas. He called Berlioz "The worst musician among the musical geniuses."


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## arnerich

After giving it some thought and, as far as the arts are concerned, I'm not convinced genius exists. Just my 2 cents.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Woodduck, *you help make my case by aiding me in differentiating between those areas of human excellence where there are universal paradigms to be overthrown, and the arts where there are none. * "The intellectual achievements of Einstein and Beethoven are obviously of an entirely different order," you write, then, in a non-sequitur, you "see no value in claiming the term 'genius' for the one kind of achievement and not for the other". Maybe we're dealing with a lumper/splitter dichotomy here--you want to retain "genius" as an undefined, undifferentiated synonym for excellence, fecundity, early demonstration of ability, regardless of context, and I choose to retain the term for that *truly profound overturning of our fundamental understanding of the actual world as opposed to the invented world of art and the artist.* And, yes, by my conjecture, *I rate Darwin and Wallace, Einstein and Bohr, as geniuses, and not Mozart or Wagner.* BTW, I can still really, really love the art and music and poetry that I do, and honor and cherish their several great creators--maybe even more than somebody else does--without necessarily regarding them as "geniuses". If it is a consolation, remember that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Genius quote, yes?


My helping to differentiate between different disciplines in which genius may manifest itself does _not_ help you make your case that in only some of these disciplines should the term "genius" be used. I see no case at all here, but merely a choice you've made.

On what grounds can you assert that a scientist who, by whatever combination of labor and inspiration, is struck one day with a big idea that "overturns our fundamental understanding of the world" (and to what extent has anyone actually done that?) _is_ a genius, while a composer who spends year after year, decade after decade, producing work upon work that outstrips in originality, brilliance and profundity the works of others working in his field (and even his own previous work), and that leaves music forever changed, is _not_ a genius? Your restricted usage is a just a personal preference, not shared by most people who recognize a phenomenon they call "genius," and it isn't something for which a general case can be made, unless you can provide some evidence that the scientist does something objectively, and significantly, much more difficult, original, or rare than the composer. The eventual impact of an insight or theory, which only history can judge, certainly gives no clue to the magnitude of the achievement involved in reaching it.

Let's take a couple of well-known examples for a comparison, both centering on the year 1859 (my thanks to Jacques Barzun's "Darwin, Marx, Wagner"). If genius is a matter of the difficulty or rarity of an achievement, I would ask, sincerely, whether Darwin's formulation of a theory of the origin of species through natural selection was an achievement more difficult or rare than the conception and composition of _Tristan und Isolde_. I would say that it was distinctly not, and that Wagner's achievement had much less precedent - was much less predictable from the work of his predecessors - than Darwin's was. But even if the question of genius is not a matter of difficulty or rarity but of how much influence an achievement has on the world or on the way people understand it, I think it's debatable whether Darwin's theory of natural selection has had, _as a singular achievement_, more influence on the subsequent course of life in the world than Wagner's theory and practice of music drama, or his use of harmony. Natural selection was, arguably, an idea whose time had come; evolution was not a new concept, special creation of species by a divine power had already been challenged, Europe was swarming with atheists... Somebody was bound to put the pieces of the puzzle together and describe the basic mechanism by which evolution occurred, and Darwin (_pace,_ poor Wallace!) was the right man at the right time. What, on the other hand, had set the world up for someone to come along with _Tristan und isolde?_

Certainly, nearly everyone now accepts that species evolved (excepting certain antedeluvian cultists in America's intellectual basement). Scientists tweak and supplement Darwin's concept, but accept its basis, and seek out evidence in the fossil record. But I have no doubt that science would have come to natural selection with or without Darwin. On the other hand, I can't imagine the creation of _Tristan und Isolde_ - or the _Ring_, or any of Wagner's mature works - without the singular genius who was Wagner. Nor can I imagine Western music, and Western culture in general, having taken quite the form it did without the impact of his work. Moreover, I'll suggest that new theories in science, once they've made their impact on the world, are nudged aside (if not actually invalidated) by new theories, and that scientific ideas cease to matter to most people unless they see practical results from them, while great works of art affect people profoundly and seem to them, not like subjects for academic study (if one is interested), but like necessities of life, and for centuries to come. _Theoria brevis, ars longa._

It would never have occurred to me to make comparisons like this - arguing about what's greater than what strikes me as adolescent - but if there's a "case" to be made for the restriction of "genius" as a description of human endeavor I guess the possible grounds for one's preferred restriction have to be explored. If pushed to it, I'd choose the restriction opposite to yours: my personal view is that the greatest art manifests more genius than any scientific theory anyone can hit upon in the field, in the laboratory, or while daydreaming in the bath of an evening. And the greatest artists don't just publish papers in a professional journal, take university chairs, and collect Nobel Prizes. They generally go on invoking their muses - or their _"genies"!_ - hour after fevered hour until they wear out or die. Let's not forget that a genius was originally not something one was, but something one was possessed by. No one is more possessed than the artist.


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## Strange Magic

> Woodduck: I think it's debatable whether Darwin's theory of natural selection has had, as a singular achievement, more influence on the subsequent course of life in the world than Wagner's theory and practice of music drama, or his use of harmony.


I'll just look at this for a minute. I think we'll find that in China, India, much of the rest of Asia, Africa, universities all over the world where science--biology--is taught and research is done (and parallel cases can be drawn for physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, etc.), we'll find that Darwin, Darwinism, and evolution is the essential backbone, the _sine qua non_, for that teaching and that research. Ditto for the work of the geniuses (if we call them that, and I do) responsible for elucidating quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, plate tectonics, etc. In those cultures' music departments, will Wagner's name and work be invoked in the same way, with the same fixity, as being the overriding new structure that informs the whole universe of music? I think not, and substitute the name of any composer you like instead of Wagner. This is not to say that the work of Darwin, Einstein, et al will not be further refined, or, conceivably, superseded in future (completely superseded? Not bloody likely). But, for now, and ever since, their work has had a more universal and far-reaching impact on today's world than has any composer. I cheerfully agree with anyone asserting the most exuberant love of and praise for any and all heroes of art and music--your favorites, my favorites; these exceptional and extraordinary artists are indeed the jewels of our (western) culture, and profoundly enrich our lives. Some of them may be geniuses--people of extraordinary IQs and abilities--as there may be geniuses who are politicians, or generals, or lawyers. My point is that I personally feel more comfortable reserving the word itself for those individuals of whom it can be shown that their work has been so original, so singular, that entire whole disciplines have been overturned, and the world is changed. This can happen in the sciences; in art and music--so much more diverse, individualistic, even chaotic--conditions/context work to blur and dissipate even the most singular and radical effort.


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## arnerich

Strange Magic said:


> I cheerfully agree with anyone asserting the most exuberant love of and praise for any and all heroes of art and music--your favorites, my favorites; these exceptional and extraordinary artists are indeed the jewels of our (western) culture, and profoundly enrich our lives. Some of them may be geniuses--people of extraordinary IQs and abilities--as there may be geniuses who are politicians, or generals, or lawyers. My point is that I personally feel more comfortable reserving the word itself for those individuals of whom it can be shown that their work has been so original, so singular, that entire whole disciplines have been overturned, and the world is changed. This can happen in the sciences; in art and music--so much more diverse, individualistic, even chaotic--conditions/context work to blur and dissipate even the most singular and radical effort.


I agree. Newton's discovery of orbiting bodies in 1600s comes to mind.


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## KenOC

Strange Magic said:


> ...This can happen in the sciences; in art and music--so much more diverse, individualistic, even chaotic--conditions/context work to blur and dissipate even the most singular and radical effort.


Agree. What musician, or other artist, has done one iota to improve human health or living conditions, to fight disease, to put more and better food on the table? Or to improve our understanding of the universe we live in?

I would suggest that Beethoven is perhaps the only composer who has affected how we live, and only because he reinforced the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which preceded him. In days to come (and they will come), when we no longer adhere to his ideals, his influence will wane as well.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I'll just look at this for a minute. I think we'll find that in China, India, much of the rest of Asia, Africa, universities all over the world where science--biology--is taught and research is done (and parallel cases can be drawn for physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, etc.), we'll find that Darwin, Darwinism, and evolution is the essential backbone, the _sine qua non_, for that teaching and that research. Ditto for the work of the geniuses (if we call them that, and I do) responsible for elucidating quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, plate tectonics, etc. _*In those cultures' music departments, will Wagner's name and work be invoked in the same way, with the same fixity, as being the overriding new structure that informs the whole universe of music?*_ I think not, and substitute the name of any composer you like instead of Wagner. This is not to say that the work of Darwin, Einstein, et al will not be further refined, or, conceivably, superseded in future (completely superseded? Not bloody likely). But, for now, and ever since, their work has had a more universal and far-reaching impact on today's world than has any composer. I cheerfully agree with anyone asserting the most exuberant love of and praise for any and all heroes of art and music--your favorites, my favorites; these exceptional and extraordinary artists are indeed the jewels of our (western) culture, and profoundly enrich our lives. Some of them may be geniuses--people of extraordinary IQs and abilities--as there may be geniuses who are politicians, or generals, or lawyers. My point is that I personally feel more comfortable reserving the word itself for those individuals of whom it can be shown that their work has been so original, so singular, that entire whole disciplines have been overturned, and the world is changed. This can happen in the sciences; in art and music--so much more diverse, individualistic, even chaotic--conditions/context work to blur and dissipate even the most singular and radical effort.


The answer to the bolded question above is "no." The next question is "So what?" Is Wagner's name and work invoked in university classrooms all over the world as one of several crucially important contributors to the art of music, and, in his particular case, to more than music? I'm quite sure that it is, and prominently, where the course may be music history, harmony, opera, or even conducting. It's also invoked in literature courses with reference to his influence on the French symbolist poets and the development of the modern novel (Proust, Joyce, Woolf). It may also be invoked in courses on stagecraft, theater architecture, acoustics, 19th and 20th-century European social studies and politics, mythological studies, and the history of psychology.

Did Niels Bohr contribute to a comparable range of cultural manifestations, is he studied in relation to a comparable range of disciplines, and is he encountered in opera houses, concert halls, and other cultural institutions? Does anyone not thinking about the fundamental nature of the physical universe (which most people are not, 99.99% of the time) give a rat's behind about atomic structures or quantum whatever? How many of us feel that our lives have been changed for the better, or changed at all, by Niels Bohr? How many of us look forward to our next opportunity to experience his work?

As I said, I think this sort of comparison is rather silly. It really is apples and oranges, and nothing in it can constitute a case for restricting the concept of genius in the way you want to restrict it.

Now, can you respond to my more central (and I think more relevant) question - namely, is Darwin's "The Origin of Species," his one claim to "genius," a more unprecedented, startling, difficult, and rare accomplishment of the human mind and spirit than the works of Wagner? If Darwin had not lived, would his ideas have been more likely or less likely to be formulated and published than the works of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, had those composers never existed?

I'm not really asking for an answer. Pehaps a definitive one isn't possible. But I have my strong suspicions...


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Agree. *What musician, or other artist, has done one iota to improve human health or living conditions, to fight disease, to put more and better food on the table? Or to improve our understanding of the universe we live in?
> *
> *I would suggest that Beethoven is perhaps the only composer who has affected how we live*, and only because he reinforced the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which preceded him. In days to come (and they will come), when we no longer adhere to his ideals, his influence will wane as well.


Well, I don't know what universe _you_ live in, but the one I live in is as much internal as external - probably more so - and I can attest that Bach and Beethoven have contributed a great deal to it, not only to my understanding of it but to its very constitution. Einstein may tell me something about space and time, but he doesn't make up the substance of that space and time. Wagner and Sibelius do.

The statement that art doesn't affect how we live is - for most of humanity, for those who care enough about music to pass hours on this forum, and most of all for artists of all sorts - flat out nonsense.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> The statement that art doesn't affect how we live is, for most of humanity but especially for those who care enough about music to pass hours on this forum, flat out nonsense.


Certainly for those of us in the idle classes, who can afford to worry more about our psyches than our stomachs. I believe we're called "the chatterati" by some.

Chairman Mao called us the "stinking ninth" since he estimated that one out of nine people in China at that time were "intellectuals." Given the situation then, I can sympathize with his view, somewhat.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Certainly for those of us in the idle classes, who can afford to worry more about our psyches than our stomachs. I believe we're called "the chatterati" by some.


If old and not entirely well is idle, than I'm idle. And if my thinking and writing about music is chatter, than I chatter. I can assure you that I, like many artists, have worried quite enough about my stomach, but have not only made room for those other essential foods, music and art, but have pursued them creatively in many forms even at the cost of physical insecurity. This is not "worrying about my psyche," but expressing the fact that I have one, and that filling it is a necessity for my well-being.

Mankind pursues art wherever and whenever he can, in the humblest of circumstances, and has done so since the caves at Lascaux. Man is not a fish or a flatworm.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> If old and not entirely well is idle, than I'm idle. And if my thinking and writing about music is chatter, than I chatter.


Sounds like we're in the same boat. But look up Maslow's hierarchy of needs (it's in Wiki).


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Sounds like we're in the same boat. But look up Maslow's hierarchy of needs (it's in Wiki).


**** Maslow and his hierarchy.

Did I say that?


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> A desire to use words in ways that can be "justified" is admirable. But I wonder how much "justification" would satisfy you - or, more precisely, what you would consider a genuine justification for applying the word "genius," or any word for that matter...[etc]


I wanted to reply (not for the first time) to a member (Larkenfield) taking swipes at the value of this debate and the skeptics. I think I've probably said all I want to on the subject and to try to answer you would merely repeat what I've already said, most simply in my exchanges with beetzart (#117 for example).

Besides, you and Strange Magic have taken things in another direction, and I don't see the need to drag us back to justifying my scepticism about others' determination that only the word 'genius' will do.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> **** Maslow and his hierarchy.
> 
> Did I say that?


I guess what I'm saying is that you and I may ooh and ah over the Op. 111. But to many (or most) in the world there are things more important -- like life or death. And science helps them survive far more that our vaunted art, which helps them little or none. A full belly, and then there's time for that.


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## Larkenfield

Strange Magic said:


> My point is that I personally feel more comfortable reserving the word itself for those individuals of whom it can be shown that their work has been so original, so singular, that entire whole disciplines have been overturned, and the world is changed. This can happen in the sciences; in art and music--so much more diverse, individualistic, even chaotic--conditions/context work to blur and dissipate even the most singular and radical effort.


Surely, one only has to look at one's own life and not to external conditions to imagine what existence on planet earth would be without the psychological relief and the temporary escape of self-renewal provided by the superlative musicians and artists. The miracle is internal and yet others look for some external change in outer reality as being the most important, or for someone to make for a fundamental change in human nature--and no one has accomplished the latter, ever. It could be argued that the essential nature of human beings hasn't changed in thousands of years, with a duality of life that continues to vacillate between peace and war. And yet the value of the true heroes and geniuses of one's inner world, the great writers, artists, and musicians providing some kind of an escape, are perceived as not having done enough or for not having produced something externally such as inventing the light bulb. Edison only provided the outer light, but the inner light is often awakened by the Mozarts and Beethovens--and at this stage in human evolution, or the continual absence of it, the awakening of the inner light would seem far more important. At least, I imagine that Mozart felt that way because of his great love and supreme mastery of his music that has continued to have great universal appeal for those who like or understand it. There's never been a field where genius could not be found, including as composers and musicians.


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## Forss

KenOC said:


> Ravel had his own ideas. He called Berlioz "The worst musician among the musical geniuses."


This is actually rather funny, and quite accurate, indeed. (To be able to put aside one's own personal preferences.) Perhaps this, or something like it, is what I would've liked to say about Wagner. "The most disagreeable character among the musical geniuses."

For this other, secondary discussion, on the (supposed) opposing merits of the scientist and the artist, I think that the key difference lies in their fundamental _view_ of the phenomenal world, where the former analyses it for what it _is_ (to the senses), and the latter for what it _means_ on a deeper (philosophical) level*. The former is concerned with laws of nature; the latter with analogy. They complement each other, as it were, and need not stand in contradiction.

*This view holds both Einstein and, say, Beethoven as geniuses in their own right.


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## Blancrocher

Strange Magic said:


> I'll just look at this for a minute. I think we'll find that in China, India, much of the rest of Asia, Africa, universities all over the world where science--biology--is taught and research is done (and parallel cases can be drawn for physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, etc.), we'll find that Darwin, Darwinism, and evolution is the essential backbone, the _sine qua non_, for that teaching and that research. Ditto for the work of the geniuses (if we call them that, and I do) responsible for elucidating quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, plate tectonics, etc. In those cultures' music departments, will Wagner's name and work be invoked in the same way, with the same fixity, as being the overriding new structure that informs the whole universe of music?


Well, at least he's got a few threads like that in the opera subforum.


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## Strange Magic

> Woodduck: As I said, I think this sort of comparison is rather silly. It really is apples and oranges, and nothing in it can constitute a case for restricting the concept of genius in the way you want to restrict it.


I agree with the silliness label. Apples and oranges also. But I have delivered a case for why I choose to restrict "genius" as I have, and will not repeat myself.



> Woodduck: Now, can you respond to my more central (and I think more relevant) question - namely, is Darwin's "The Origin of Species," his one claim to "genius," a more unprecedented, startling, difficult, and rare accomplishment of the human mind and spirit than the works of Wagner? If Darwin had not lived, would his ideas have been more likely or less likely to be formulated and published than the works of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, had those composers never existed?


Well, I'll immediately break my rule and repeat that, unlike Wagner or any other composer of your choice, Darwin's insight not only forms the essential core of an entire planet-wide science, but also helps tell us where we--humanity today--came from; how we got here; Yea, unto the tale of life itself such that instruments scan the skies for other worlds perhaps as fertile as our own; tells us about biological Deep Time; even has entire movements within religions fixedly devoted to denying its claims (creation "science"). Are there religions--religions--so obsessed with Wagner and Wagnerism?

It is equally certain that Wallace, or someone else, would have hit upon evolution via natural selection had Darwin not done so. It is also equally certain that the works of Wagner, or Bach, Mozart, Beethoven would not have been generated by others in exactly the formulations by which we know them today. Close, maybe--pure speculation. But that again just tells us that, in the arts, we are dealing with the personal, the idiosyncratic, the variable, the uncertain, in a way and with materials far different than those of science; science, whose theories, when once adopted, are universally accepted throughout every field where they apply, and even among those working in distant regions of other sciences (and arts, also).



> Woodduck: I'm not really asking for an answer. Pehaps a definitive one isn't possible. But I have my strong suspicions...


You wanted an answer? I've given you my answer :tiphat:.


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## Blancrocher

Back when Darwin was pigeon fancying and counting flowers, there were only like 5 people working on a systematic theory of biological evolution—and one of them was too close to his ideas for comfort. Mozart and Wagner have had lots of competition—from their contemporaries, as well as those who came before and after. And their works have held up despite impressive ankle-biting from TC members (myself included), whereas Darwin's theories have been so modified as to be unrecognizable. 

Can one only be a genius when working in the infancy of a given field?


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## Woodduck

If genius belongs only to those who introduce ideas that change the world, then the first person to grow plants for food rather than gather berries in the wild was the greatest genius of all.

So much for that argument.


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## eugeneonagain

Blancrocher said:


> *Can one only be a genius when working in the infancy of a given field?*


Most certainly, because with very little to compare and contrast, one is laying the foundations of that field along the way.


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## eugeneonagain

Woodduck said:


> If genius belongs only to those who introduce ideas that change the world, then the first person to grow plants for food rather than gather berries in the wild was the greatest genius of all.
> 
> So much for that argument.


Not "of all", only an agricultural 'genius' (and likely female, or many females and the one man who'd twisted his ankle from yesterday's hunt).

I suppose the word _genius_ is the worst word to describe what are often leaps of imagination, often coupled with serendipity, knowledge-bases passed on by predecessors and trial-error. _Genius_ strictly refers to something inherent as part of the 'genus', but both scientific and artistic leaps have included as much work as they have thunderbolts of inspiration.


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## Strange Magic

Blancrocher said:


> Back when Darwin was pigeon fancying and counting flowers, there were only like 5 people working on a systematic theory of biological evolution-and one of them was too close to his ideas for comfort. Mozart and Wagner have had lots of competition-from their contemporaries, as well as those who came before and after. And their works have held up despite impressive ankle-biting from TC members (myself included), whereas Darwin's theories have been so modified as to be unrecognizable.
> 
> Can one only be a genius when working in the infancy of a given field?


I'm not sure that Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection has been so modified as to be unrecognizable. The various books and articles I read appear to be able to tease out that thread without too much trouble. The difference is now the enormous detail that 150-plus years of intensive examination has brought forth to both illuminate and verify Darwin's work.

And the examples you and I both gave of Newton/Leibniz and Darwin/Wallace demonstrate that several minds can be working on the same problem at a very high level. Another example is that of Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga working separately on quantum electrodynamics (and sharing the Nobel Prize in the end).

Edit: I see that I answered your question as I did because my very non-genius brain switched "one" and "only" in your question .


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## Strange Magic

eugeneonagain said:


> Most certainly, because with very little to compare and contrast, one is laying the foundations of that field along the way.


Probably mostly true. One exception might be in geology, which was pretty well understood in many of its manifestations. But along came Alfred Wegener and his nonsense about the strange correlations on separate continents between geological structures, fossils, rock types across thousands of miles of open ocean. Only a few rogue geologists, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, paid much attention. Then, new instruments and surveys revealed things never seen before, and inquiring minds rather quickly gave us Plate Tectonics, and things fell into place in the same way that evolution and the expanding universe rationalized biology and astronomy.


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## Blancrocher

eugeneonagain said:


> I suppose the word _genius_ is the worst word to describe what are often leaps of imagination, often coupled with serendipity, knowledge-bases passed on by predecessors and trial-error. _Genius_ strictly refers to something inherent as part of the 'genus', but both scientific and artistic leaps have included as much work as they have thunderbolts of inspiration.


Beethoven was a hard worker, it's true, but if artistic leaps were thunderbolts, he'd have been burnt to a cinder long before he composed the Eroica. The two often go together, imo.


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## Woodduck

eugeneonagain said:


> *Not "of all", only an agricultural 'genius'* (and likely female, or many females and the one man who'd twisted his ankle from yesterday's hunt).
> 
> I suppose the word _genius_ is the worst word to describe what are often leaps of imagination, often coupled with serendipity, knowledge-bases passed on by predecessors and trial-error. _Genius_ strictly refers to something inherent as part of the 'genus', but both scientific and artistic leaps have included as much work as they have thunderbolts of inspiration.


I was countering Strange Magic's highly idiosyncratic attempt to define genius by the degree to which it affects our way of living and looking at the world. Has anything made a greater difference than agriculture? Agriculture is not "only" agriculture. It's civilization, and that includes Strange Magic's beloved science. But to call the first person to plant a food crop a genius is obviously absurd, or at least highly presumptuous.

Insights and discoveries are the result of factors besides intelligence. They are typically built on established knowledge and come as a result of experiment and accident. We can't guage the quality of a mind by the consequences its ideas have for the world, any more than we can guage a person's moral character by the consequences of his actions. To do so places genius outside of the person who supposedly possesses it, thus rendering the concept useless.


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## eugeneonagain

Woodduck said:


> I was countering Strange Magic's highly idiosyncratic attempt to define genius by the degree to which it affects our way of living and looking at the world. Has anything made a greater difference than agriculture? Agriculture is not "only" agriculture. It's civilization, and that includes Strange Magic's beloved science. But to call the first person to plant a food crop a genius is obviously absurd, or at least highly presumptuous.
> 
> Insights and discoveries are the result of factors besides intelligence. They are typically built on established knowledge and come as a result of experiment and accident. We can't gauge the quality of a mind by the consequences its ideas have for the world, any more than we can gauge a person's moral character by the consequences of his actions. To do so places genius outside of the person who supposedly possesses it, thus rendering the concept useless.


And I think I agree with you. Many variables stand in the way of pointing to 'genius' - and the word is probably not the correct word. I also agree, in part, with Strange magic because scientific discovery really has demonstrated some of the most astonishing feats of imagination; though these intellectual feats are very much of the same sort of 'genius' that characterised classical Greece. 
Modern science probably seems even more stupendous because it has flourished largely in an era that hasn't been hampered by the backwardness of religious domination over ideas.

I don't know. We have 'great ideas', so what do we call someone who has lots of great ideas? I'm plumping for _ingenious_...mother of invention...skilful in manipulating what there is. I don't want to make any mortal gods, there's enough of that nonsense already.


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## Blancrocher

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't know. We have 'great ideas', so what do we call someone who has lots of great ideas? I'm plumping for _ingenious_...mother of invention...skilful in manipulating what there is. I don't want to make any mortal gods, there's enough of that nonsense already.


A fox, probably, though some of us prefer hedgehogs.


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## eugeneonagain

Lovely. Yes, I like hedgehogs. There's always a couple on the front lawn here in summer/autumn.


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## Woodduck

eugeneonagain said:


> Lovely. Yes, I like hedgehogs. There's always a couple on the front lawn here in summer/autumn.


I do envy you Europeans your hedgehog. We have the equally prickly porcupine, but it's unlikely to turn up on lawns and is less charming to look at. Your robins are cuter than ours too, and your blue t*ts are delightful (though the name suggests a need to come in out of the cold). None of them are geniuses, of course.

(Children reading this family-friendly site will evidently have to imagine that there are blue tots. It's reassuring to know that discussing "genius" on a classical music forum is exactly what families nowadays do together on Sunday mornings.)


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## Strange Magic

We could have an interesting discussion on the ratio of foxes to hedgehogs among the population of eugeneonagain's "ingenious", whether in the arts or in science. A quick assessment would stress the great bandwidth of the ingenious individuals we have all been discussing: Newton, Einstein, Picasso, Wagner, Mozart, Darwin et al. All worked prodigiously on many ideas, in many subjects. Some may have applied themselves even too indiscriminately to too many areas of interest--the case of J. Robert Oppenheimer springs to my mind, having read three biographies of this amazingly gifted man with an amazingly facile mind. As physics Nobelist Wolfgang Pauli remarked about Oppenheimer, Oppy lacked "_sitzfleisch_", the ability to sit down with a problem in physics for years working to finally utterly master it and make it his own (and thus win a Nobel Prize). Oppy was an intellectual butterfly, fluttering from one idea to the next, grasping its bud essence immediately, but moving too rapidly on to fully develop its potential. But his ingenuity did reveal itself in his ability to herd all of the intellectually ingenious yet irascible cats working under his supervision to build the atomic bomb.

Can anyone come up with an example of hedgehog-simple, single-minded genius--no breadth, just depth?


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## KenOC

Blancrocher said:


> Can one only be a genius when working in the infancy of a given field?


We may think a field is mature, but then a genius comes along and proves us wrong.  Then we say, "Of course the field was in its infancy in his time..."


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Can anyone come up with an example of hedgehog-simple, single-minded genius--no breadth, just depth?


That might be hard to judge, since even someone whose visible achievements occupy a narrow range might be well-versed in other areas, and may in fact only be successful within their chosen limits because they've synthesized ideas derived from other disciplines. This may be least applicable to musicians, whose time is often fully occupied by an art that lacks obvious connections to other areas of inquiry.


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## Mandryka

Strange Magic said:


> Can anyone come up with an example of hedgehog-simple, single-minded genius--no breadth, just depth?


Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mondrian, Tim Berners-Lee,


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## KenOC

Mandryka said:


> Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mondrian, Tim Berners-Lee,


Of Ramanujan, Hardy wrote: "I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No", he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

He cut a rather wide (as well as deep) swath in mathematics. Calling his genius "narrow" is like calling Mozart "narrow" because he is noted only for music, and only for a narrow range of styles within that.


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> And yet the value of the true heroes and geniuses of one's inner world, the great writers, artists, and musicians providing some kind of an escape, are perceived as not having done enough or for not having produced something externally such as inventing the light bulb. Edison only provided the outer light, but the inner light is often awakened by the Mozarts and Beethovens--and at this stage in human evolution, or the continual absence of it, the awakening of the inner light would seem far more important.


I think I probably agree with this on the whole, and since Sibelius has done more for me than either M or B, I guess I can count him as a genius; any objections?


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## KenOC

"_Edison only provided the outer light, but the inner light is often awakened by the Mozarts and Beethovens--and at this stage in human evolution, or the continual absence of it, the awakening of the inner light would seem far more important_."



MacLeod said:


> I think I probably agree with this on the whole, and since Sibelius has done more for me than either M or B, I guess I can count him as a genius; any objections?


If Edison hadn't invented the talking machine, would we even know that Sibelius existed?


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> "_Edison only provided the outer light, but the inner light is often awakened by the Mozarts and Beethovens--and at this stage in human evolution, or the continual absence of it, the awakening of the inner light would seem far more important_."
> 
> If Edison hadn't invented the talking machine, would we even know that Sibelius existed?


Before Edison invented the talking machine, we knew Mozart existed.


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## KenOC

Some of us would have known, certainly. But music before recording and radio was hardly a mass market industry, except sheet music to play at home and the occasional (and quite expensive) concert.

It seems, at least to me, that the musical world we live in is vastly different and broader than what came before.


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## Blancrocher

Woodduck said:


> Before Edison invented the talking machine, we knew Mozart existed.


I believe he was referring to the notation software.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Some of us would have known, certainly. But music before recording and radio was hardly a mass market industry, except sheet music to play at home and the occasional (and quite expensive) concert.
> 
> It seems, at least to me, that the musical world we live in is vastly different and broader than what came before.


Well, obviously, genius.


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## KenOC

More on “How well would we know Sibelius without recordings and/or radio?”

Among orchestras, Sibelius does rather well, the 7th most-programmed composer during the last USA season. That means he’s programmed a bit more than a third as often as Mozart, not bad at all.

Among chamber music concerts and solo recitals, he probably does far less well because of his lack of notable works in those areas – yes, there are some, but not many. Mozart would be far, far more visible.

As far as “music at home,” Mozart wrote scads of it that still fills our piano and violin sheet music collections. Sibelius can offer little, primarily piano arrangements of his most popular works such as Finlandia. Although he wrote lots of original piano music, most doesn't seem at all popular.

And in fact it’s by Finlandia that we’d be most likely to know Sibelius. I remember singing it (with some words of other) in church choir as a child, and I’m sure many others sang it in church or at school.

But the rest? We’d be unlikely to hear all his symphonies in our city in a lifetime, even if we had an unusual interest in his music. Our knowledge of his works would be fragmentary at best, and I suspect we’d be very hesitant to label him a “genius.”


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> More on "How well would we know Sibelius without recordings and/or radio?"
> 
> *Our* knowledge of his works would be fragmentary at best, and I suspect *we'd* be very hesitant to label him a "genius."


What matters is who the "we" are that bestow these labels. Most people even now don't consider Sibelius a genius, or anything else, since they don't know his work. Those who are interested enough to know it are the arbiters of status in classical music, and that was as true before sound recording as after. How was he regarded before the 1920s, when recording was good enough to capture (badly) the sound of an orchestra? Let's ask his contemporary musicians, and the Finnish government that granted him financial support for life.


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## arnerich

Woodduck said:


> What matters is who the "we" are that bestow these labels. Most people even now don't consider Sibelius a genius, or anything else, since they don't know his work. Those who are interested enough to know it are the arbiters of status in classical music, and that was as true before sound recording as after.


One man's noise is another man's music.


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## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> I believe he was referring to the notation software.


Er...just be clear - for the infrequent reader  - I wasn't.



KenOC said:


> Our knowledge of his works *would be *fragmentary at best, and I suspect we'd be very hesitant to label him a "genius."


But as our knowledge is not that fragmentary, it's not a problem, is it? I don't think any decision about 'genius' can be contigent upon the extent to which Mr Edison's fine inventions have helped illuminate the situation.


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## Phil loves classical

Stockhausen was likely a genius, but it doesn't mean his music is enjoyable.

Check out these clips of the score for Kontakte out. He planned out one of his pieces, can't remember which, with 700 pages of plans over several years. This is not standard notation on your Sibelius or Musescore. Could it just be pseudo-technical? He did learn from Messaien, who himself was probably a genius. Boulez seemed to make sense of it.


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## tdc

I borrowed this from another thread on Bach's Musical Offering:



> _J.S. BACH: "The musical offering"
> 
> No musician except Bach has ever approached so closely, or in such a profound way, the boundary that separates art from science, and Bach succeeded in knocking down this very barrier without sacrificing either mathematical reason or purely musical expressiveness.
> 
> The Musical Offering was conceived among Bach's final explorations of esoteric musical issues. The work is rich with multiple meanings: from the simple homage paid to an enlightened monarch, to pure spiritual sacrifice; from a scientific and philosophical dissertation, to the search for mysterious, symbolic significance.
> 
> History has given us ample evidence to retrace with ease the birth and completion of this unparalleled work. Bach's visit in May, 1747 to King Frederick II in Potsdam prompted the Sovereign to propose a musical theme that the composer was then to develop extemporaneously. (Frederick II, himself an excellent musician and flautist, was well acquainted with Bach's improvisatory talents.) As the periodicals of the time recorded, Bach proceeded to astound the king and everyone else present by playing on the keyboard a three-part fugue, in a most outstanding manner, followed by a fugue for six parts. Even more importantly, Bach went well beyond the royal commission: he deemed the proposed theme to be worthy of especial study and attention, worthy indeed of further and more complete elaboration.
> 
> And so in September of the same year the first edition of The Musical Offering was published. One hundred copies were printed; each consisting of five smaller sheaves or booklets, each of which contained its own numbered pages. In the first such booklet we find the frontispiece with its dedication to Frederick 11 of Prussia, and it is here that the work is presented as an offering to the Sovereign. The second booklet contains the Ricercara 3 and the Canon Perpetuus Super Thema Regium. The third contains diverse Canons; the fourth the Ricercara 6 as well as the Canons for 2 and for 4 voices. Lastly the fifth book contains the Sonata Sopr'il Soggetto Reale and a final Canon perpetuus.
> 
> Conflicting theories have been put forward by various scholars as to why the first edition was thus printed in individual sections. Further questions abound concerning the exact order of the passages. Concerning this latter issue, the most convincing theory is that of Ursula Kirkendale, argued also by A. Basso in Frau Musika. According to the scholar, a connection can he drawn between the structure of The Musical Offering and the outline of an oration as set down by Quintiliano in his Institutio Oratorio. Following this outline, each part of The Musical Offering corresponds to a rule of rhetoric, that is, to the different functions of an address or narrative. Thus the work would be divided in two parts. The introduction (exordium) would include respectively the Ricercari in 3 and 6 voices, leaving the tasks of narration and argumentation to the several Canons. The conclusion then of Bach's discourse would he the Sonata and the Canon perpemus - the first of these, freed from strict contrapuntal formality, is suited to move the emotions and sentiments; the second piece stands as the definitive, irrefutable demonstration of reason and of intellectual rigour.
> 
> The enigmatic character of The Musical Offering is evident even in the heading that opens the second booklet, just before the beginning of the first piece. The phrase Regis lussu Cantio Et Reliquia Canonica Arm Resoluta, explaining the origins and content of the work, is an acrostic, the initial letters of which spell the word RICERCAR. Moreover in the original printed edition the Canons are not written out in the complete and extensive form heard by the listener but in the form of a puzzle that the performer first must solve, taking into account the given keys and reference points. What's more, the canons are infinite, in that they have no set ending. Instead they repeat themselves indefinitely, always starting again from the beginning, with no solution provided to escape this unending continuity. The performer is left to decide everything, be it the number of repetitions or the moment and manner in which to bring the canons to an appropriate close.
> 
> If we probe the rhetorical/musical aspects of the Thema Regium, we notice, after the initial harmonic ascent through the three steps of the C minor triad, the first rhetorical figure including the vertical interval of a minor seventh - A flat to B (Saltus duriusculus) - followed by a second figure that descends chromatically, touching upon every semitone between G and C (Posits duriusculus). According to the theory of the sentiments, these two rhetorical/musical figures serve to express languid emotions and sighs, pain and ultimately extreme pathos. In effect The Musical Offering is permeated by a mood of suffering, of lamentation and of tension, broken only now and again by moments of hope and rebellion.
> 
> The opening passage, the Ricercara 3, plays the role of stating the theme and of developing it in the manner considered by the ancients as the most noble and the most suited for interweaving the strands of an argument: the ricercare, the search. The Ricercar a 6, apparently less rigid in structure, has a countersubject with a hinting character, comprised of staccato notes and leaps. It shows a sense of amusement, with its figurations in triplets and its wide breadth. In the central part of the piece the contrapuntal discourse becomes ever more complex, with a series of stretti involving hold chromatic figures.
> 
> The Canon perpetuus that follows opens the first set of canons within the framework of the actual narration. The Thema Regium is here enunciated in the central voice while the upper and lower parts are in canon, at the height of a double octave. In the ingeniously constructed Canon a 2 "Cancrizans" (crabs) the second (following) voice begins on the last note of the first (leading) voice and proceeds backwards until it reaches again the first note, in imitation of the movement of crabs. Literature offers something similar in the palindrome, perhaps the most famous example of which appears in Virgil's hexameter "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni."
> 
> The Canone a 2 violini in unison comes next, one of the few pieces of the work in which Bach specifies the intended instruments and in which the theme is found in the bass. Afterwards comes the Canone a 2 Per Molum contrarium in which the theme passes to the upper voice, and the two lower voices pursue each other in contrary motion. In the Canon a 2 per Augmentationem contrario Motu we find for the first time a variation of the theme in the middle voice, while the other two parts, in canon, move in contrary motion but with redoubled values, the one with respect to the other.
> 
> In the subsequent Canone per Tonos, the Thema Regium undergoes variation in a manner that renders it chromatic from the start, whereas the other two voices play a canon set apart by a fifth. The modulation that occurs during the enunciation is altogether congenial. The theme is put forward and taken up again one tone higher without causing any perceptible harmonic trauma, and so on throughout. This process is itself a rhetorical/musical device, called Auxesis or Climax until the 17th century and Gradatio in the period that followed. The effect produced upon the listener's ear is one of gradual crescendo, like an ever more insistent question, until a climax of emotional tension is achieved.
> 
> The piece that concludes the first part of the discussion (Egressus) and comes before the second Exordium is the Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente, a three-part fugue built upon a canon between the two upper parts in fifths. As to the origins of the term "Epidiapente", it was common practice in previous times to express such intervals as unison, a fourth, a fifth, an octave, and so forth, with the Greek terminology Diatessaron, Diapente, Diapason, etc. Thus Bach uses the expression "Epidiapente" to indicate that the following part would sing a fifth above, much as he would have used the term "Subdiapente" had the same part answered a fifth below instead.
> 
> The Ricercar a 6 is one of the most imposing contrapuntal creations that Bach ever conceived. The number of the voices, the incredible complicated interplay of the parts, even the piece's remarkable dimensions, comes together in a work that is surely unique within its genre. Its structure recalls the Ricercare in its most ancient form: after the grand initial exposition of the theme, diverse new thematic ideas are stated to be then developed in a fugue; yet within each of these ideas the principle subject appears inserted - an extraordinary interweaving, ruled over by one, great, single thought.
> 
> The second set of canons includes two brief canons for two voices in contrary motion, retto and inverso, (Canon a 2 Quaerendo invenietis) and the more extensive canon for four voices (Canon a 4). In the latter the theme is enriched in its variation by passing notes that give it a character both expressive and dramatic.
> 
> The moment of greatest intensity within the whole work, the Sonata sopr'il Soggetto Reale, foresees a very precise ensemble, with the flute rising to the role of protagonist, in homage no doubt to the great talents as soloist of Frederick II. In the course of the four movements, the Thema Regium appears in its original form only in the opening Allegro, letting its presence be felt afterward every now and then as a solemn quotation in the lovely context of flowing discourse and formal perfection. In the two slow movements Bach gives an essay of pure musical eloquence and of extraordinary expressive sensitivity with a splendid "affettuoso" style. The Sonata ends with an Allegro in 6/8 time based upon the royal theme, superbly varied with pauses, appoggiature, and chromatic progressions that produce veritable sighs, creating contrast with the subsequent passages in semichromes, bringing the piece to its conclusion in a crescendo of rhythm and dynamics.
> 
> After the emotional climax of the Sonata in which the sentiments have been given free rein, the final Canon Perpetuus calls everything back to order by means of its great introspectiveness and its far more rigid and rational control. We find again here the forma mentis characteristic of Bach - a mind-set which, placing *spirit above matter*, holds within itself impenetrable designs, so loaded with secret symbolism, that posterity is left an inheritance such as might never be comprehended in its fullness.
> 
> Ottavio Dantone Translation: AD ITALIA _


If this isn't the work of genius, the word has no meaning. I bolded the "spirit over matter" part because it describes why I think musical geniuses like Bach are of a higher order than the scientific minds mentioned in this thread. When a scientist can come along and bridge science and the arts (and spirituality) like Bach did in his craft then I would place them on equal status. Tesla perhaps was a scientist of this calibre, its a shame much of his work has been suppressed.


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## Guest

tdc said:


> I borrowed this from another thread on Bach's Musical Offering:


What you offer may be a very eloquent analysis (I'm assuming that it is a musically accurate description) but it's still dependent on a subjective response (eg "_*extraordinary expressive sensitivity"*)_ and the summary that Bach is about 'spirit over matter' is not an incontrovertible statement of fact.

I listened to the Canon Perpetuus and...well, it does little for me. That doesn't diminish the work itself in any way, but it does bring definitive statements about its value into question.


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## Larkenfield

The word genius can be used in many ways. “He was a melodic genius.” “Rimsky-Korsakov and Respighi were genius orchestrators.” They were. “Stockhausen was a genius in tape manipulation.” “Cage was a conceptual genius in the use of time and space.” The word can apply to a specific area of supreme expertise or specific skill, rather than just designating somebody broadly or all-encompassing as a genius or not. That liberates the word so it can be used freely where it applies, because there’s a lot more genius capability out there than usually acknowledged. 

Edison was an inventive genius but he certainly wasn’t a genius in his understanding of personal relationships. Chopin and Mahler were certainly melodic geniuses. Debussy a genius of the atmospheric. Shostakovich had a genius for orchestration and survival! Ives and Copeland and Bernstein had a genius in capturing something quintessentially American. Gershwin too.

Some just have a hard time knowing how to liberate the word and then end up denying its existence when it can be found all around them in specific creative ways. The word genius can have modifiers rather than just exist as a standalone word that is too broad for anyone to define. It’s so much easier that way.


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## Mandryka

MacLeod said:


> What you offer may be a very eloquent analysis (I'm assuming that it is a musically accurate description) but it's still dependent on a subjective response (eg "_*extraordinary expressive sensitivity"*)_ and the summary that Bach is about 'spirit over matter' is not an incontrovertible statement of fact.
> 
> I listened to the Canon Perpetuus and...well, it does little for me. That doesn't diminish the work itself in any way, but it does bring definitive statements about its value into question.


But then if you look at Ramanujan's work it may do little for you. Do you think that brings its value into question?

BTW Ramanujan seems to me a very clear example of genius, because of his apparently intuitive and superhuman capacities. Mozart maybe too, that was Ken's example. But because of my background I understand and appreciate Ramanujan more.

It would be interesting to think about the "spirit above matter" idea, but maybe this is not the place. It seems to me a claim about stile antico versus galant, which is what I think is being explored in opfer. The Canon Perpetuus being Opfer's conclusion -- conclusion of the argument and conclusion of the piece of music.

And yes "extraordinary expressive sensitivity " (a claim about the sonata's slow movements) is subjective in the sense of being about the responses the music evokes in the listener. Just like, I suppose "grass is green" is subjective because its truth conditions depend on viewers' perceptions. Whether it's subjective in any other sense is an interesting question.


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> The word genius can be used in many ways. "He was a melodic genius." "Rimsky-Korsakov and Respighi were genius orchestrators." They were. "Stockhausen was a genius in tape manipulation." "Cage was a conceptual genius in the use of time and space." The word can apply to a specific area of supreme expertise or specific skill, rather than just designating somebody broadly or all-encompassing as a genius or not. That liberates the word so it can be used freely where it applies, because there's a lot more genius capability out there than usually acknowledged.
> 
> Edison was an inventive genius but he certainly wasn't a genius in his understanding of personal relationships. Chopin and Mahler were certainly melodic geniuses. Debussy a genius of the atmospheric. Shostakovich had a genius for orchestration and survival! Ives and Copeland and Bernstein had a genius in capturing something quintessentially American. Gershwin too.
> 
> *Some *just have a hard time knowing how to liberate the word and then end up denying its existence when it can be found all around them in specific creative ways. The word genius can have modifiers rather than just exist as a standalone word that is too broad for anyone to define. It's so much easier that way.


Yes, the word 'genius' can be used in many ways, though change 'genius' to 'expert' in some of your examples and it doesn't move the argument forward that 'genius' is a specific term that deserves to be used instead.

I have on at least one occasion tried to respond directly to your posts before, but you prefer to deal instead with a mysterious unnamed 'some'. It makes debate somewhat challenging, IMO.



Mandryka said:


> But then if you look at Ramanujan's work it may do little for you. Do you think that brings its value into question?
> 
> BTW Ramanujan seems to me a very clear example of genius, because of his apparently intuitive and superhuman capacities. Mozart maybe too, that was Ken's example. But because of my background I understand and appreciate Ramanujan more.
> 
> It would be interesting to think about the "spirit above matter" idea, but maybe this is not the place. It seems to me a claim about stile antico versus galant, which is what I think is being explored in opfer. The Canon Perpetuus being Opfer's conclusion -- conclusion of the argument and conclusion of the piece of music.
> 
> And yes "extraordinary expressive sensitivity " (a claim about the sonata's slow movements) is subjective in the sense of being about the responses the music evokes in the listener. Just like, I suppose "grass is green" is subjective because its truth conditions depend on viewers' perceptions. Whether it's subjective in any other sense is an interesting question.


I expressly said that my response to the Bach does not diminish the work itself; the same would apply to works by any other composer which did not elicit a positive response from me.

I don't agree that 'grass is green' is the same type of subjectivity as '[this music conveys] extraordinary expressive sensitivity'. The one is scientifically verifiable and, apart from those who are colour blind (or suffer some other visual impairment) we would all agree on the greenness of grass.

Let me know when you've come up with a comparably objective verification for "extraordinary expressive sensitivity"


----------



## Mandryka

MacLeod said:


> I expressly said that my response to the Bach does not diminish the work itself; the same would apply to works by any other composer which did not elicit a positive response from me.


Actually after I made the post I suddenly thought that you couldn't have been saying what I said you were saying, and so I came back and reread your post. It's this that I'm obviously failing to understand



MacLeod said:


> but it does bring definitive statements about its value into question.





MacLeod said:


> I don't agree that 'grass is green' is the same type of subjectivity as '[this music conveys] extraordinary expressive sensitivity'. The one is scientifically verifiable and, apart from those who are colour blind (or suffer some other visual impairment) we would all agree on the greenness of grass.
> 
> Let me know when you've come up with a comparably objective verification for "extraordinary expressive sensitivity"


Something like "X manifests extraordinary expressive sensitivity" iff apart from those who are alexithymiac or anhedoniac (or suffer some other impairment which makes them unresponsive like deafness) we would all agree on the extraordinary expressive sensitivity of X.


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## Strange Magic

Mandryka said:


> Something like "X manifests extraordinary expressive sensitivity" iff apart from those who are alexithymiac or anhedoniac (or suffer some other impairment which makes them unresponsive like deafness) *we would all agree* on the extraordinary expressive sensitivity of X.


In matters of music and the arts, do we ever all agree? Also, in response to tdc's post about the superior nature of artistic genius over scientific genius, I again refer to my notion that genius marks those who completly overturn existing paradigms--that is to say that everyone everywhere working in (or even aware of) that enterprise is working under the new paradigm. I also affirm that, for myself, the term "spirituality" conveys no meaning. I don't know what spirituality really is, though I see the word used constantly, almost promiscuously, everywhere--especially when people appear to be groping around trying to express the ineffable. Maybe it's ineffable for a good reason. I also dearly love Bach, but does every musician/composer since Bach compose within a Bachian framework?


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## tdc

Strange Magic said:


> In matters of music and the arts, do we ever all agree? Also, in response to tdc's post about the superior nature of artistic genius over scientific genius, I again refer to my notion that genius marks those who completly overturn existing paradigms--that is to say that everyone everywhere working in (or even aware of) that enterprise is working under the new paradigm. I also affirm that, for myself, the term "spirituality" conveys no meaning. I don't know what spirituality really is, though I see the word used constantly, almost promiscuously, everywhere--especially when people appear to be groping around trying to express the ineffable. Maybe it's ineffable for a good reason. I also dearly love Bach, but does every musician/composer since Bach compose within a Bachian framework?


To me there is a lot that doesn't add up about the scientific frameworks you mention, I don't think they are necessarily as solid and enduring as you are suggesting. There is evidence of highly advanced civilizations living in antiquity, our science cannot explain many of their achievements, nor can experts agree on timelines these civilizations existed. For example water erosion on the sphinx in Egypt suggests that structure was around when that geographical location had regular rainfall and a tropical climate, making it over 10,000 years old. If history as we have learned in school is inaccurate perhaps our knowledge of science is also only fragmentary and based on some false presumptions. I think it is naïve also not to consider the possibility that "science" as we look at it could be manipulated by big business to an extent and spun in certain ways within the education system for social engineering purposes. You talk of frameworks, but how long ago were people working with the flat earth framework? Hilariously that movement has made a comeback in some circles, but the point is science itself is not immune to corruption or immune from radical changes potentially making some of these frameworks obsolete. On the other hand fashions may change, but the arts never become obsolete, centuries after his death J.S. Bach's music is held in higher esteem now than when he was alive. As a society we generally treasure any and all art we can preserve from antiquity.


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## Mandryka

Strange Magic said:


> In matters of music and the arts, do we ever all agree?


Well yes. I think we'd all agree that the final canon from opfer is extraordinary, and expressive, and sensitive. Who would disagree? MacLeod just said that it did little for him, not that it was run of the mill, inexpressive and uncouth.

Let me give you another example. Scarlatti does nothing for me, but his sonatas are extraordinary, and expressive.

You see we're talking really about values, not about subjective responses.


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## Guest

Mandryka said:


> Something like "X manifests extraordinary expressive sensitivity" iff apart from those who are alexithymiac or anhedoniac (or suffer some other impairment which makes them unresponsive like deafness) *we would all agree *on the extraordinary expressive sensitivity of X.


No, we wouldn't. I don't, for a start, and I'm sure there are others, given that Baroque is something of a niche within CM. I'm assuming you're not saying that anyone who doesn't agree must be alexithymiac or anhedoniac by default?



tdc said:


> If history as we have learned in school is inaccurate perhaps our knowledge of science is also only fragmentary and based on some false presumptions.


Well, yes, broadly speaking, that's true, though I think 'false' presumptions goes a little too far, and 'fragmentary' underestimates the scale and range of scientific knowledge that we do have. What I learnt in school from 1963-1977 will doubtless have changed - gaps filled, theories overturned, explanations revised. Why else am I using the EB donated by my father in law as a door stop - it's seriously out of date!



tdc said:


> On the other hand fashions may change, but the arts never become obsolete, centuries after his death J.S. Bach's music is held in higher esteem now than when he was alive. As a society we generally treasure any and all art we can preserve from antiquity.


You seem to be suggesting that whilst science is either susceptible to corruption or to a refusal to embrace the new, art is somehow immutable. Both are dependent on our interaction with it for value and impact, and it is our interactions that are subject to change. It's not just about fashion.



Mandryka said:


> MacLeod just said that it did little for him, not that it was run of the mill, inexpressive and uncouth.
> 
> Let me give you another example. Scarlatti does nothing for me, but his sonatas are extraordinary, and expressive.
> 
> You see we're talking really about values, not about subjective responses.


That's only because I didn't think I'd need to go so far as to state the obvious - I don't find the music the way you do. That doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't, but it seems to me that it can't be asserted objectively that it is.



Mandryka said:


> You see we're talking really about values, not about subjective responses.


Are we? Would you expand on that?


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## Strange Magic

tdc said:


> To me there is a lot that doesn't add up about the scientific frameworks you mention, I don't think they are necessarily as solid and enduring as you are suggesting. There is evidence of highly advanced civilizations living in antiquity, our science cannot explain many of their achievements, nor can experts agree on timelines these civilizations existed. For example water erosion on the sphinx in Egypt suggests that structure was around when that geographical location had regular rainfall and a tropical climate, making it over 10,000 years old. If history as we have learned in school is inaccurate perhaps our knowledge of science is also only fragmentary and based on some false presumptions. I think it is naïve also not to consider the possibility that "science" as we look at it could be manipulated by big business to an extent and spun in certain ways within the education system for social engineering purposes. You talk of frameworks, but how long ago were people working with the flat earth framework? Hilariously that movement has made a comeback in some circles, but the point is science itself is not immune to corruption or immune from radical changes potentially making some of these frameworks obsolete. On the other hand fashions may change, but the arts never become obsolete, centuries after his death J.S. Bach's music is held in higher esteem now than when he was alive. As a society we generally treasure any and all art we can preserve from antiquity.


Alas tdc, you are leading us into regions of bizarre speculation: ancient civilizations with inexplicable powers, the Sphinx allegedly older than the Egyptians' own records of its construction (carved out of an obviously geologically old sandstone outcrop, just like Mount Rushmore is carved out of a granite batholith--maybe the carvings on Rushmore are millions of years old?). Of course the idea of science being manipulated by big business is a commonplace, as the tobacco apologists demonstrated for decades--thankfully science is self-correcting given enough time and open communication. And people once believed the earth was flat? Who knew? The idea is indeed making a comeback, as an amusement.

As you do accurately point out, science--a profoundly human activity--is not immune from corruption or from radical changes that make former frameworks obsolete: that latter is one of the defining hallmarks of science. Those said--and they are utterly commonplace observations--science remains our most reliable and actually honorable pathway toward understanding the world. Long ago I proposed that, in addition to a smattering of this 'n' that in high school--a bit of biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, etc., schools offer a course in the theory and practice of science itself--its methods, its goals, its requirements for accuracy, validation, proof. This would be much better than just handing down the current findings of science as received "facts".


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## Mandryka

MacLeod said:


> No, we wouldn't. I don't, for a start, and I'm sure there are others,


Ah I misunderstood. I thought you were saying just that the canon did nothing for you.

If it's not extraordinary, what's it like? What music does it resemble?

If it's inexpressive, you must be listening to a very poor performance. Try Dantone's own performance maybe!



MacLeod said:


> Are we? Would you expand on that?


Sure. I think there is a spectrum between the objectivity of a measurement of size and the subjectivity of "it does nothing for me" The task is to locate concepts like "extraordinary" and "expressive" on this spectrum.



MacLeod said:


> . I'm assuming you're not saying that anyone who doesn't agree must be alexithymiac or anhedoniac by default?


Well it's not a question of agreeing with me, it's a question of correctly applying these evaluative concepts, and I might a mistake about that -- just as I may make a mistake about what is just or courageous or friendly etc. We can discuss and argue about it, you may be right and I may be wrong. But the concepts of right and wrong apply with concepts like "expressive" and "extraordinary"

And there are hard cases, where we just have to wait to see how the concepts evolve. Is Gran Torso expressive?


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## Flamme

I ask another question...Can some1 be Genius and not be successful in the same time??? Can there be a ''little genius'' or they all GIGANTIC...


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## Guest

Mandryka said:


> Ah I misunderstood. I thought you were saying just that the canon did nothing for you.
> 
> If it's not extraordinary, what's it like? What music does it resemble?
> 
> If it's inexpressive, you must be listening to a very poor performance. Try Dantone's own performance maybe!
> 
> You see for me there is a spectrum between the objectivity of a measurement of size and the subjectivity of "it does nothing for me" The task is to locate concepts like "extraordinary" and "expressive" on this spectrum.
> 
> Well it's not a question of agreeing with me, it's a question of correctly applying these evaluative concepts, and I might a mistake about that -- just as I may make a mistake about what is just or courageous or friendly etc.


Perhaps we should rewind to the point where I reentered this discussion, having stepped out of a specific exchange with Woodduck.

I acknowledged the idea posted by Larkenfield that 'genius' might be identified by music that awakens the inner light. Whilst not entirely sure what exactly that means, I took the sense of it which is music that moves one 'spiritually' and offered an example of a CM composer (Sibelius) who does that for me - though I'd have to check with the reluctant Larkenfield that we're having comparable experiences.

No one has come back with a serious rebuttal of my offer, so I deduce that if he does it for me, and we know others have reported it too, that it's a reasonable offer. However, that's still a long way from asserting that he is, objectively, a genius.

Similarly, there are a number of composers whose merits I can recognise, and whose profound meaning for others I can also recognise - but whose impact I do not share. Dantone may assert that Bach's Musical Offering gives "extraordinary expressive sensitivity" and I can concded that it is so, for him. But not for me. Consequently, I reject Dantone's claim - assuming he makes it - that what he asserts about it is objectively true.

Whether I might one day yield to the delights of Bach remains to be seen. I generally find him (Organ Ts and Fs etc and the Brandenberg Concertos) too solemn, at times too melancholy, even dark. The genre and the ensemble does not awaken the inner light, and I'm mining other genres to find someone else who has the same impact as Sibelius.

As for "expressive" - if this has a specific musical meaning, I'm happy to be enlightened. If it means nothing more than effectively conveying thought or meaning (Oxford) then I have to say it's not effective, as I'm not picking up any idea or meaning.


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## Strange Magic

Flamme said:


> I ask another question...Can some1 be Genius and not be successful in the same time??? Can there be a ''little genius'' or they all GIGANTIC...


.

Interesting question. One facet of that question might be illuminated by reworking our old friend Bishop Berkeley's statement that To Be is to Be Perceived, to read: To Be a Genius, one must be Perceived to Be (or have been) a Genius. It's entirely possible that somebody invented/discovered calculus before Newton and Leibniz, and nobody heard, and he died penniless and alone in the poorhouse. Another example might be in mathematics where Genius A's quite remarkable breakthrough in mathematical analysis is later superseded by Genius B's later work pushing that analysis forward. After all, mathematics is a sealed, "finite" body of manipulations, all of whose properties (other than those which today require computers and now supercomputers to both explore and verify) are intrinsic already within the system, needing only to be revealed upon the development of the requisite tools. Not so true in the sciences.


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## eugeneonagain

Strange Magic said:


> Not so true in the sciences.


Surely also in the sciences. The subject matter of the core sciences is also something discovered. Quibbling theorists notwithstanding (and they also populate mathematics research).


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## Phil loves classical

tdc said:


> I borrowed this from another thread on Bach's Musical Offering:
> 
> If this isn't the work of genius, the word has no meaning. I bolded the "spirit over matter" part because it describes why I think musical geniuses like Bach are of a higher order than the scientific minds mentioned in this thread. When a scientist can come along and bridge science and the arts (and spirituality) like Bach did in his craft then I would place them on equal status. Tesla perhaps was a scientist of this calibre, its a shame much of his work has been suppressed.


Personally from my schooling and profession, I'm good at spotting mathematical patterns. But I don't find Bach very intriguing, although his music definitely has a rare clarity and reasoning, but I feel the opposite of this writer: that in embracing "science" and art, he ended up not succeeding in expressiveness (since it sounds too "calculated"), and is not really that stimulating to me intellectually. I feel Varese and Xenakis suceeded more in fusing science and art.

The "spirit over matter" is something I can't quite get from Bach, his music sounds too technical to me, and never quite takes flight for very long for me. I know this is not a popular view, but is how I feel.


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## Larkenfield

Bach… a giant. He wrote to the glory of God and voluminously without ego. If nothing else, his Goldberg Variations has been a star-maker, starting with Glenn Gould, and IMO represents one of the greatest journeys in the history of music, by circuling back to its beginning after his series of monumental variations. Here's a complete free download of Bach's organ works played by the marvelous James Kibble: http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/


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## Strange Magic

eugeneonagain said:


> Surely also in the sciences. The subject matter of the core sciences is also something discovered. Quibbling theorists notwithstanding (and they also populate mathematics research).


I did not make my point clearly enough. Mathematics holds pre-existing within itself all of its truths, axioms, proofs, theorems, whatever--they "just" need to be uncovered within the body of the whole. The sciences are always working on the edge of totally unknown terrain. Some of that terrain is suspected; sometimes a lot of it. But usually brand-new instrumentation is required to even begin to explore the new terrain; brand-new side disciplines are required to have been formulated and matured; brand-new hypotheses must be conjured up, often on a hunch. The elucidation of sea-floor spreading required the development of a host of such--hypotheses, ancillary disciplines with their own proofs, brand-new instruments--in order to become well enough established to then lead on to plate tectonics. Terra Incognita almost the whole way, with nobody actually knowing what would turn up next.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

Faustian said:


> "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." - Arthur Schopenhauer


Wow....what a great quote.


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> Bach… a giant. He wrote to the glory of God and voluminously without ego. If nothing else, his Goldberg Variations has been a star-maker, starting with Glenn Gould, and IMO represents one of the greatest journeys in the history of music, by circuling back to its beginning after his series of monumental variations. Here's a complete free download of Bach's organ works played by the marvelous James Kibble: http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/


Consistently fine writing throughout multiple threads... I extend both my compliments and a long overdue apology... Hope you'll accept both but if one and not the other - perfectly understandable...

Best wishes, NW


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> Bach… a giant. He wrote to the glory of God and voluminously without ego.


Here's an alternative view. The real geniuses of classical music are not those who wrote works only to be admired by the geniuses in the audience (not me, clearly, since I don't find Bach 'great') but those who wrote something that has permeated the consciousness of the general population. It's easy to write for the cognoscenti, much harder to write for the plebs.

(Take Barber's ghastly _Adagio for Strings _as an example.)


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## Strange Magic

MacLeod said:


> Here's an alternative view. The real geniuses of classical music are not those who wrote works only to be admired by the geniuses in the audience (not me, clearly, since I don't find Bach 'great') but those who wrote something that has permeated the consciousness of the general population. It's easy to write for the cognoscenti, much harder to write for the plebs.
> 
> (Take Barber's ghastly _Adagio for Strings _as an example.)


I believe you are on to something there. It does take a special gift to appeal to highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow audiences simultaneously. Prokofiev comes to (my) mind: the March from the _Love for Three Oranges_ was the theme music for a popular radio crime drama when I was a lad, and there are countless other examples of composers reaching "down" successfully, whether or not it was their intention. Reaching up, we have Bob Dylan as an example.


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## arnerich

Captainnumber36 said:


> 1. Is there any objective measure of Genius?
> 2. Is there any value we gain from using the word Genius?


Well if you're a VERY successful businessman and become a top T.V. Star then become President of the United States (on your first try) you might qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!


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## asiago12

Bach=Genius...........


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## millionrainbows

I'll stand behind my earlier post:

_Genius is a human thing, and if you've ever been in the presence of it, you will know it, believe me. For me, it was Itzhak Perlman.__

Genius is the manifestation of being. The only way to define or analyze it is in terms of "being."

In the absence of actual physical being, as is the case with Beethoven and Wagner, it seems the path to their "genius" standing was paved by their presence while they were alive, established, then carried on by remembrance and whatever evidence was left: the musical ideas, which were an expression of that being.

_And add that, beyond this, "genius" becomes a concept, an idea in a power structure, an idea in an ideology, whether that ideology is conscious or unconscious. Feminists are trying to dismantle the term, since it represents to them a male-dominated culture.


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## poconoron

Mozart = Genius.


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## jdec

Mozart = Genius
Beethoven = Genius
Bach = Genius
Brahms = Genius
Wagner = Genius
Schubert = Genius
Mahler = Genius
Tchaikovsky = Genius
Mendelssohn = Genius
Schumann = Genius
Chopin = Genius
Shostakovich = Genius
Debussy = Genius
Stravinsky = Genius
.
.
.
etc
etc


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## MarkW

I will say again, a little differently, that genius is possessed by one who, when doing what he does best, does it at a level that sits at the extreme righthand tail of the bell curve of all the things like it ever done.  How else can you define it?


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## flamencosketches

The composers I rate as totally genius: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin, Haydn, Wagner. Maybe Liszt, maybe Ravel, maybe Schoenberg - jury is still out on those 3. That doesn't even include all of my most favorites (and Wagner I hardly rate as a favorite at all) but I can't really throw that word around loosely in good conscience. One can be a really great composer and not a genius.


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## Enthusiast

It seems that genius is a relative term? We will probably all place the bar at different levels. I would probably place it quite high but would still want to include more than 20 composers between 1600 and 1950. That's a pretty good haul of geniuses for 350 years.


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## Agamemnon

In ordinary language 'genius' means somebody who overwhelms us with his unusual talent. Originally though, genius means creator. In the middle ages artists aimed at imitating nature which was regarded Gods creation. So they didn't sign their art works because God was assumed to be the author of it all. In modern times artists began to sign their art works because they became creators themselves. So a genius is anyone who puts his own name on their work. The two meanings can be combined into: the genius is the one who astonishes us with something new.


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## Agamenon

jdec said:


> Mozart = Genius
> Beethoven = Genius
> Bach = Genius
> Brahms = Genius
> Wagner = Genius
> Schubert = Genius
> Mahler = Genius
> Tchaikovsky = Genius
> Mendelssohn = Genius
> Schumann = Genius
> Chopin = Genius
> Shostakovich = Genius
> Debussy = Genius
> Stravinsky = Genius
> .
> .
> .
> etc
> etc


Bravo! IMHO Geniuses open new paths, create MASTERPIECES and they are recognized "yardsticks" .


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## paulbest

Only genius can recognize/ac-know (gnosis)ledge genius


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## paulbest

jdec said:


> Mozart = Genius
> Beethoven = Genius
> Bach = Genius
> Brahms = Genius
> Wagner = Genius
> Schubert = Genius
> Mahler = Genius
> Tchaikovsky = Genius
> Mendelssohn = Genius
> Schumann = Genius
> Chopin = Genius
> Shostakovich = Genius
> Debussy = Genius
> Stravinsky = Genius
> .
> .
> .
> etc
> etc


The list to say 1 M composers, Then the concept genius become a mute point. See what I mean?
If there are 1M composers all having genius, who is to say which is more /less than the other 9999999K...Clear?


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## jdec

paulbest said:


> The list to say 1 M composers, Then the concept genius become a mute point. See what I mean?
> If there are 1M composers all having genius, who is to say which is more /less than the other 9999999K...Clear?


1 M composers? What are you talking about. I just missed to list the remaining 20 or so composers that I consider geniuses.


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## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> The list to say 1 M composers, Then the concept genius become a mute point. See what I mean?
> If there are 1M composers all having genius, who is to say which is more /less than the other 9999999K...*Clear?*


It's almost clear, and when you tell us who are the million composers you have in mind, it will be perfectly clear. Can I be one of them? I've written stuff.


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## Woodduck

paulbest said:


> Only genius can recognize/ac-know (gnosis)ledge genius


How do you know that? Are you a genius?


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## millionrainbows

I see Paul's point. If "genius" is used too loosely, it becomes meaningless.

It's a special ability, due mainly to genetics, but _it must become manifest in being_ and identity.
It shows up in myriad ways, under myriad conditions.

Dogs are "geniuses" at smell, compared to us.


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## millionrainbows

Jayne Mansfield was a genius.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> I see Paul's point. If "genius" is used too loosely, it becomes meaningless.


Well, duh.

"Genius" is just a word we use to point out that a person's intellectual or artistic abilities and achievements are extraordinary and that most people couldn't reach that level even if they worked hard at it. There is no threshhold above which a composer is a "genius" and below which he is, say, just very talented (another indefinite and relative indicator).

What does it mean to use a word "too loosely" when there are no clear criteria for using it? I say composer A is a genius, you say he isn't. OK. Shall we argue about it? What for?


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## Guest

I think that in any sphere of the Arts, classical music included, it's virtually impossible to be categoric about which artists possess "genius" and which don't. It involves too much of a personal assessment of their qualities. 

In music, features like the quality of harmony, melody, rhythm, texture etc, are not measurable objectively in any precise, universally agreed manner. Even if each component was measurable in quality, how are they to be weighted together to form an overall assessment? It can't be done, except subjectively. I suppose that if a large number of people have the same overall assessment of certain composers, there might be some justification for loosely calling them "greatest" or whatever, but not "genius" as that term implies an absolute quality, not a relative one.

It's very difficult for anyone, even when based on their own preferences, to be confident about the dividing line between "genius" and non-genius, as is clear from a previous post, where there was no cut-off point identified in the list of composers. If I were to rank my favourite 100 composers, or list the top 100 composers according to my perception of their relative "greatness", I wouldn't be able to say that line should be. If I was really pushed, and had to make a choice, I might opt for something like my top 20, but others might have different cut-off points.


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## Larkenfield

I still like this definition: Genius refers to a combination of different creative attributes masterfully and superlatively used and considered unique to that composer—an overall quality that unmistakably separates and distinguishes a Mozart from a Beethoven from a Chopin from a Schumann from a Brahms from a Shostakovich, etc.—a unique gestalt that one composer has that no one else has—a unique combination of individuality and originality that is instantaneously recognizable in virtually everything they wrote and which elevates them above their peers.


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## Woodduck

Partita said:


> I suppose that if a large number of people have the same overall assessment of certain composers, there might be some justification for loosely calling them "greatest" or whatever, but not "genius" as that term implies an absolute quality, not a relative one.


"Greatest" is an absolute judgment, not a relative one. There's no way to apply it loosely, and with respect to art and artists it's presumptuous to apply it at all.

There may be degrees of genius - we can recognize in any number of composers the extraordinary amalgam of skill and inspiration we call by that name - but although there are degrees of greatness, there can be only one "greatest." If any composer actually deserves that tribute none of us can say definitively who it is, so unless we're claiming to have established the qualifications for greatness once and for all and to have figured out which composer fulfills them best, we'd do well to give up the pretense of saying which composer is "greatest." It's enough to learn to recognize which composers excel in particular accomplishments, and if we think they excel sufficiently there's no reasonable objection to recognizing their genius.


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## Captainnumber36

Woodduck said:


> "Greatest" is an absolute judgment, not a relative one. There's no way to apply it loosely, and with respect to art and artists it's presumptuous to apply it at all.
> 
> There may be degrees of genius - we can recognize in any number of composers the extraordinary amalgam of skill and inspiration we call by that name - but although there are degrees of greatness, there can be only one "greatest." If any composer actually deserves that tribute none of us can say definitively who it is, so unless we're claiming to have established the qualifications for greatness once and for all and to have figured out which composer fulfills them best, we'd do well to give up the pretense of saying which composer is "greatest." It's enough to learn to recognize which composers excel in particular accomplishments, and if we think they excel sufficiently there's no reasonable objection to recognizing their genius.


I'd just use the word brilliance in the place of genius b/c that latter has so much pretentiousness surrounding it.


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## Woodduck

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'd just use the word brilliance in the place of genius b/c that latter has so much pretentiousness surrounding it.


Do you really think so? When I read _King Lear_ or listen to _Gotterdammerung_ and am totally dumbfounded that a human being could actually conceive and execute such a visionary and powerful work, I don't say to myself, "What brilliance!"


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## Captainnumber36

Woodduck said:


> Do you really think so? When I read _King Lear_ or listen to _Gotterdammerung_ and am totally dumbfounded that a human being could actually conceive and execute such a visionary and powerful work, I don't say to myself, "What brilliance!"


It's really all semantics, in the end imo.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> "Greatest" is an absolute judgment, not a relative one.


Until we change our collective minds, of course.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Until we change our collective minds, of course.


No, it's always an absolute judgment. All superlatives are absolute judgments. They admit of no exceptions.

What collective mind? What are we, bees?


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## Woodduck

Captainnumber36 said:


> It's really all semantics, in the end imo.


"Semantics" shouldn't be cover for poor word choices. "Brilliance" is what I had in the fourth grade. "Genius" is what Shakespeare and Wagner had in creating their works.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> No, it's always an absolute judgment. All superlatives are absolute judgments. They admit of no exceptions.
> 
> What collective mind? What are we, bees?


We are members of the Hominidae, who live in groups and share beliefs, religions, myths, and so forth. That's our nature. Right now, _some _of us think Shakespeare is the bee's knees. Tomorrow, maybe not so much!

Today's absolute judgment is tomorrow's chuckle.


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## Captainnumber36

KenOC said:


> We are members of the Hominidae, who live in groups and share beliefs, religions, myths, and so forth. That's our nature. Right now, _some _of us think Shakespeare is the bee's knees. Tomorrow, maybe not so much!
> 
> Today's absolute judgment is tomorrow's chuckle.


Yes, there is such thing as reaching greater heights than previous achievements.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> We are members of the Hominidae, who live in groups and share beliefs, religions, myths, and so forth. That's our nature. Right now, _some _of us think Shakespeare is the bee's knees. Tomorrow, maybe not so much!
> 
> Today's absolute judgment is tomorrow's chuckle.


You're making a different point. An absolute judgment isn't necessarily a correct judgment. Superlatives are absolutes. The judgment "best" is absolute: "best" means "best." That doesn't mean the specific judgment is factual.

We don't have an argument here.


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## Guest

What I said was : _ "I suppose that if a large number of people have the same overall assessment of certain composers, there might be some justification for loosely calling them "greatest" or whatever, but not "genius" as that term implies an absolute quality, not a relative one."_

In this context, "greatest" wasn't meant to imply any single composer but a group of them relative to others who are less esteemed.

People could ask _"who are the most genius?_" composers, but this question doesn't sound quite right to me. It would make a little more sense if the question was "_which composers are geniuses?_" The trouble with this is that it implies that an absolute level of quality must be achieved to be admitted into the "genius" group. It would be very difficult to define a minimum level of quality.


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## Agamenon

Woodduck said:


> Do you really think so? When I read _King Lear_ or listen to _Gotterdammerung_ and am totally dumbfounded that a human being could actually conceive and execute such a visionary and powerful work, I don't say to myself, "What brilliance!"


I agree with you. Lear and Gotterdammerung are galaxies!


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## asiago12

Genius is someone who "invents" something.... 
Improve doesn't mean "Genius"...


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## infracave

asiago12 said:


> Genius is someone who "invents" something....
> Improve doesn't mean "Genius"...


OK but then what has Bach invented ?
He mainly improved on already common forms, perfecting them.

Same for Beethoven, Mozart, etc.
Haydn on the other hand, if we stick to your definition, is a greater genius as he "invented" the symphony and the string quartet.


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## Xisten267

infracave said:


> OK but then what has Bach invented ?
> He mainly improved on already common forms, perfecting them.
> 
> Same for Beethoven, Mozart, etc.
> Haydn on the other hand, if we stick to your definition, is a greater genius as he "invented" the symphony and the string quartet.


I agree with your point, but would like to mention that Haydn didn't really invent the symphony, it already existed before him in the works of Stamitz and Sammartini for example. Also, I would like to note that both Bach and Beethoven _were_ inventors: for example, the creation of the solo keyboard concerto can be attributed to the former while that of the cyclic lieder can be credited to the latter.


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## infracave

Allerius said:


> I agree with your point, but would like to mention that Haydn didn't really invent the symphony, it already existed before him in the works of Stamitz and Sammartini for example. Also, I would like to note that both Bach and Beethoven _were_ inventors: for example, the creation of the solo keyboard concerto can be attributed to the former while that of the cyclic lieder can be credited to the latter.


Oh yes, I wasn't thinking of An die ferne Geliebte. Good point.
Are you sure that Bach invented the keyboard concerto ? Wasn't it one of his sons ?


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## Ras

*IQ above 145 = Genius*

Above Average IQVery Gifted 145-160: A very small portion of the population fall into this category, about 0.1 percent, or 1 out of every 1000 people. Researchers are still divided as to whether or not having an extremely high IQ can have negative effects on a person later in life, possibly setting the foundation for depression and anxiety.Gifted 130-144: Two percent of the population possesses an IQ within this range. This is the point on the scale where IQ scores begin to deviate away from the cluster of scores shared by the general population. Historically famous composers were thought to have an IQ in or above this range given their innate musical talent.


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## flamencosketches

infracave said:


> Oh yes, I wasn't thinking of An die ferne Geliebte. Good point.
> Are you sure that Bach invented the keyboard concerto ? Wasn't it one of his sons ?


How could one of his sons have invented the keyboard concerto if Bach the father was doing it first? :lol:


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## Enthusiast

Ras said:


> Above Average IQVery Gifted 145-160: A very small portion of the population fall into this category, about 0.1 percent, or 1 out of every 1000 people. Researchers are still divided as to whether or not having an extremely high IQ can have negative effects on a person later in life, possibly setting the foundation for depression and anxiety.Gifted 130-144: Two percent of the population possesses an IQ within this range. This is the point on the scale where IQ scores begin to deviate away from the cluster of scores shared by the general population. Historically famous composers were thought to have an IQ in or above this range given their innate musical talent.


IQ tests measure IQ. There are plenty of people with very high IQ who have achieved little of note and are certainly not geniuses. There have probably been many geniuses with "average to high" IQs.


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## infracave

Enthusiast said:


> IQ tests measure IQ. There are plenty of people with very high IQ who have achieved little of note and are certainly not geniuses. There have probably been many geniuses with "average to high" IQs.


IQ/G factor correlates stronly with a lot of fields, including music.
See the first figue of the wiki article (Spearman's correlation table).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

I'd say that every great composers had a 140+ IQ score which allowed them to learn more quickly music than their less gifted fellow composers. 
But high IQ is just one of the prerequisites for a great composer. Just having a high IQ and knowing music does not turn you into one.


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## Enthusiast

^ A positive correlation is hardly surprising as IQ does genuinely measure a collection of cognitive abilities. The thing that worries me about equating it with genius is that to get a high IQ score one needs to be strong across the full range of cognitive abilities measured. A genius needs only to be strong in one or two of these (s/he could be very weak in others) and to also have something that we quite simply do not know how to measure. 

All these correlation findings are averages and genius is something very individual. It would not be surprising if a genius fell outside of this pattern. 

The idea that an IQ of more than 140 equates to genius is very out of date. And there are examples of people with IQs that high who have lower levels of achievement than the average.


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## Xisten267

infracave said:


> Oh yes, I wasn't thinking of An die ferne Geliebte. Good point.
> Are you sure that Bach invented the keyboard concerto ? Wasn't it one of his sons ?


Well, if the articles on wikipedia can be taken seriously, then yes. The first solo keyboard concerto according *to this article* is the Brandemburg Concerto No. 5, completed in 1721.

If you meant that one of J.S. Bach sons could have written the Brandemburg concertos, then I have to say that I find this unlikely.


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## asiago12

infracave said:


> OK but then what has Bach invented ?
> He mainly improved on already common forms, perfecting them.
> 
> Same for Beethoven, Mozart, etc.
> Haydn on the other hand, if we stick to your definition, is a greater genius as he "invented" the symphony and the string quartet.


Joseph Haydn was not the first to "invent" the symphony

The first symphonies came into existence in the 1730's around Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region. Ironically, the symphony can trace a large part of its origin to opera, the pinnacle of vocal classical music. Overtures, which were played at the beginning of Italian operas, were called Sinfonia's and that is where the modern symphony gets its name.

The first symphonies usually included only 3 movements and were written for much smaller orchestras (25-30 people), and they had much shorter lengths (10-20 minutes) than what their successors wrote symphonies for. They usually followed a fast-slow-fast movement structure with the first movement usually being an allegro, the second movement an andante, and the finale would be a dance movement based off of a dance that was popular at the time like a gigue or a minuet.

The most prominent composer of the earliest symphonies was Italian composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini.

https://spinditty.com/genres/The-Early-History-of-the-Symphony-Orgins-and-Evolving-Structure


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## Abdel ove Allhan

pssst…handel. Most of the ‘genius’ composers acknowledge him as “the MASTER”…even bach.


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## Abdel ove Allhan

asiago12 said:


> Joseph Haydn was not the first to "invent" the symphony


Haydn was the most ‘inventive’ composer. He was the master of invention. 104 symphonies? Each one a unique and marvelous gem. I’m not even going to get into the string quartets. Measures for measure he probably out composed Telemann. Beethoven was the master of development. Mozart was the master of melody. Bach was the master of polyphonic imitation. Oh, Handel was the master of them all.


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## hammeredklavier

Abdel ove Allhan said:


> pssst…handel. Most of the ‘genius’ composers acknowledge him as “the MASTER”…even bach.


Bach's alleged comments about Handel are probably not authentic because they're not from his authentic correspondences, or first hand eye-witness accounts.
The only instance Mozart actually praised Bach and Handel - was when he did indirectly by criticizing Eberlin, by comparing his 4-part writing to theirs. (Note that, btw, Mozart explicitly called Adlgasser and Haydn (M) "excellent contrapuntists" but not Bach and Handel.) He did Handel arrangements most likely because the Baroque music connoisseur Baron von Swieten paid him to. His "Bach arrangements", K.405 is nowadays regarded as spurious.

However, the disparaging remarks on Handel by Berlioz and Tchaikovsky are authentic because they're from their own writings (articles on music).


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## Abdel ove Allhan

hammeredklavier said:


> Bach's alleged comments about Handel are probably not authentic because they're not from his authentic correspondences, or first hand eye-witness accounts.
> The only instance Mozart actually praised Bach and Handel - was when he did indirectly by criticizing Eberlin, by comparing his 4-part writing to theirs. (Note that, btw, Mozart explicitly called Adlgasser and Haydn (M) "excellent contrapuntists" but not Bach and Handel.) He did Handel arrangements most likely because the Baroque music connoisseur Baron von Swieten paid him to. His "Bach arrangements", K.405 is nowadays regarded as spurious.
> 
> However, the disparaging remarks on Handel by Berlioz and Tchaikovsky are authentic because they're from their own writings (articles on music).


Wow, quite cynical of you to reduce Mozart's appreciation of H&B to money grubbing and ignoring the obviously meaningful acknowledgment of their previous genius in his K546. In particular the Adagio, an example of his emulation of Handel's dynamic and dramatic influence.
As for Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, I find them both to be unworthy in comparison to a supporating pustule on Handel's a$$.


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## hammeredklavier

Abdel ove Allhan said:


> Wow, quite cynical of you to reduce Mozart's appreciation of H&B to money grubbing and ignoring the obviously meaningful acknowledgment of their previous genius in his K546. In particular the Adagio, an example of his emulation of Handel's dynamic and dramatic influence.


I think the relation of Mozart's K.546 to Bach and Handel is a bit exaggerated. I find just as many relations between Haydn's (who, unlike Handel, actually sounds chromatic/dissonant like Mozart) Cum sanctis tuis (from his requiem, written in the same key) and sections of the credo of Missa sancti Hieronymi, and the Mozart fugue. (I can specify with links to the examples, if you want.) Other than the Mozartian chromaticism, the Adagio is a French overture. And of course, it's written specifically for van Swieten's concerts, (just cause van Swieten wanted it).


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## Xisten267

Xisten267 said:


> I agree with your point, but would like to mention that Haydn didn't really invent the symphony, it already existed before him in the works of Stamitz and Sammartini for example. Also, I would like to note that both Bach and Beethoven _were_ inventors: for example, *the creation of the solo keyboard concerto can be attributed to the former while that of the cyclic lieder can be credited to the latter.*


What is in bold is actually false, but I didn't know that at the time when I said this. There are cyclic lieder before Beethoven by less famous composers, and although it seems that Bach has one of the oldest surviving exemplars of a complete keyboard concerto in his Brandenburg #5, Handel has written a movement for organ and orchestra in his oratorio _Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno_ about a decade before the composition of that concerto, and there's also a certain William Babel who may have preceded both Bach and Handel in this.


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## HansZimmer

Abdel ove Allhan said:


> Haydn was the most ‘inventive’ composer. He was the master of invention. 104 symphonies? Each one a unique and marvelous gem. I’m not even going to get into the string quartets. Measures for measure he probably out composed Telemann. Beethoven was the master of development. Mozart was the master of melody. Bach was the master of polyphonic imitation. Oh, Handel was the master of them all.


And Haydn? Was he a master of what?


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## Abdel ove Allhan

HansZimmer said:


> And Haydn? Was he a master of what?


"He was the master of invention."


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## Abdel ove Allhan

hammeredklavier said:


> I think the relation of Mozart's K.546 to Bach and Handel is a bit exaggerated. I find just as many relations between Haydn's (who, unlike Handel, actually sounds chromatic/dissonant like Mozart) Cum sanctis tuis (from his requiem, written in the same key) and sections of the credo of Missa sancti Hieronymi, and the Mozart fugue. (I can specify with links to the examples, if you want.) Other than the Mozartian chromaticism, the Adagio is a French overture. And of course, it's written specifically for van Swieten's concerts, (just cause van Swieten wanted it).


"...a bit exaggerated." This after Mozart, who was relatively unfamiliar with both H&B per Mozart's own admission, arranged and played several works including oratorio's. “Nothing is played but fugues by Handel and Bach.” He also wrote home requesting fugues by Handel and Eberlin (whom as you mentioned M dismissed as trivial). Yes Lang downplays M's serious devotion to his settings of Handel's works yet they were revered through the 19th century, especiallty Messiah. The Mass in C minor composed the same year he became thoroughly acquainted with Handel's music literally quotes the Hallelujah in the Gloria. The K546 was also composed in 1783, contemporaneous with his visits with van Swieten. If it quacks like a duck as they say...and I'm certain Handel encountered French overtures in his various travels and most probably in England. His concerti grossi are rife with dotted 'Frenchified' overture-like preambles (Op.6, #10,5,2).


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## Kreisler jr

There are several Handel choruses used as models for choruses in Mozart's c minor mass, I never remember the details, but I think "The people shall hear" from Israel in Egypt and "Surely, he hath borne our griefs" or another one from the Passion section from Messiah.


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