# Always Praising the Same Music/The Dinosaurs are Among Us



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."

I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners. Beethoven was good too, but then there are all these amazing composers that are being neglected and a lot of composers being harshly criticised for no reason other than the listener does not like them.

We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):


Xavier said:


> I find almost no beauty, mystery, nobility, spirituality or elegance within his music. It also seems to me that many people in our cultural climate *pretend* to an enthusiasm in his music that they don't actually feel.
> 
> He remains, for me, one of those incredibly overhyped composers whose inspiration comes (if at all) only in the tiniest spurts. I think he will just continue to decline in esteem. There are so many composers out there who are better, and even some of them don't last.
> 
> I think Carter got by on a good deal of pretension, and not much else. History will put him as a footnote lower on the totempole from Daniel Auber.


oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.

I like the positive threads, especially the ones that praise the more neglected composers or the composers that insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists like. There was a good one on Zelenka that made me want to go and listen to a bit more of his music, but when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it. It's great that you love it, no-member-in-particular, but where are the threads about the beauty of Farrenc's Third? Or even something more famous like CPE Bach's Hamburg Symphony no. 2 Wq.183/2? Are people scared of neglected masterworks? Why do we always celebrate the same music all the time and sneer at all the modern stuff and not be bothered with the neglected stuff?"

CoAG
:tiphat:


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## Ramako

What meteor? What happened? What are all these strange two legged creatures walking about?


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## violadude

Wow, time sure does change people. I remember when you couldn't stop listening to Mozart's Operas and early symphonies, COAG. You listened to that recording of the Marriage of Figaro (I think it was that one) 8 or 9 times a day!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> Wow, time sure does change people. I remember when you couldn't stop listening to Mozart's Operas and early symphonies, COAG. You listened to that recording of the Marriage of Figaro (I think it was that one) 8 or 9 times a day!


Don Giovanni. But that was back in January. Don't you remember the other time when I was convinced I was female and started going on about female composers and how neglected they are in a world dominated by music composed by dead European men?


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Don Giovanni. But that was back in January. Don't you remember the other time when I was convinced I was female and started going on about female composers and how neglected they are in a world dominated by music composed by dead European men?


Yes, are you over that now too? lol


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> Yes, are you over that now too? lol


All music should be represented as *equal* now. If all music got a fair go at being listened to, the listeners can decide what they like and what they don't like. But since some music is more famous than others, they get more attention and more praise than neglected music which may be even better.


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## jani

I praise the music that i enjoy!
I don't praise someone just because they did something new, i praise it because i enjoy it.


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> All music should be represented as *equal* now. If all music got a fair go at being listened to, the listeners can decide what they like and what they don't like. But since some music is more famous than others, they get more attention and more praise than neglected music which may be even better.


That's the corporations keeping the little guy down. Fight the man, man!


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## StlukesguildOhio

You really are a high-school student. Certainly your post exhibits the sort of traditional high-school mentality that almost all of us have been exposed to at one time or another: "You listen to Led Zeppelin/Pink Floyd/The Police/Lady Gaga (add popular music of your choice and/or era)???! Ewwwww!!! How could you listen to that crap?! Everybody listens to that!!! I only listen to ___________ (insert name of obscure group whose records can only be special-ordered and imported)." Of course the insinuation is that by listening to something obscure and/or difficult you are inherently more sophisticated and musical intelligent. Of course the possibility that eludes such individuals is that there is a reason that some music is more popular than other music. Certainly this is true of classical music. Regardless of your personal tastes, a great many individuals... even those who have listened to as much or far more music than you... derive far more pleasure from listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms than they do from Varèse, Xenakis, Stockhausen or even (dare I say it) Ligeti. Indeed, they might even draw more pleasure from these composers than they do from Franz Anton Hoffmeister and Johann Joseph Fux. 

It is intriguing that among the aficionados of Medieval, Baroque, and Classical (the era) music you don't come upon a great many who bemoan the fact that Perotin, Dufay, Hildegard, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, etc... get mentioned more than some obscure composer or a pathological need to undermine these composers as "overrated" in order to draw attention to a less-well-known composer who just happens to be a favorite of the moment. Neither have I come upon the suggestion that other listeners are somehow overly conservative or otherwise deficient because they aren't aware of an appreciative of a broad array of Medieval/Baroque/Classical composers. It seems often that only the champions of Modernism and Contemporary music are hell-bent on shoving their music on everybody else, and if these listeners aren't interested... or worse yet, suggest that they really don't like what they've heard... well then we must make all sorts of snide insinuations about their listening abilities... if not their intellect. 

Personally, I listen to music for the pleasure it brings... not to impress anyone else. I make an effort to explore a wide range of music... classical and otherwise... because I am always on the look out for something new (to me) that will add to my pleasure and listening enjoyment, but I recognize that some composers... some music is better than others, and some speaks better to me. If I find something boring... or worse yet unpleasant or even painful to listen to, I move on. I don't go about searching for something obscure of unknown to others simply to look hip. 

I think that it is natural that everyone wishes to share the music they love. That is surely the basis behind this forum. The fact that some composers should be more loved than others doesn't seem the least bit surprising to me. If I happen to like Zelenka or Johann Fux or Charles Koechlin (which I do) and I wish to share these composers with others, the last thing I am going to do is begin by suggesting that I am here to save you all from your conservative listening habits and all those overrated composers like Bach, Handel, and Debussy. Instead I'll offer some examples of their work and perhaps make some comments as to what I like about it. 

By the way... it seems to me from looking at the "Current Listening" thread that the members here listen to quite a broad range of music. Perhaps its just that they all aren't fixated on Ligeti that has your panties all in a knot.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I praise the music that i enjoy!
I don't praise someone just because they did something new, i praise it because i enjoy it.

Bingo!

And I would add I certainly don't listen to something simply to impress others.


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## StlukesguildOhio

All music should be represented as equal...

Back on the Communist kick, are we? Unfortunately all music wasn't created equally.


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## Carpenoctem

This is a useless thread.

NO, not all music is the same, some compositions are more complex, they shine with brilliance, some are average, and some are bad.

So what if people make threads about how much they like Beethoven's 9th? It's a masterpiece.

Bach, Mozart. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms etc. are very highly praised for a reason.

Why should I pretend to be a hipster and listen to "hidden gems" if I like music by more famous composers?

I listen to music that gives me pleasure, sometimes relaxation and now and then I do get emotional, but that's the point isn't it?

You said Mozart is very popular among very limited conservative listeners? Sorry, I don't mean to insult you, but how old are you?

I know people who are in their 50s, have a HUGE listening experience and they adore Mozart.


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## Ramako

The slightly annoying thing is I actually agree with what CoAG is driving at. There are under-rated pieces of music that could be enjoyed better. Time has revealed some of these, but perhaps there are others. However, I disagree that this should be at the expense of timeless classics such as Beethoven 9 or Mozart's Requiem. Positivity is (almost) always better than negativity, as indeed he said in the original post - which could be said to defeat itself in this way.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Ramako said:


> The slightly annoying thing is I actually agree with what CoAG is driving at. There are under-rated pieces of music that could be enjoyed better. Time has revealed some of these, but perhaps there are others. However, I disagree that this should be at the expense of timeless classics such as Beethoven 9 or Mozart's Requiem. Positivity is (almost) always better than negativity, as indeed he said in the original post - which could be said to defeat itself in this way.


Mozart Reqiuem, Beethoven 9 etc. are great pieces and we shouldn't make them neglected just because we want to explore the unknown. The famous stuff is "there" and it's still gonna be famous and praising the famous stuff _is_ good, but exploration can unearth new wonders that may even deserve as much mention as the really famous classical music. I don't want to make everyone think that I'm forcing them to be "hipsters" by only listening to uknown works, but rather these unknown works can be better known and be given more praise from time to time. I don't want this thread to be about negativity towards listeners that prefer not to explore because they are at home with the famous composers, but rather the positivity of opening up our minds and realising the fact that these really famous works are only a very small portion of all the music that can be discovered by listeners.


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## BurningDesire

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Don Giovanni. But that was back in January. Don't you remember the other time when I was convinced I was female and started going on about female composers and how neglected they are in a world dominated by music composed by dead European men?


Well its kinda true. Great romantics like Clara Schumann hardly ever get mentioned, and genius contemporaries like Sofia Gubaidulina are always overshadowed by male colleagues like Schnittke (I love both btw). And then there's great female composers like Bjork and Yuki Kajiura who don't tend to be recognized because some people have a very narrow view of what music they choose to respect.

Even Hildegarde von Bingen, the oldest composer that we know (to my knowledge) had her name attached to her artistic output, and was quite imaginative as a composer, hardly gets mentioned, except when somebody is talking about female composers specifically.


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## Carpenoctem

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I don't want this thread to be about negativity towards listeners that prefer not to explore because they are at home with the famous composers, but rather the positivity of opening up our minds and realising the fact that these really famous works are only a very small portion of all the music that can be discovered by listeners.


By naming this thread Always praising the same music/ the dinosaurs among us this thread isn't really headed to positivity and discovery of new pieces.

But yes, I agree, I still have lots of exploring to do and I'm sure there are masterpieces that I've neglected!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Carpenoctem said:


> By naming this thread Always praising the same music/ the dinosaurs among us this thread isn't really headed to positivity and discovery of new pieces.
> 
> But yes, I agree, I still have lots of exploring to do and I'm sure there are masterpieces that I've neglected!


Well, yeah. I'm pessimistic even when I try to be positive. :lol:


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## BurningDesire

StlukesguildOhio said:


> It is intriguing that among the aficionados of Medieval, Baroque, and Classical (the era) music you don't come upon a great many who bemoan the fact that Perotin, Dufay, Hildegard, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, etc... get mentioned more than some obscure composer or a pathological need to undermine these composers as "overrated" in order to draw attention to a less-well-known composer who just happens to be a favorite of the moment. Neither have I come upon the suggestion that other listeners are somehow overly conservative or otherwise deficient because they aren't aware of an appreciative of a broad array of Medieval/Baroque/Classical composers. It seems often that only the champions of Modernism and Contemporary music are hell-bent on shoving their music on everybody else, and if these listeners aren't interested... or worse yet, suggest that they really don't like what they've heard... well then we must make all sorts of snide insinuations about their listening abilities... if not their intellect.


Uh yeah, excuse me? What do you call the mountain of praise for Mozart and Bach and Beethoven? Thats not shoving their music on everybody else? I've had my listening ability, taste, and intellect called into question because I fail to bow down on my hands and knees to the almighty Mozart (not neccessarilly all that on this forum, in general). If it weren't for people who clearly don't understand modern music, and have never taken the time to really 'get it', yet constantly bash and berate it, and call its innovators "charlatans" and mock them and call their music "not music", you probably wouldn't have folks who felt the need to defend these great artists that they love. (some great masterpieces you don't instantly enjoy, some things take time and effort.)

Also, you can't call yourself a "Classical Aficionado" if all you like from that period is Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. You can be an aficionado of those composers, but you can't call yourself one of that period because there's plenty of other composers, many of whom equal the achievements of your beloved deity Mozart. To call one's self an aficionado of that style but only know and listen to the obvious ones that EVERYONE knows is a lie. Its like calling yourself an aficionado of Baroque and all you've ever listened to is J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, it does not work that way.


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## science

Dinosaurs and conservatives have every right to exist and create threads about the music we love.


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## Bas

I'm going to say something controversial, probably.

I consider myself as a enjoyer of music, whose life has value primairly due to the fact that I can enjoy music the way I do (sometimes in a way that is almost trancendental). However, I'm not that much of a conservatist to decline that there is written good music by the non 'Beethoven/Mozartdian'-composers, yet there is a lot of avant-garde/a-tonal music that I do not enjoy, I enjoy some, however.

The fact that Mozart's Requiem is praised that much, must have a reason, other then people just being conservative. Your opening post suggest some sort of mass culture in the classical music. I disagree. The reason for Beethoven being praised as much as he is praised, and the same for Mozart, is because they both have an intrinsic quality that none of whatever avant-garde composer you are going to say that is better then them have. They are praised that much, because there music is more enjoyable then the avant garde. And the enjoyability factor is something that counts. I mean: we are not discussing music, listening music, attending to concerts if we were not enjoying the music.

Most people tend not to be enjoying atonal avant-garde works, not because they are dinosaurs, but because the factor of enjoyability in that genre is low, it is music only for some. Much like classical music is to a lot of people these days. Music for some, while pop music is for a greater mass.

The most important thing while listening, buying music is: do you enjoy it. And the Mozarts, the Beethovens and the Bachs - etcetera, etcetera, - were great enough to write music that centuries later is still enjoyed and considered great, or greatest, pieces of art. 
The Cages, Feldman's, don't.

Typically that you have not mentioned Bach in your 'conservatists' list - I will not call them dinosaurs, cause most of the time I agree with _them_, and I even think that there are a lot of people that like the more difficult anti tonal music just to be seen as more intelligent by others. Something of which I am not accusing you in particullary, since I don't know you. Bach was the very greatest composer of all time, since he have influenced almost any composer after him. You can like his music or not, he has been the most influential and musically genial people that have ever lived. His qualties are unmatched: the reason that his music lives on today, and will live on till the end of times.

I know a great lot of people that do not listen to classical music, that do enjoy a Beethoven Sonate if I let them hear one. None of them has ever liked a Morton Feldman piece (something I like, sometimes, meaning: certainly not everyday, but in the right mood, I can sure enjoy him).


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## Eschbeg

StlukesguildOhio said:


> It seems often that only the champions of Modernism and Contemporary music are hell-bent on shoving their music on everybody else, and if these listeners aren't interested... or worse yet, suggest that they really don't like what they've heard... well then we must make all sorts of snide insinuations about their listening abilities... if not their intellect.


And yet, on the Beethoven's 9th thread, in response to someone who dared to find fault with this exalted piece, someone wrote...



> But this is Beethoven we are talking about. He made the rules


...as if to imply that any perceived flaws with this piece are due to the listener's inability to grasp what Beethoven is doing. Apparently it's not only champions of modernism who place responsibility on listeners rather than almighty infallible composers.


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## Eschbeg

Bas said:


> The reason for Beethoven being praised as much as he is praised, and the same for Mozart, is because they both have an intrinsic quality


This is another example of what I was describing in the above post.



Bas said:


> *Your opening post suggest some sort of mass culture in the classical music. I disagree.* The reason for Beethoven being praised as much as he is praised, and the same for Mozart, is because they both have an intrinsic quality that none of whatever avant-garde composer you are going to say that is better then them have. They are praised that much, because there music is more enjoyable then the avant garde. And *the enjoyability factor is something that counts. I mean: we are not discussing music, listening music, attending to concerts if we were not enjoying the music*.


The first part of your post seems to suggest that the quality of Beethoven and Mozart can't be attributed simply to the tastes of "mass culture," but the second part of the post goes on to do exactly that: the quality of Beethoven and Mozart is proven by the fact that their music is enjoyed by masses of people attending concerts. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Granted, I'm not disagreeing with the factual content of what you say: it is an indisputable fact that Beethoven and Mozart are bigger concert draws than Carter and Feldman. But there's no point denying that there is a mass culture element in classical music, just like there is everywhere else. (Nor, for the record, do I think there's anything wrong with that.) However much we like to think of classical music as a totally insulated and intrinsically-rewarding endeavor far above the crassness of commercial entertainment, classical music does have a commercial element--recordings and concerts don't pay for themselves, after all--and Beethoven and Mozart are central to it.


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## BurningDesire

Bas said:


> I'm going to say something controversial, probably.
> 
> I consider myself as a enjoyer of music, whose life has value primairly due to the fact that I can enjoy music the way I do (sometimes in a way that is almost trancendental). However, I'm not that much of a conservatist to decline that there is written good music by the non 'Beethoven/Mozartdian'-composers, yet there is a lot of avant-garde/a-tonal music that I do not enjoy, I enjoy some, however.
> 
> The fact that Mozart's Requiem is praised that much, must have a reason, other then people just being conservative. Your opening post suggest some sort of mass culture in the classical music. I disagree. The reason for Beethoven being praised as much as he is praised, and the same for Mozart, is because they both have an intrinsic quality that none of whatever avant-garde composer you are going to say that is better then them have. They are praised that much, because there music is more enjoyable then the avant garde. And the enjoyability factor is something that counts. I mean: we are not discussing music, listening music, attending to concerts if we were not enjoying the music.
> 
> Most people tend not to be enjoying atonal avant-garde works, not because they are dinosaurs, but because the factor of enjoyability in that genre is low, it is music only for some. Much like classical music is to a lot of people these days. Music for some, while pop music is for a greater mass.
> 
> The most important thing while listening, buying music is: do you enjoy it. And the Mozarts, the Beethovens and the Bachs - etcetera, etcetera, - were great enough to write music that centuries later is still enjoyed and considered great, or greatest, pieces of art.
> The Cages, Feldman's, don't.
> 
> Typically that you have not mentioned Bach in your 'conservatists' list - I will not call them dinosaurs, cause most of the time I agree with _them_, and I even think that there are a lot of people that like the more difficult anti tonal music just to be seen as more intelligent by others. Something of which I am not accusing you in particullary, since I don't know you. Bach was the very greatest composer of all time, since he have influenced almost any composer after him. You can like his music or not, he has been the most influential and musically genial people that have ever lived. His qualties are unmatched: the reason that his music lives on today, and will live on till the end of times.
> 
> I know a great lot of people that do not listen to classical music, that do enjoy a Beethoven Sonate if I let them hear one. None of them has ever liked a Morton Feldman piece (something I like, sometimes, meaning: certainly not everyday, but in the right mood, I can sure enjoy him).


First, popular consensus doesn't prove anything. In the general group of classical music listeners, there is a very large group who love and consider the music of Mozart beautiful art. In the general group of romantic fiction readers, there is a very large group who love and consider Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series beautiful art. Neither of these large groups validate that quality in and of the fact that alot of people agree. (not saying Mozart is equivalent to Twilight, as I've said I do like Mozart, just making a point).

Secondly, there isn't music "only for some" as far as I'm concerned. There is personal taste, but you can find things that you love in a huge variety of different things. I am a romantic, I love music of the 19th century, and I also love Baroque and 20th Century works and rock and jazz and folk music, and electronic music, and I don't view them all differently. I view Tchaikovsky, and Boulez and Bach, and The Beatles and Sonic Youth and Daft Punk through my emotional and intellectual lens, through the eyes of a romantic, and I love their music from an emotional and intellectual standpoint. Some music takes some effort to enjoy, because some people just don't get it right away. I didn't like Boulez on first listen, I didn't even REALLY like The Rite of Spring on first listen compared to other music. But I actually gave it a chance and I can hear things in it I didn't on first listening, and I love this kind of music now. Thats why I accuse those who dismiss it when they don't immediately like it as lazy, because they are.

Lastly, you can say that about so many composers. Why don't we say Palestrina is the greatest composer of all time, because he influenced all those who came after him, including Bach? Measuring influence is a pretty shaky thing anyway, you could say somebody was obviously influenced by somebody, but they may never have even heard that person's music, and do we even take into account anti-influence, when a composer hears something they really don't like, and that causes them to avoid writing a certain way?


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## Bas

Eschbeg said:


> This is another example of what I was describing in the above post.
> 
> The first part of your post seems to suggest that the quality of Beethoven and Mozart can't be attributed simply to the tastes of "mass culture," but the second part of the post goes on to do exactly that: the quality of Beethoven and Mozart is proven by the fact that their music is enjoyed by masses of people attending concerts. I don't think you can have it both ways.
> 
> Granted, I'm not disagreeing with the factual content of what you say: it is an indisputable fact that Beethoven and Mozart are bigger concert draws than Carter and Feldman. But there's no point denying that there is a mass culture element in classical music, just like there is everywhere else. (Nor, for the record, do I think there's anything wrong with that.) However much we like to think of classical music as a totally independent endeavor far above the crassness of commercial entertainment, classical music does have a commercial element--recordings and concerts don't pay for themselves, after all--and Beethoven and Mozart are central to it.


I guess that is the language barrier of not being native and not always being able to express waht I wanted to say. There probably is a mass inside the classical music culture. However one must not regard that as a bad thing: not in the sense that for example one can consider the pop music mass culture of a Justin Bieber as a bad thing, as his music lacks of any quality.

Whereas the classical mass culture does have it's origin in the quality.

What I was trying to explain was: the quality is not proven by the more people that listen to it. More listeners is not a way to measure quality. More people listen to it, because of the quality, because part of the quality is enjoyability.


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## science

Bas said:


> I know a great lot of people that do not listen to classical music, that do enjoy a Beethoven Sonate if I let them hear one. None of them has ever liked a Morton Feldman piece.


I'd be surprised if this is true. The Kronos Quartet has made a very good living selling recordings of composers like Feldman to people who wouldn't expect to enjoy classical music.

One of my students, who continues to be a fan primarily of Nirvana and Radiohead, opened to jazz the moment he heard Coltrane's Ascension and to classical music the moment he heard Crumb's Black Angels. I suspect it'll be ten years before he gets around to Beethoven, and I doubt that playing a Beethoven sonata would've had the same instant effect. The point is, different people like different things.


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## Eschbeg

Bas said:


> There probably is a mass inside the classical music culture. However one must not regard that as a bad thing


Yes, I'm completely in agreement with that, as I mentioned.



Bas said:


> the quality is not proven by the more people that listen to it. More listeners is not a way to measure quality. More people listen to it, because of the quality, because part of the quality is enjoyability.


But this is a circular argument. You may not want to attribute musical quality simply to masses of listeners, but that is exactly what you're doing when you turn to "enjoyability" instead. By definition, the word "enjoyability" presupposes people who are doing the enjoying: i.e. _listeners_. So it does come down to listeners after all. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with that; I just think you might as well be explicit and honest about it.


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## aleazk

Always Praising the Same Music/The Dinosaurs are Among Us.
OMG!


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## Ramako

aleazk said:


> Always Praising the Same Music/The Dinosaurs are Among Us.
> OMG!












now just where are those dinosaurs? 

All these people, disrupting the thread, talking about the value of music, mass culture in classical audiences, I don't know...


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## TresPicos

If famous classical works are famous because of their high quality, it doesn't automatically follow that less famous works are of less quality, or that unknown works lack quality. Which is why many of us keep searching for hidden gems. They exist. And they will continue to exist as long as we let a handful composers and works take up most of our attention. 

Famous works do benefit from a "fame amplification" mechanism, where a famous work automatically will be played more often, and therefore will be liked by more people, and therefore will be played more often, and therefore will receive an iconic status, and therefore will symbolize "great music" and be liked by even more people and be played even more etc. So, Mozart's Requiem will end up being 100 or 1000 times more famous than Cherubini's, although it might only be twice as good. 

There seems to be a need for icons everywhere, including classical music, so over time we establish a set of iconic composers and iconic works, partly based on quality and partly based on other things, including chance. And while those composers and those works deserve their fame, maybe none of them deserve their icon status. 

Perhaps a Top 100 Composers list would be more in tune with reality if Bach, Beethoven and Mozart ended up on 11th, 12th and 13th place, with the top 10 left empty, because no composer actually deserves the extremely disproportionate fame boost a top 10 position would give. Bach was a master. A great master. Even one of the greatest. But he wasn't the super-mega-godzilla-hero master we make him out to be, because such notions only exist in our limited human minds.


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## StevenOBrien

Here we go again, treating classical music as a single genre and berating people that don't take the time to listen and understand music outside of their tastes.


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## PlaySalieri

Great thread.
But I think you will find there are enough people on this board saying Mozart is over rated to offset any disappointment you may feel in Ligeti being ignored.


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## Taneyev

I like to explore on composers. If you look at my diary list of listening, you'll find dozens of names of nearly unknown composers I like. Of the "great" names, I've already all I want or need, and don't look for anything else except some very rare and forgotten historical recording. But never loose time listening or trying of understand music I don't like at first hearing. If I didn't like then, I know that I would never like it.


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## bigshot

This topic is absurd. Greatness is greatness independent of how popular it is, how old it is or how often it's discussed. Declaring great music to be old hat for these sorts of reasons is just snobbishness.


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## Ramako

There are good things about listening to one piece a lot. One comes to appreciate all its little nuances.

As a composer I find a lot of advantages in this, as well as listening to a lot of one (or a few composers) to try and understand how they work, and what makes their music great.

It is not clear whether it is better to be broad-minded in this context or not - after all, there is no point in learning how a composer works in detail if you hate his music - for the purposes of composition that is. It may be generally educational of course. Under-rated masterpieces have been extremely useful in this way in the past. Mozart learned a great deal from J.S. Bach who was not well appreciated at the time. Both are great composers.


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## Ralfy

I do not understand why composers have to be seen as over-rated just so that one will listen to others.


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## PlaySalieri

There's really nothing to be upset about any more than I would be upset at being called a dinosaur for being a Mozart maniac. You should feel proud that you have the intellect to enjoy and understand Ligeti while the rabble graze on the 4 seasons and eine kleine natchsmusik.


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## Guest

Eschbeg said:


> Apparently it's not only champions of modernism who place responsibility on listeners rather than almighty infallible composers.


Good observation, though I think "almighty infallible composers" does distort the situation ever so slightly.

Composers just have a job to do. They put sounds together.

Listeners also have a job to do. They listen to the music.

These are different activities. Related but different. But there are different responsibilities for each activity, as one would expect. Nothing personal. Just the logic of the situation.

People do seem to get their noses bent out of shape about this situation pretty easily, though. I don't understand.


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## NightHawk

i agree with CoAG, as well, but in the face of it listen to Haydn Quartets, Mozart Operas, Beethoven Piano Trios, and much other 'dinosaur' music, as well as moderns. I think the difference is 'how one listens' - I don't think anyone really ever gets to the bottom of some works - as an example: Beethoven String Quartet in C# Minor. A person could certainly get weary of it, but discovering the almost unparalleled unity in the high level diversity of the 7-movement work could take years of dedicated study (depending on a person's ear and analytical gifts). I'm only saying that there are always deeper levels of appreciation to the 'classics' of any era and repeated listening brings greater perception. I'm developing a library of scores and this has added a great dimension to the 'Fossil Record' of 'Dinosaur Music' for me. 



Ramako said:


> The slightly annoying thing is I actually agree with what CoAG is driving at. There are under-rated pieces of music that could be enjoyed better. Time has revealed some of these, but perhaps there are others. However, I disagree that this should be at the expense of timeless classics such as Beethoven 9 or Mozart's Requiem. Positivity is (almost) always better than negativity, as indeed he said in the original post - which could be said to defeat itself in this way.


----------



## Andreas

There is definitely a problem with the growing number of Old Masters clogging up concert programmes and radio airplay and recording studio sessions.

As much as I love Beethoven, I sometimes wonder why any conductor would feel the irresistable urge to add yet another cycle of his symphonies to the catalogue.

But then again, I could ask myself: why do I have eight or nine different recordings of the Bruckner Fifth or the Brahms Fourth? Could have spent that money on something New, something Contemporary.

Listeners are, for the most part, conservative. The better you know a piece, the higher you can regard your own opinion on it, the easier it is to judge a performance with a feeling of conviction. That's a great plus.

People like to listen to Certified Masters. They say to themselves: Who is this newcomer composer? Never heard of him. Maybe he is a complete fraud? I'm not gonna waste my time finding it out, I'll rather listen to something that's certain!

Also, people are nostalgic, even abouth times they never lived in. Ah, the Victorian Age, what a marvellous period! Castles, courts, horse carriages, those were the days! Nothing wrong with that, though, not at all. Bach and Mozart take you back in time, and many people love that.

If you listen to whatever you like, you can't go wrong. If you're a conservative, so be it. If you prefer being a champion of unknown composers, great. The conservatives will always be in the majority because that's just how people are.


----------



## Vaneyes

science said:


> Dinosaurs and conservatives have every right to exist and create threads about the music we love.


Yes, and to those others...them...just don't bang me over the head with Schnittke, Berio, Nono, and Ligeti. :lol:


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## Vaneyes

Ralfy said:


> I do not understand why composers have to be seen as over-rated just so that one will listen to others.


How dare you spout wisdom.


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## Ukko

Ralfy said:


> I do not understand why composers have to be seen as over-rated just so that one will listen to others.


I think it's just psycho-logy.


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## jani

You don't receive very much fame only with music, you have to think about your Image too and do stuff what helps you to spread your music. One reason why Mozart is so known today are the endless documentaries,books, CD's, Media/internet and merchandise.
Mozart became more known after his death because his wife started to spread his music etc...


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## Vaneyes

"Any womb for Mozart?"

View attachment 6528


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## Very Senior Member

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love.


Have you thought about seeking to become a Moderator with special responsibilty for rationing the number of threads relating to Mozart and Beethoven?

I'm sure you would be ........Er, how can I put without offending your feelings?

Not very successful?

But give it a whirl. You never know.


----------



## Philip

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."
> 
> I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners. Beethoven was good too, but then there are all these amazing composers that are being neglected and a lot of composers being harshly criticised for no reason other than the listener does not like them.
> 
> We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):
> 
> oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.
> 
> I like the positive threads, especially the ones that praise the more neglected composers or the composers that insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists like. There was a good one on Zelenka that made me want to go and listen to a bit more of his music, but when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it. It's great that you love it, no-member-in-particular, but where are the threads about the beauty of Farrenc's Third? Or even something more famous like CPE Bach's Hamburg Symphony no. 2 Wq.183/2? Are people scared of neglected masterworks? Why do we always celebrate the same music all the time and sneer at all the modern stuff and not be bothered with the neglected stuff?"
> 
> CoAG
> :tiphat:


That's the teenage hormones talking...


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## Eschbeg

some guy said:


> People do seem to get their noses bent out of shape about this situation pretty easily, though. I don't understand.


I don't either. I can't prove this, but I would guess that listeners of classical music are more likely than listeners of any other genre to believe that musical quality is something that inheres in artworks independent of anyone's personal tastes, which puts the onus on listeners rather than composers. Thus all the talk of "intrinsic" qualities you find on this site.


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## Toddlertoddy

Isn't this the same thing as "Why are you not exploring x genre?" It's because they're comfortable where they are and don't feel like exploring.


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## BurningDesire

Odnoposoff said:


> I like to explore on composers. If you look at my diary list of listening, you'll find dozens of names of nearly unknown composers I like. Of the "great" names, I've already all I want or need, and don't look for anything else except some very rare and forgotten historical recording. But never loose time listening or trying of understand music I don't like at first hearing. If I didn't like then, I know that I would never like it.


Just keep your earplugs in, god forbid you expand your horizons and grow as a human being.


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## BurningDesire

Eschbeg said:


> I don't either. I can't prove this, but I would guess that listeners of classical music are more likely than listeners of any other genre to believe that musical quality is something that inheres in artworks independent of anyone's personal tastes, which puts the onus on listeners rather than composers. Thus all the talk of "intrinsic" qualities you find on this site.


I don't talk of intrinsic quality in art, I only think, as somebody who has explored things she didn't immediately love, and wound up finding ever more great art, that people should be more open-minded, and should explore more. If they don't want to, fine, but then don't go bashing the art you haven't taken the time to understand.


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## beetzart

I started a thread about Beethoven's 9th because it is the greatest piece ever written. That thread will soon disappear from page 1 and a few months later someone else will start one. I don't see many threads about Clementi, what half a dozen at most. I think Muzio is highly underrated and possibly just thought of as that chap who wrote those little sonatinas for kids to play in piano lessons. Listen to his capriccios in C and E minor, they are quite remarkable with such depth of feeling, not a mere mechanicus at all. Or his op 50 sonatas, absolute brutes to play, for me at least, but again stunning and sadly underplayed.

How about Dussek? His piano sonata in F minor is a fine precursor to what Beethoven produced.

Then Hummel. The F sharp minor sonata is years ahead of it's time, plus the one in F minor, and his fantasy in E flat, op 18. Sadly Nepomuk lets himself down with a couple of poor sonatas that appear lazy. 

Alkan? Very neglected and underrated compared to Liszt and Chopin. He used the piano not only as a mere instrument but as a blank canvas that he incredibly painted with strange, and eerie images.

I like the Bach brothers too and have started to play some of their works. Plus Cramer and Field.


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## Ukko

BurningDesire said:


> I don't talk of intrinsic quality in art, I only think, as somebody who has explored things she didn't immediately love, and wound up finding ever more great art, that people should be more open-minded, and should explore more. If they don't want to, fine, but then don't go bashing the art you haven't taken the time to understand.


Aw jeez, you had to type _'art'_, dintcha. Naturally, given the subject matter, I immediate thought of welded trash in an art exhibit. Some of us geezers tend to think of modern music and Modern Art as different things; you ain't helping.


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## Ramako

Eschbeg said:


> listeners of classical music are more likely than listeners of any other genre to believe that musical quality is something that inheres in artworks.


I think there's a reason for this but I'm not going to sat more for fear of becoming extinct


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## kv466

Come on Coag,...the alleged dinosaurs have as much right as you do with your already way too familiar rants on Ligeti that make even Polednice's love affair with Brahms seem minuscule. I guess that is one way to make it to the top posters of all time list in less than a year, you little Dilophosaurus.


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## Ramako

^

lol For a moment I thought that the word beginning with L at the bottom was Ligeti


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## aleazk

CoAG is rigth. This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.


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## Ukko

aleazk said:


> CoAG is rigth. This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.


Even considering my ignorance about what an "amateur listener" is, I think you have the nature of this forum pretty much wrong. Well, if you'd care to change 'very well informed' to 'highly opinionated' (and not just about music), I'd say 'right on'.

Viva opinionated.


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## Sonata

I'd say there is a wide range of posters; from very well-informed to brand new to classical. I kind of like the variety of posters actually.


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## aleazk

Hilltroll72 said:


> Even considering my ignorance about what an "amateur listener" is, I think you have the nature of this forum pretty much wrong. Well, if you'd care to change 'very well informed' to 'highly opinionated' (and not just about music), I'd say 'right on'.
> 
> Viva opinionated.


Well, if the kind of discussion in what seems to be the best classical music forum in the internet is about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem, that's really disappointing. 
And certainly I prefer 'very well *informed*' to 'highly opinionated'.


----------



## aleazk

Sonata said:


> I'd say there is a wide range of posters; from very well-informed to brand new to classical. I kind of like the variety of posters actually.


The problem is that some people simply say nonsense like this, for example:



> The reason for Beethoven being praised as much as he is praised, and the same for Mozart, is because they both have an intrinsic quality that none of whatever avant-garde composer you are going to say that is better then them have.


C'mon!, really?, and we need to discuss with this?.


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## jani

You could always make a group for the " Very well informed".
If you can't stand the new/average classical listeners.


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## aleazk

jani said:


> You could always make a group for " Very well informed".
> If you can't stand the new/average classical listeners.


You are missing the point here. The problem is when some people make strong opinions about things that they don't know.


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## Ukko

aleazk said:


> Well, if the kind of discussion in what seems to be the best classical music forum in the internet is about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem, that's really disappointing.
> And certainly I prefer 'very well *informed*' to 'highly opinionated'.


I don't doubt that you _prefer_ 'informed' to 'opinionated', but it is what it is.


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## jani

aleazk said:


> You are missing the point here. The problem is when some people make strong opinions about things that they don't know.


Well when someone says that " Mozarts requiem is the best piece of music writen" Its based on their opinion at that moment.


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## aleazk

jani said:


> Well when someone says that " Mozarts requiem is the best piece of music writen" Its based on their opinion at that moment.


Opinions are highly overrated. Of course, anybody can say his opinion, and I respect his liberty to say it. Now, the respect for the content of that opinion, that's another thing. Personally, I value well informed opinions, and actually with some intellectual content. If you come to a classical music forum to talk about the greatness of one of the most known pieces of classical music, sorry, but I want something more interesting.


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## kv466




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## TresPicos

beetzart said:


> I started a thread about Beethoven's 9th because it is the greatest piece ever written.


No, it isn't.


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## jani

TresPicos said:


> No, it isn't.


With the words of COAG

YOUR OPINION IS WRONG


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## jani

aleazk said:


> Opinions are highly overrated. Of course, anybody can say his opinion, and I respect his liberty to say it. Now, the respect for the content of that opinion, that's another thing. Personally, I value well informed opinions, and actually with some intellectual content. If you come to a classical music forum to talk about the greatness of one of the most known pieces of classical music, sorry, but I want something more interesting.


Well you could always just ignore those threads/conversations.


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## StlukesguildOhio

BurningDesire- Uh yeah, excuse me? What do you call the mountain of praise for Mozart and Bach and Beethoven? Thats not shoving their music on everybody else?

There is a huge difference between a lot of individuals declaring that they like this of that work by Mozart or Beethoven and someone insinuating that those who like Mozart and Beethoven and aren't all that thrilled with Xenakis are "dinosaurs". The reality is that there have been negative comments made about nearly every composer you can name: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Strauss, etc... Those who disagree may suggest that you listen to this or that work, but they rarely get into a great uproar. Wagner may be the sole exception... and that is probably owed to the fact that the criticism of Wagner rarely has to do with the experience of the music, and instead deals with non-musical elements such as his racial beliefs, the Nazis, etc...

I've had my listening ability, taste, and intellect called into question because I fail to bow down on my hands and knees to the almighty Mozart (not neccessarilly all that on this forum, in general).

And so you should.

If it weren't for people who clearly don't understand modern music, and have never taken the time to really 'get it', yet constantly bash and berate it, and call its innovators "charlatans" and mock them and call their music "not music", you probably wouldn't have folks who felt the need to defend these great artists that they love.

But don't you see the irony here? You are suggesting that those who aren't overly fond of modern music (or some aspects of "modern music" considering the vast range of music that is entailed therein) don't understand it, and haven't taken the time to "get it"... and yet in turn you bristle when others assume that same is true of you with regard to Mozart.

Is it not possible that some of those who dislike certain aspects of modern music have indeed listened to it, "get it" and still don't like it?

I hate Liver and Lima Beans... and the fact that I had to eat these on many occasions (and thus am experienced) in no way changes my opinion. I highly doubt that "getting it" as in accepting the explanation as to how good these foods are and how good they are for me will make me like them any more.

Also, you can't call yourself a "Classical Aficionado" if all you like from that period is Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. You can be an aficionado of those composers, but you can't call yourself one of that period because there's plenty of other composers, many of whom equal the achievements of your beloved deity Mozart. To call one's self an aficionado of that style but only know and listen to the obvious ones that EVERYONE knows is a lie. Its like calling yourself an aficionado of Baroque and all you've ever listened to is J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, it does not work that way.

I'm uncertain that one need to be both knowledgeable of the whole of "classical music" to be seen as a "classical aficionado". I somewhat doubt that even conductors such as von Karajan or Furtwangler or Boulez were deeply versed in the Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music. Do I claim to be such an aficionado myself? I would say I am a somewhat reasonably well-informed classical music lover. I have some 3000 CDs which range from Byzantine Chant through Osvaldo Golijov, and I am always on the outlook for new (to me) music on Spotify and other sources. I certainly am more well-informed with regard to some periods than others. On the other hand, if my experience of the "Classical Era" (which includes having listened not only to Mozart and Haydn, but also Boccherini, Gluck, Stamitz, Gossec, Mysliveček, von Dittersdorf, Michael Haydn, J.C. Bach, Kraus, Hoffmeister, Cherubini, Rossini, John Field, Reicha, Spohr, Hummel, etc...) then it would seem that very few are qualified to suggest that Mozart was the best composer of the era. On the other hand... as you have made the statement (no doubt based in a deep and profound grasp of the whole of the music of the era) that there are many composers of the classical era whose achievements equal that of Mozart, please do inform me as to who these composers might be. I would surely be interested in listening to their work.


----------



## aleazk

jani said:


> Well you could always just ignore those threads/conversations.


Yes, that's what I actually do. If people want those threads, fine. I have expressed my point.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Tres Picos- If famous classical works are famous because of their high quality, it doesn't automatically follow that less famous works are of less quality, or that unknown works lack quality. Which is why many of us keep searching for hidden gems. They exist. 

Yes indeed. And surely the reason many of us are here is to share what we know and love with others... and in the process perhaps discover more of such hidden or unknown (to us) gems. On the other hand... for all the marvelous composers I have stumbled upon or been introduced to, none of them have struck me as dwarfing Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner or Bach.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I don't talk of intrinsic quality in art, I only think, as somebody who has explored things she didn't immediately love, and wound up finding ever more great art, that people should be more open-minded, and should explore more. If they don't want to, fine, but then don't go bashing the art you haven't taken the time to understand.

"Should"? "SHOULD"?? Why??

There is no "should" in what an individual takes pleasure in. That sounds far to close to MUST. You MUST listen to Ligeti and Xenakis and you MUST enjoy them.

And isn't this just the flip side of the coin?: You SHOULDN'T listen to XYZ and you SHOULDN'T enjoy PDQ (Bach or otherwise).


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

BurningDesire said:


> Also, you can't call yourself a "Classical Aficionado" if all you like from that period is Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. You can be an aficionado of those composers, but you can't call yourself one of that period because there's plenty of other composers, many of whom equal the achievements of your beloved deity Mozart. To call one's self an aficionado of that style but only know and listen to the obvious ones that EVERYONE knows is a lie. Its like calling yourself an aficionado of Baroque and all you've ever listened to is J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, it does not work that way.


Who cares what folks describe themselves as. By discussing say Baroque music with them, either online or in the real world, one gets a good impression with regards to their preference and their overall listening experience; including yours, member BurningDesire, judging by your posts.

I, HarpsichordConcerto, consider myself a Grand Baroque Master Listener of the highest possible order, much higher than the unwashed common aficionado. And I make no apologies for declaring as such.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.

I thought this was a forum open to listeners of classical music of every sort and degree of experience. Does one come to the point of outgrowing Beethoven's 9th and Mozart's _Requiem_? I must say I hope I never reach that stage.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I, HarpsichordConcerto, consider myself a Grand Baroque Master Listener of the highest possible order, much higher than the unwashed common aficionado. And I make no apologies for declaring as such.

Did you get the wig and the secret decoder ring with that title?:lol:


----------



## moody

BurningDesire said:


> Just keep your earplugs in, god forbid you expand your horizons and grow as a human being.


Give it a break !!


----------



## Bas

aleazk said:


> The problem is that some people simply say nonsense like this, for example:
> 
> C'mon!, really?, and we need to discuss with *this*?.


Yeah, if you'd have been more polite, and less of a ignorant snob, calling me a 'this' without knowing me, without knowing my expierence with music, my knowledge of music, but considering yourself as someone superior, we might be able to have a discussion. Yet, when making statements like you did: as someone with a 'greater' knowledge (according of course to your own assumptions) I must have an opinion that is worth more...

I don't feel like I want to discuss with you. 
I then will have a discussion with people that consider me as equal to them, have respect for my opinion, like I'll have for theirs, like I have for everyones, except yours: cause it is a plain insult.


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## Ukko

moody said:


> Give it a break !!


Moody! You are back! And still a shining example of Sweetness and Light.


----------



## moody

Hilltroll72 said:


> Moody! You are back! And still a shining example of Sweetness and Light.


I didn't mean to be but I could not bear what I was seeing !


----------



## moody

aleazk said:


> CoAG is rigth. This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.


Keep wishing !


----------



## BurningDesire

StlukesguildOhio said:


> BurningDesire- Uh yeah, excuse me? What do you call the mountain of praise for Mozart and Bach and Beethoven? Thats not shoving their music on everybody else?
> 
> There is a huge difference between a lot of individuals declaring that they like this of that work by Mozart or Beethoven and someone insinuating that those who like Mozart and Beethoven and aren't all that thrilled with Xenakis are "dinosaurs". The reality is that there have been negative comments made about nearly every composer you can name: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Strauss, etc... Those who disagree may suggest that you listen to this or that work, but they rarely get into a great uproar. Wagner may be the sole exception... and that is probably owed to the fact that the criticism of Wagner rarely has to do with the experience of the music, and instead deals with non-musical elements such as his racial beliefs, the Nazis, etc...
> 
> I've had my listening ability, taste, and intellect called into question because I fail to bow down on my hands and knees to the almighty Mozart (not neccessarilly all that on this forum, in general).
> 
> And so you should.
> 
> If it weren't for people who clearly don't understand modern music, and have never taken the time to really 'get it', yet constantly bash and berate it, and call its innovators "charlatans" and mock them and call their music "not music", you probably wouldn't have folks who felt the need to defend these great artists that they love.
> 
> But don't you see the irony here? You are suggesting that those who aren't overly fond of modern music (or some aspects of "modern music" considering the vast range of music that is entailed therein) don't understand it, and haven't taken the time to "get it"... and yet in turn you bristle when others assume that same is true of you with regard to Mozart.
> 
> Is it not possible that some of those who dislike certain aspects of modern music have indeed listened to it, "get it" and still don't like it?
> 
> I hate Liver and Lima Beans... and the fact that I had to eat these on many occasions (and thus am experienced) in no way changes my opinion. I highly doubt that "getting it" as in accepting the explanation as to how good these foods are and how good they are for me will make me like them any more.
> 
> Also, you can't call yourself a "Classical Aficionado" if all you like from that period is Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. You can be an aficionado of those composers, but you can't call yourself one of that period because there's plenty of other composers, many of whom equal the achievements of your beloved deity Mozart. To call one's self an aficionado of that style but only know and listen to the obvious ones that EVERYONE knows is a lie. Its like calling yourself an aficionado of Baroque and all you've ever listened to is J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, it does not work that way.
> 
> I'm uncertain that one need to be both knowledgeable of the whole of "classical music" to be seen as a "classical aficionado". I somewhat doubt that even conductors such as von Karajan or Furtwangler or Boulez were deeply versed in the Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music. Do I claim to be such an aficionado myself? I would say I am a somewhat reasonably well-informed classical music lover. I have some 3000 CDs which range from Byzantine Chant through Osvaldo Golijov, and I am always on the outlook for new (to me) music on Spotify and other sources. I certainly am more well-informed with regard to some periods than others. On the other hand, if my experience of the "Classical Era" (which includes having listened not only to Mozart and Haydn, but also Boccherini, Gluck, Stamitz, Gossec, Mysliveček, von Dittersdorf, Michael Haydn, J.C. Bach, Kraus, Hoffmeister, Cherubini, Rossini, John Field, Reicha, Spohr, Hummel, etc...) then it would seem that very few are qualified to suggest that Mozart was the best composer of the era. On the other hand... as you have made the statement (no doubt based in a deep and profound grasp of the whole of the music of the era) that there are many composers of the classical era whose achievements equal that of Mozart, please do inform me as to who these composers might be. I would surely be interested in listening to their work.


Taste in food is not equivalent to taste in music. Also, I have said on multiple occassions that I do like Mozart, because some of his pieces are great, but I also don't like some of his music because its boring, and unimaginative, and that describes a pretty large chunk of his large output. This is not equivalent to somebody on here hearing a Stockhausen piece once and dismissing it as random noise. Besides, these are very different sorts of music. Mozart's music is written to be comprehended pretty well on a single listen, whereas a Stockhausen or Webern, or Babbitt piece usually requires alot more to really get it. Some music takes more work to understand, and that doesn't automatically make it better or worse than music that is easier to understand in one listening.

And why bother? You listed plenty of fine composers who's output can compete quite well with Mozart. There's Leopold Mozart, CPE Bach, JC Bach, Gluck, Haydn, Salieri. And if we want to include anybody related to that style of writing, we can include Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, (some) Stravinsky, and Schnittke, though Mozart would be far out of his league in comparisons with them.


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## Ukko

moody said:


> I didn't mean to be but I could not bear what I was seeing !


Moody my friend, while I am not convinced that turning a cheek is a great idea, turning away from foolishness that doesn't really effect you can't hurt, eh?


----------



## science

Vaneyes said:


> Yes, and to those others...them...just don't bang me over the head with Schnittke, Berio, Nono, and Ligeti. :lol:


But we have every right to create threads about those composers and their music too.


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## science

This is great. An entire thread dedicated to people insulting each other for not liking the same music.


----------



## Ukko

BurningDesire said:


> [...]
> And why bother? You listed plenty of fine composers who's output can compete quite well with Mozart. There's Leopold Mozart, CPE Bach, JC Bach, Gluck, Haydn, Salieri. And if we want to include anybody related to that style of writing, we can include Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, (some) Stravinsky, and Schnittke, though Mozart would be far out of his league in comparisons with them.


AHA! Here is a prime example of the kind of stuff that gets people banned. Not the originator, but the people who are conscientious enough to respond to it. Resist the impulse good people. Resist. The deliberate provocation is obvious, the abundant errors too profligate not to be intentional. Let the author stew in his own juices; sit back any enjoy his embarrassment.

:devil:


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

science said:


> This is great. An entire thread dedicated to people insulting each other for not liking the same music.


What have I done? :lol:


----------



## violadude

Well, people who stick to mainstream repertoire can say they are getting persecuted by hipster non-mainstream snobs or whatever, but who are the ones that really suffer?

People who mostly stick to the "great" composers have the luxury of knowing that if a Beethoven symphony CD goes out of stock, the same Beethoven symphony will get recorded again next year, guaranteed.

If we find a non-mainstream piece we are interested in, and a recording of it goes out of stock, we have to worry about whether or not it will ever be recorded again.


----------



## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Mozart's music is written to be comprehended pretty well on a single listen, whereas a Stockhausen or Webern, or Babbitt piece usually requires alot more to really get it. Some music takes more work to understand, and that doesn't automatically make it better or worse than music that is easier to understand in one listening.


What do you mean by 'get it' when referring to a piece of music? What is there to actually 'get' in say, Kontakte or Klavierstucke X? Is it not the case that a paragraph of prose can explain what the structure and process of a piece is, whether it be a Beethoven piano sonata or a Boulez one? After that I rather think that it's up to the music to speak for itself.
Some people will never 'get' Beethoven, others will never 'get' Miles Davies and others will never 'get' Xenakis in as much as they may listen to it, many times over many years and decide they can live happily without it.

I'm not sure it is possible to _fully_ understand a piece of mature Mozart on one listening. It may be that one has more familiar points of reference in his music than in the serial works of the composers you mentioned but it takes many listens to really appreciate the finer points of Mozart.


----------



## TresPicos

science said:


> This is great. An entire thread dedicated to people insulting each other for not liking the same music.


Indeed. :lol:

I'm off to bed. I'll log in tomorrow and check who won.


----------



## Bas

Petwhac said:


> What do you mean by 'get it' when referring to a piece of music? What is there to actually 'get' in say, Kontakte or Klavierstucke X? Is it not the case that a paragraph of prose can explain what the structure and process of a piece is, whether it be a Beethoven piano sonata or a Boulez one? After that I rather think that it's up to the music to speak for itself.
> Some people will never 'get' Beethoven, others will never 'get' Miles Davies and others will never 'get' Xenakis in as much as they may listen to it, many times over many years and decide they can live happily without it.
> 
> I'm not sure it is possible to _fully_ understand a piece of mature Mozart on one listening. It may be that one has more familiar points of reference in his music than in the serial works of the composers you mentioned but it takes many listens to really appreciate the finer points of Mozart.


Indeed! Could not agree more on the 'music needs to speak for itself' part.


----------



## Toddlertoddy

Hilltroll72 said:


> AHA! Here is a prime example of the kind of stuff that gets people banned. Not the originator, but the people who are conscientious enough to respond to it. Resist the impulse good people. Resist. The deliberate provocation is obvious, the abundant errors too profligate not to be intentional. Let the author stew in his own juices; sit back any enjoy his embarrassment.
> 
> :devil:


I think we should close this thread before infractions are given out.


----------



## aleazk

Bas said:


> Yeah, if you'd have been more polite, and less of a ignorant snob, calling me a 'this' without knowing me, without knowing my expierence with music, my knowledge of music, but considering yourself as someone superior, we might be able to have a discussion. Yet, when making statements like you did: as someone with a 'greater' knowledge (according of course to your own assumptions) I must have an opinion that is worth more...
> 
> I don't feel like I want to discuss with you.
> I then will have a discussion with people that consider me as equal to them, have respect for my opinion, like I'll have for theirs, like I have for everyones, except yours: cause it is a plain insult.


Well, yes, I have been rude. Sorry for that. But I considered your opinion as an insult as well.


----------



## Toddlertoddy

pic related


----------



## mmsbls

The wonderful thing about TC is that whether you are interested in Mozart's 41st symphony, Stockhausen's Gruppen, or noise composers, you can start a thread and discuss music that interests you. If Mozart or noise does not interest you, you can read the title and move on. There are both very knowledgeable people and rather less knowledgeable people here, and personally I like having both. I think it would be a shame if those relatively ignorant of classical music could not post. Of course, there is a difference between posting questions or comments about what one likes and dissing music one does not understand. 

Not everyone at TC is open to new music, but I would guess that the vast majority of TC posters have explored music far more than the average music listener. People who indiscriminately blast music or composers, whether "great masters" or modern, are actually relatively rare. I think the best response to "haters" or ignorance is either to ignore it or to post positive statements showing others why you find the composer or music compelling/beautiful/important. And maybe the best "response" to the many threads by "dinosaurs" is to start threads on composers or music you find compelling. There are many of us who love to see threads on composers we don't get or like. Go for it!


----------



## Vesteralen

TresPicos said:


> Indeed. :lol:
> 
> I'm off to bed. I'll log in tomorrow and check who won.


My guess is that no one will win.

But, the biggest losers will probably be new classical music lovers who want to share their enthusiasm on a classical music forum and who are scared off or turned off by all the pseudo-esoteric claptrap.


----------



## science

Vesteralen said:


> My guess is that no one will win.
> 
> But, the biggest losers will probably be new classical music lovers who want to share their enthusiasm on a classical music forum and who are scared off or turned off by all the pseudo-esoteric claptrap.


Wow. Right on.


----------



## neoshredder

Yeah I really don't find Mozart that interesting. I do admit I like Beethoven though. Especially his middle period. When he stopped imitating boring Mozart and went more Sturm und drang on us. Assuming everyone was treated equally, I would not think too highly of Mozart's creativity. I have found works of CPE Bach and Boccherini to be more interesting. It's time we start giving the new composers a chance as well. I see most are into Ligeti now. Time to dig deeper into modern music. Those that get turned off by heavy dissonance I can't relate to. I want my music to be unpredictable and shocking. Btw I'm hungry for some more Vivaldi Concertos. I think I'm going to eat some.


----------



## PetrB

Firstly, shall we all just accept a new acronym as a standard? 
"OCOD" = One Composer Obsessive Disorder. Perhaps another acronym could be made for that One Composer Obsessive Point Of View [OCOPOV]. O.K. that out of the way, on to your arrogantly condescending and insulting post.

_*As this OP is so, I would banish you from any committee of those chosen to promote further dissemination and understanding of modern and contemporary classical./B]*_*

"Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. 
[I]overrated[/I] ?? Not over-rated, but certainly overexposed and overly emphasized.

...famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love.  
Okeedo, now you are being as reactionary 'closed' and perhaps more exclusive than the people you criticize! People 'get' and love both Mozart and Ligeti: perhaps it is outside of the limits of your imagination that they might find them equally great and not feel the retro or the dinosaur in their 'getting' both composers.

I]"I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners."[/I] 
Lol oh Lol oh LOL! You're blinded here by your agenda: If you cannot recognize that 'the great' rating is due to the supreme ability of those composers to write the most complex and fluid music that exists, and that may include Mozart as well as Mr. Carter et alia, then you are very much still a part of the problem of which you are here, uh, whining and ranting about. Like it or not, like the music or not, Mozart was clearly one of the very best, and the limitations of your taste (or lack of taste or understanding) has you saying the plainly absurd. 
Mozart is one of a handful, a tiny handful, of composers about which could be said, "If you don't get Mozart, you don't get music."

"I like the positive threads..." 
REALLY? THEN WHY DO YOU WRITE THIS NEAR POLEMIC AND GENERALLY CONDESCENDING AND INSULTING POST? -- oh wait, you're a teenager who thinks you own the truth.

Those 'second tier composers, BTW, no matter how nicely done and pleasant or interesting the works are, just do not come up to the standard of 'great.' That is why they are so much less emphasized or known. They are, generally, not overlooked. Sure, once in a while a Bach or Wagner goes entirely out of fashion, but their quality endures and ultimately 'comes out.' I personally cannot fathom the current flavor of the month fad / trend of interest in the music of Medtner. I find it 'dull and boring' just as you might find Mozart, 'alright but not the best.'

Saying "Mozart is alright but not the best" is about as offhanded a supercilious remark as one could make.

Your egocentric viewpoint in this post is really astounding, though no surprise whatsoever.*


----------



## quack

<takes off headphones> will y'all keep it down, I can hear you bickering over the music <turns it up louder>


----------



## Rapide

People can praise Beethoven no.9 if they want. This is a classical music forum to celebrate classical music we like. It doesn't matter. People can be encouraged to explore lesser known pieces by all means. But encouragement to do so and praising of popular pieces are two completely separate matters.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Taste in food is not equivalent to taste in music.

It would seem to me that taste in anything that gives us pleasure is fairly well analogous.

Also, I have said on multiple occassions that I do like Mozart, because some of his pieces are great, but I also don't like some of his music because its boring, and unimaginative...

I doubt many would disagree with you. With few exceptions, prior to his great late symphonies, Mozart is good... very good... but doesn't cross over into the realm of the spectacular.

...that describes a pretty large chunk of his large output.

Again that may be very well true. But then I am not concerning myself with the works that fall short of brilliant. I am concerning myself with those works that are indeed something special... even spectacular. Pablo Picasso probably produced more crappy paintings than anyone in history... but that doesn't concern me in the least. What matters is that he also probably produced more brilliant paintings than anyone in history. Mozart composed at least 7 great operas... 4 of which are absolutely stunning. He wrote more spectacular piano concertos than any other composer. He composed a handful of brilliant symphonies, the Requiem, the Great Mass in C minor, etc... All told his finest achievements are quite numerous and rival the very best of any composer. This is what makes him special. Salieri, Hoffmeister, Stamitz, etc... all composed some marvelous stuff... but rarely, if ever, rose to the level of Mozart at his finest... let alone achieved this as frequently as Mozart.

This is not equivalent to somebody on here hearing a Stockhausen piece once and dismissing it as random noise. Besides, these are very different sorts of music. Mozart's music is written to be comprehended pretty well on a single listen, whereas a Stockhausen or Webern, or Babbitt piece usually requires alot more to really get it. Some music takes more work to understand, and that doesn't automatically make it better or worse than music that is easier to understand in one listening.

I suspect that some find that their initial response to a work of art is enough to decide whether they like something or not. But seriously, I doubt that many here came to appreciate Medieval Chant, Renaissance madrigals, opera, Wagner, Mahler, Beethoven's late quartets, Bach's cello suites, etc... on the first hearing... let alone "get it" or comprehend it. All art forms involve a language that must be learned and this requires effort. Just because an individual "gets it" doesn't mean he or she will also like it.

Personally, I am not of the belief that all art is for everybody. Certainly, any artistic form can be for me if I am willing to put forth the effort. But I must weigh whether I believe the effort will be adequately recompensed in terms of the pleasure afforded. I suspect that more than a few members here... and within the larger audience of classical music... have put forth the effort on more than one occasion in listening to certain composers (new or old) who absolutely failed to resonate or give an adequate degree of pleasure.

But then let's come down to what is really frustrating with regard to this argument, and that is the presumptuous assumption by some that they "own" Modern and Contemporary classical music. In other words, it is the composers that they admire that are the "important" figures of Modern/Contemporary music... as if anyone has the ability to discern which composers of today will survive and continue to speak to future eras. Personally, I listen to a good deal of Modern and Contemporary music... but this does not necessarily mean Stockhausen, Xenakis, Zappa, and Bjork.

You listed plenty of fine composers who's output can compete quite well with Mozart. There's Leopold Mozart, CPE Bach, JC Bach, Gluck, Haydn, Salieri. And if we want to include anybody related to that style of writing, we can include Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, (some) Stravinsky, and Schnittke, though Mozart would be far out of his league in comparisons with them.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

But we have every right to create threads about those composers and their music too.

Who is stopping you? I started threads on Medieval music, Baroque music, Music of the "Classical Era", and one on Modern and Contemporary composers. I have yet to start one trashing Xenakis or Zappa... like Mozart has be trashed in this thread.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."
> 
> I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners. Beethoven was good too, but then there are all these amazing composers that are being neglected and a lot of composers being harshly criticised for no reason other than the listener does not like them.
> 
> We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):
> 
> oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.
> 
> I like the positive threads, especially the ones that praise the more neglected composers or the composers that insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists like. There was a good one on Zelenka that made me want to go and listen to a bit more of his music, but when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it. It's great that you love it, no-member-in-particular, but where are the threads about the beauty of Farrenc's Third? Or even something more famous like CPE Bach's Hamburg Symphony no. 2 Wq.183/2? Are people scared of neglected masterworks? Why do we always celebrate the same music all the time and sneer at all the modern stuff and not be bothered with the neglected stuff?"
> 
> CoAG
> :tiphat:


How can you report your own post?


----------



## quack

No reporting, it's the cowards way out, i'm sure no one is going to be upset by a few strongly expressed opinions anyway...oh well, WWLD?


----------



## science

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But we have every right to create threads about those composers and their music too.
> 
> Who is stopping you? I started threads on Medieval music, Baroque music, Music of the "Classical Era", and one on Modern and Contemporary composers. I have yet to start one trashing Xenakis or Zappa... like Mozart has be trashed in this thread.


You don't start threads to do it; you enter threads to do it. What difference does it make?

And of course the point isn't that people were FORCED not to make threads on those topics, but were intimidated. The message is clear: if you like that music and make threads on it, you will be mocked.

You might not mind that, in fact you seem to regard it as a positive good, but other people do mind it, and it makes the forum and the music less enjoyable.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

And of course the point isn't that people were FORCED not to make threads on those topics, but were intimidated. The message is clear: if you like that music and make threads on it, you will be mocked.

You mean in the manner that the individual's starting the threads about how they loved Beethoven's 9th or Mozart's Requiem were mocked?


----------



## SottoVoce

If you don't want to talk about a particular thing or participate in a thread, then don't click on it and don't post in it. Let the Beethoven fans talk about Beethoven and let the Stockhausen fans talk about Stockhausen. It's not like one thread stops another from being made; both discussions can coexist with eachother. 

Why is everyone bothered by whatever else another person is doing? Life is much more rewarding when you focus on the thing you're doing and letting other people do what they want to do; no one has to conform to your opinion. Remember what Locke said - "whatever worries you, masters you"


----------



## peeyaj

I am still waiting when will COAG would be banned by moderators..


----------



## brianwalker

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."
> 
> I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners. Beethoven was good too, but then there are all these amazing composers that are being neglected and a lot of composers being harshly criticised for no reason other than the listener does not like them.
> 
> We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):
> 
> oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.
> 
> I like the positive threads, especially the ones that praise the more neglected composers or the composers that insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists like. There was a good one on Zelenka that made me want to go and listen to a bit more of his music, but when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it. It's great that you love it, no-member-in-particular, but where are the threads about the beauty of Farrenc's Third? Or even something more famous like CPE Bach's Hamburg Symphony no. 2 Wq.183/2? Are people scared of neglected masterworks? Why do we always celebrate the same music all the time and sneer at all the modern stuff and not be bothered with the neglected stuff?"
> 
> CoAG
> :tiphat:


Let's make subforum then: Dinosaur Music.


----------



## science

StlukesguildOhio said:


> And of course the point isn't that people were FORCED not to make threads on those topics, but were intimidated. The message is clear: if you like that music and make threads on it, you will be mocked.
> 
> You mean in the manner that the individual's starting the threads about how they loved Beethoven's 9th or Mozart's Requiem were mocked?


Yes, like that. It's wrong in both cases, and subtlety doesn't make it better.


----------



## peeyaj

aleazk said:


> CoAG is rigth. This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.


I am still an "amateur" listener then.. OH RIIIGGGHHHHHTTTTT...


----------



## BurningDesire

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What have I done? :lol:


You haven't praised Mozart the requisite number of times today, obviously. ;o


----------



## mamascarlatti

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I, HarpsichordConcerto, consider myself a Grand Baroque Master Listener of the highest possible order, much higher than the unwashed common aficionado. And I make no apologies for declaring as such.


I'm still a Second Tier Aspirant Master (mistress?!?) Baroque Opera listener, but I'm lookiing forward to reaching your lofty heights, HC.:lol:


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Mamascarlatti, PLEASE DON'T BAN ME.


----------



## neoshredder

peeyaj said:


> I am still waiting when will COAG would be banned by moderators..


I hope CoAG doesn't get banned for this. He brings a ton to this forum.


----------



## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But then let's come down to what is really frustrating with regard to this argument, and that is the presumptuous assumption by some that they "own" Modern and Contemporary classical music. In other words, it is the composers that they admire that are the "important" figures of Modern/Contemporary music... as if anyone has the ability to discern which composers of today will survive and continue to speak to future eras.


Only frustrating to you, who has made this category up, a category with only one inhabitant, yourself, as you are the only one who thinks he owns Modern and Contemporary classical music and that anyone who has an opinion about M & C that differs from yours is thus by definition wrong and must be (metaphorically) destroyed.

This particular expression of your obsession is particularly amusing as in it you talk about surviving and speaking to future generations--at least one of those anyones who has opinions on M & C that are different from yours has stated explicitly several times that the whole survival and continuing to speak thing is a load of ******** and is certainly not part of HIS agenda in talking about M & C.


----------



## science

neoshredder said:


> I hope CoAG doesn't get banned for this. He brings a ton to this forum.


I agree. I think he was joking, but people can't joke about this.


----------



## BurningDesire

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But we have every right to create threads about those composers and their music too.
> 
> Who is stopping you? I started threads on Medieval music, Baroque music, Music of the "Classical Era", and one on Modern and Contemporary composers. I have yet to start one trashing Xenakis or Zappa... like Mozart has be trashed in this thread.


Sorry, calling a composer over-rated and boring isn't trashing him. :3


----------



## Ramako

Allow me to post a quote I posted a moment ago in another thread, because it seems relevant.

'Immanuel Kant, writing in 1790, observes of a man "If he says that canary wine is agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to me," because "Everyone has his own (sense of) taste". The case of "beauty" is different from mere "agreeableness" because, "If he proclaims something to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."' - wikipedia.

Now, let me go and listen to some Mozart.


----------



## BurningDesire

science said:


> You don't start threads to do it; you enter threads to do it. What difference does it make?
> 
> And of course the point isn't that people were FORCED not to make threads on those topics, but were intimidated. The message is clear: if you like that music and make threads on it, you will be mocked.
> 
> You might not mind that, in fact you seem to regard it as a positive good, but other people do mind it, and it makes the forum and the music less enjoyable.


all of my love to this post ^_^


----------



## mamascarlatti

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Mamascarlatti, PLEASE DON'T BAN ME.


Honey, I won't ban you as long as you let me approach Ligeti IN MY OWN TIME! (Grand Macabre DVD coming out in September so it will probably be then).


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

mamascarlatti said:


> Honey, I won't ban you as long as you let me approach Ligeti IN MY OWN TIME! (Grand Macabre DVD coming out in September so it will probably be then).


Omg must buy


----------



## mamascarlatti

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Omg must buy


Yeah, had it from the horse's mouth - emailed Unitel to find out when it was coming.










I think HC is planning to get it too which just shows that even we wigs can get out of our Baroque ruts.


----------



## BurningDesire

OMG must buy is right O_O I've seen clips from this production. Its off the hook!


----------



## mamascarlatti

The only thing with these Fura del Baus productions is that I reckon they must lose 80% of their impact on the small screen


----------



## science

mamascarlatti said:


> (Grand Macabre DVD coming out in September so it will probably be then).


That will be awesome. We should have a little TC event when it comes out.

You know, I believe I'm the one that told CoAG to listen to LGM.


----------



## mamascarlatti

science said:


> You know, I believe I'm the one that told CoAG to listen to LGM.


Oh no are you the carrrier of that terrible Ligetismus terminalimus virus?


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

science said:


> That will be awesome. We should have a little TC event when it comes out.
> 
> You know, I believe I'm the one that told CoAG to listen to LGM.


I was addicted to it for over a month.


----------



## moody

neoshredder said:


> I hope CoAG doesn't get banned for this. He brings a ton to this forum.


A ton of what?


----------



## neoshredder

moody said:


> A ton of what?


Well he likes Ligeti a lot. He has deep understanding for classical terms (sturm und drang). He puts the overrated Composers in their place. He has brought comedy in his posts that are now being copied by others. Seriously, I enjoy reading his posts more than anyone elses even if he does get some mad at him. Those with little sense of humor and conservative types.


----------



## Very Senior Member

aleazk said:


> CoAG is rigth. This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener, I mean, this is a big forum about classical music, one expects great discussions about classical music from very well informed people. Threads about the 'greatness' of Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 9th are of a very superfluous character for this forum.


Not for the amateur listener?

I bet the Admin team wouldn't go along with this comment.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

neoshredder said:


> Well he likes Ligeti a lot. He has deep understanding for classical terms (sturm und drang). He puts the overrated Composers in their place. He has brought comedy in his posts that are now being copied by others. Seriously, I enjoy reading his posts more than anyone elses even if he does get some mad at him. Those with little sense of humor and conservative types.


Neoshredder, you are a good guy.


----------



## Very Senior Member

moody said:


> A ton of what?


Comment ........


----------



## Lenfer

Ramako said:


> now just where are those dinosaurs?


----------



## Lenfer

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."
> 
> I enjoy Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best, very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners. Beethoven was good too, but then there are all these amazing composers that are being neglected and a lot of composers being harshly criticised for no reason other than the listener does not like them.
> 
> We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):
> 
> oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.
> 
> I like the positive threads, especially the ones that praise the more neglected composers or the composers that insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists like. There was a good one on Zelenka that made me want to go and listen to a bit more of his music, but when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it. It's great that you love it, no-member-in-particular, but where are the threads about the beauty of Farrenc's Third? Or even something more famous like CPE Bach's Hamburg Symphony no. 2 Wq.183/2? Are people scared of neglected masterworks? Why do we always celebrate the same music all the time and sneer at all the modern stuff and not be bothered with the neglected stuff?"
> 
> CoAG
> :tiphat:


----------



## peeyaj

COAG, because I like you.. You could choose what kind of baby dinosaur is me.. Choose well.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Peeyaj, because I like you, you can be the Schubertosaurus Rex on the left.


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## Vesteralen

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven ....
> 
> I like the positive threads


Can we leave it go at that?


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## jani

I got a idea to do a thread like this:

Always Praising the Same Music&Bashing the great&famous composers/The hipsters are Among Us:


----------



## Lenfer

What is it they say about people in glass houses? I think we should leave people to post threads the way they want to (as long as they follow the rules). I can't help but think *A.G.* posted this thread in order to start a little thing. Nothing wrong with starting little things now and again but I wouldn't want anyone telling anyone else what is a valid post and what is not just because you may find the composer dull.

One must remember without what came before you would likely not have what you have now and even less in the future. :tiphat:


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## Ralfy

Obviously, the issue is ultimately one involving money and time. If besides listening to music one also reads books, watches films and television programs, looks at works of art, attends music, drama, and dance performances, etc., then one will not have time and in various cases even the money to appreciate every composer.

For example, if at best it will take two weeks to appreciate a book (and that means not just reading but also going back to particular parts and annotating them), then one will be able to read only around a thousand books or so in a few decades, and that's out of hundreds of thousands of titles that one could have read. Perhaps the same principle might apply to one album, one film or set of television programs, a collection of art works, and so on. Assume that one will want to listen to music, read books, watch films and television shows, view works of art, and watch performances, then there will certainly not be enough time to appreciate most works.


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## bigshot

I've learned a lot of things from my music server... I keep it running pumping music through the house 24/7. It's a big equalizer in tHe sense that when I had stacks of CDs on shelves, I would tend to gravitate towards certain ones, and others went unlistened to. The server is shuffling out everything. I'm finding new music I didn't know I had. For instance, Poulenc is a lot of fun and I didn't know that before. Another thing I'm discovering is how many wonderful warhorses there are. Hours and hours and hours of great music. I could go for days just on "the usual suspects". When Schubert's Unfinished or Peer Gynt comes up, I'm happy about it. I may have thought that I had heard enough of certain pieces, but I haven't. It's a friendly kind of familiarity.

When something comes up that I DON'T want to hear, I mark it one star so I can come back later and pull it out of the library. So far, only Ravel's Bolero and a couple of lesser known Stravinsky pieces have suffered that fate.


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## Lenfer

Ralfy said:


> Obviously, the issue is ultimately one involving money and time. If besides listening to music one also reads books, watches films and television programs, looks at works of art, attends music, drama, and dance performances, etc., then one will not have time and in various cases even the money to appreciate every composer.
> 
> For example, if at best it will take two weeks to appreciate a book (and that means not just reading but also going back to particular parts and annotating them), then one will be able to read only around a thousand books or so in a few decades, and that's out of hundreds of thousands of titles that one could have read. Perhaps the same principle might apply to one album, one film or set of television programs, a collection of art works, and so on. Assume that one will want to listen to music, read books, watch films and television shows, view works of art, and watch performances, then there will certainly not be enough time to appreciate most works.


I do this with books and CDs not so much movies but sometimes. I often buy more than one recording of the same work by the same artist/different artist if possible and compare them. I make notes and discuss it with my other half and a few friends who come to stay from time to time. I'll try to read a book in it's original language if possible and perhaps several translations if I really enjoy the book.

I realize I'm limiting or at least slowing down the rate at which I will discover new things but I feel far to many people glace over things without a true understanding. That's not to say my understanding is better I doubt it but I feel I have achieved something when I do move onto a new piece. :tiphat:


----------



## moody

neoshredder said:


> Well he likes Ligeti a lot. He has deep understanding for classical terms (sturm und drang). He puts the overrated Composers in their place. He has brought comedy in his posts that are now being copied by others. Seriously, I enjoy reading his posts more than anyone elses even if he does get some mad at him. Those with little sense of humor and conservative types.


I was not actually asking a question---more like making a statement !


----------



## DeepR

It can be rewarding to explore new music, but why should it be modern music per se? The age of the music doesn't mean a thing if we're talking about timeless art. If people who are not interested in modern classical want to be adventurous, they can also explore lesser known composers from the period of music they do like.


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## Philip

Mozart's Requiem is my favourite piece of music, watchoo gonna do about it????


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

DeepR said:


> It can be rewarding to explore new music, but why should it be modern music per se? The age of the music doesn't mean a thing if we're talking about timeless art. If people who are not interested in modern classical want to be adventurous, they can also explore lesser known composers from the period of music they do like.


No it doesn't have to be modern music at all. I'm just a little biased. I'd love to explore underplayed music from the 19th century.


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## bigshot

I'm rediscovering the overplayed music of the 19th century. It was a great time for classical music.

Specifically, I spent today listening to Amazon's $2.99 Grieg set. Spectacular stuff. Peer Gynt evel gets old to me. I thought I had heard it all before, but these BIS recordings are amazing. Ruud is my favorite onductor in this stuff now. I've set aside my old Barbirolli record after thirty years!


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## aleazk

Philip said:


> Mozart's Requiem is my favourite piece of music, watchoo gonna do about it????


You must die!, with Ligeti's _Requiem_ in the background. :devil::lol:


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## bigshot

I have the Sony Ligetti set, and recently ripped the CDs in that book, but skipped over the Ligetti. Why? Because there are goofy things mixed in to that set like the metronomes and Nouvelle Aventures that are fine if I'm in the mood for them, but they would be a burr under my saddle if I put them into random rotation in my music server. Is there anyone that has that set that could recommend disk and track numbers that wouldn't be a total anacronism random shuffling with Mendelssohn and Haydn?

I like Ligetti, but I think with some works he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek and wanted to see what he could get away with.


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## aleazk

bigshot said:


> I have the Sony Ligetti set, and recently ripped the CDs in that book, but skipped over the Ligetti. Why? Because there are goofy things mixed in to that set like the metronomes and Nouvelle Aventures that are fine if I'm in the mood for them, but they would be a burr under my saddle if I put them into random rotation in my music server. Is there anyone that has that set that could recommend disk and track numbers that wouldn't be a total anacronism random shuffling with Mendelssohn and Haydn?
> 
> I like Ligetti, but I think with some works he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek and wanted to see what he could get away with.


Well, those two pieces are particularly 'unconventional', in the sense that they don't represent Ligeti's music as a whole. If you want an idea of what is Ligeti, the _Piano Concerto_ and _Atmospheres_ are more representative.


----------



## neoshredder

bigshot said:


> I'm rediscovering the overplayed music of the 19th century. It was a great time for classical music.
> 
> Specifically, I spent today listening to Amazon's $2.99 Grieg set. Spectacular stuff. Peer Gynt evel gets old to me. I thought I had heard it all before, but these BIS recordings are amazing. Ruud is my favorite onductor in this stuff now. I've set aside my old Barbirolli record after thirty years!


I like Grieg. He is more enjoyable than many of the Romantic Composers. (Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Mahler to name a few) Something about the German Romantics. But the biggest bore happens to be in the Classical Era.


----------



## Couchie

neoshredder said:


> I like Grieg. He is more enjoyable than many of the Romantic Composers. (Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Mahler to name a few) Something about the German Romantics. But the biggest bore happens to be in the Classical Era.


I challenge you to post the Grieg piece that is a more enunciated proclamation of grief, love, devotion, and rapture than this:


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## bigshot

Google Solveig's Song.


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## Couchie

bigshot said:


> Google Solveig's Song.


 I sprinkle Peer Gynt on my cheerios in the morning.


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## bigshot

OK. I like Cheerios.


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## aleazk

bigshot said:


> I have the Sony Ligetti set, and recently ripped the CDs in that book, but skipped over the Ligetti. Why? Because there are goofy things mixed in to that set like the metronomes and Nouvelle Aventures that are fine if I'm in the mood for them, but they would be a burr under my saddle if I put them into random rotation in my music server. Is there anyone that has that set that could recommend disk and track numbers that wouldn't be a total anacronism random shuffling with Mendelssohn and Haydn?
> 
> I like Ligetti, but I think with some works he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek and wanted to see what he could get away with.


That's hard!.  but there are some pieces that will not give you a heart attack. For example, _Clocks and Clouds_, _Lux Aeterna_, _Nonsense Madrigals_. Although I don't know to which particular CD they belong. I would have to check.


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## neoshredder

Couchie said:


> I challenge you to post the Grieg piece that is a more enunciated proclamation of grief, love, devotion, and rapture than this:


I'm more interested in the best sounding music. Not the most dramatic. Though the Monteverdi's L'Orfeo got a tear out of me. I do feel some emotions. lol


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Monteverdi beats Wagner in love duets (and no, the vocal ranges don't make them a lesbian couple):


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## Couchie

Bitch, please. Everyone knows that the Liebesnacht is the entire Romantic movement encased in a love duet.


----------



## Andreas

I was thinking, maybe the technological advances in terms of recording engineering are also helping to cement the dominating position of the Old Masters. Whenever there was some technological evolution - from mono to stereo, to multi-tracking/dolby, to digital -, Karajan, for instance, would re-record a lot of stuff. For Deutsche Grammophon alone he recorded three complete cycles of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and probably some more.

It makes sense: record companies are obliged to update their catalogue with every new technological evolution. And of course you cover the very core repertoire first. Multiply that by the number of competing record companies (and their sub-divisions) and you get a ton of new recordings of The Same Old Stuff.

Add to that things like the HIP movement. HIP gave people an opportunity to re-discover their old favourites. So yet another round of Beethoven and Mozart cycles were in order.

So perhaps it's not just people's intrinsic conservatism. There might be a more complex supply and demand relationship here after all.


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## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> Well, those two pieces are particularly 'unconventional', in the sense that they don't represent Ligeti's music as a whole. If you want an idea of what is Ligeti, the _Piano Concerto_ and _Atmospheres_ are more representative.


Actually, while I'm not really familiar with Nouvelle Aventures, I'd say that Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes is fairly representative of Ligeti's artistic ideas. You have his ideas of complex textures and sound mass, gradual metamorphosis, complex changing rhythms (you can hear a fair amount of this in his keyboard works), and of course his sense of humor, which is quite apparent in the score.


----------



## Ramako

Andreas said:


> I was thinking, maybe the technological advances in terms of recording engineering are also helping to cement the dominating position of the Old Masters. Whenever there was some technological evolution - from mono to stereo, to multi-tracking/dolby, to digital -, Karajan, for instance, would re-record a lot of stuff. For Deutsche Grammophon alone he recorded three complete cycles of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and probably some more.
> 
> It makes sense: record companies are obliged to update their catalogue with every new technological evolution. And of course you cover the very core repertoire first. Multiply that by the number of competing record companies (and their sub-divisions) and you get a ton of new recordings of The Same Old Stuff.
> 
> Add to that things like the HIP movement. HIP gave people an opportunity to re-discover their old favourites. So yet another round of Beethoven and Mozart cycles were in order.
> 
> So perhaps it's not just people's intrinsic conservatism. There might be a more complex supply and demand relationship here after all.


A thousand agrees. This means that current composers have a problem before even setting pen to paper (or mouse to screen). Most composers these days have to make their audiences up from deliberately open-minded people. It is not clear to me that this was the case in the past, when if you wanted to listen to music you had to go to concerts, where Brahms and Wagner would be mixed in with Beethoven and Mozart (assuming you lived in the mid-19th century). Sure you could choose to ignore modern ones, but it took more effort


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## Sequentia

Mozart and Beethoven are both among the greatest composers of all time. However, I agree with the opening poster in that all music should get a chance to get heard and be evaluated. Instead of maintaining the current "Mahlermania" alive, you could cancel 2 performances of his 8th Symphony, which would enable somebody to organise the first performance of the 1st movement of Sorabji's _Jāmī_ Symphony. *Sigh*


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## violadude

Ralfy said:


> Obviously, the issue is ultimately one involving money and time. If besides listening to music one also reads books, watches films and television programs, looks at works of art, attends music, drama, and dance performances, etc., then one will not have time and in various cases even the money to appreciate every composer.


Good thing I don't do any of that!


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## Guest

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to.


I know what you mean. But for the person just setting out exploring classical, Beetzart and Mohoven are just as new and challenging as any avant-garde that you'd care to name.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood.


In the words of the younger generation (do I mean the post post-modernist generation?)...you need to chillax. 



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> when I see a thread on Beethoven's Ninth for example (not as if there is any thread in particular that I am referring to) where the member is going on about how much they love it I think "oh yes, I love it too. Everyone knows it.


Do they? As someone who is only now listening to the 9th and forming opinions about it, I would disagree. The fact that I was aware of its existence before I paid it any attention is irrelevant.

As for the threads that you can't find, surely if you start one about Farrenc's third, those who want to join you in a discussion will do so.


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## Taneyev

I don't enjoy LvB 9th. In fact, any of his symphonic works. They just don't move me. I don't fell anything. So what?


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## Ukko

Odnoposoff said:


> I don't enjoy LvB 9th. In fact, any of his symphonic works. They just don't move me. I don't fell anything. So what?


Well I _could_ say that there is a hole in your musical life... but the "so what" response covers that too. "So what" can function as a substitute for "Why" in the famous bedeviled-by-a-child routine.

I actually do know why the sky is blue, but I don't know why you get nothing from Beethoven's symphonies. So what?



[It struck me (while sitting on the throne - maybe a humbling position) that there is a potential for unintended insult here. What I was shooting for was a light-humored response to the "So what?". *No* insult intended.]


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## science

Odnoposoff said:


> I don't enjoy LvB 9th. In fact, any of his symphonic works. They just don't move me. I don't fell anything. So what?


I genuinely don't mind at all if you take this attitude, but I don't take it.

To me, something as famous as Beethoven's 9th Symphony (or even much less famous) presents a challenge. I have to find out what other people have found there. I don't have to like it as much as they do, but I have to feel that I understand why they like it. I feel the same way about literature, art, religion, and so on.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I was thinking, maybe the technological advances in terms of recording engineering are also helping to cement the dominating position of the Old Masters. Whenever there was some technological evolution - from mono to stereo, to multi-tracking/dolby, to digital -, Karajan, for instance, would re-record a lot of stuff. For Deutsche Grammophon alone he recorded three complete cycles of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and probably some more.

It makes sense: record companies are obliged to update their catalogue with every new technological evolution. And of course you cover the very core repertoire first. Multiply that by the number of competing record companies (and their sub-divisions) and you get a ton of new recordings of The Same Old Stuff.

Add to that things like the HIP movement. HIP gave people an opportunity to re-discover their old favourites. So yet another round of Beethoven and Mozart cycles were in order.

I'm not certain I fully agree with this. As a result of recording technology John Cage, Xenakis, Ligeti, and Stockhausen have a larger audience than Mozart, Haydn, and J.S. Bach ever enjoyed during their own lifetime. Nor should we imagine that Modern and Contemporary music isn't being recorded and sold... isn't reaching an audience. Richard Strauss, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky's great early ballets, Aaron Copland, Mahler, Samuel Barber, Gorecki's 3rd Symphony are all major sellers. But of course they represent one side of Modern/Contemporary music. Are the less popular composers better? I would debate that. Some composers will always be more popular than others. Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber are never as well appreciated as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi... or even Saint-Saëns, Bruckner... or perhaps even Ástor Piazzolla. Indeed, Biber's reputation is made clear when I run a Google or Amazon search on his name and the site pops up with the question, "Did you mean _Bieber_" Acccck!!


----------



## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> Actually, while I'm not really familiar with Nouvelle Aventures, I'd say that Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes is fairly representative of Ligeti's artistic ideas. You have his ideas of complex textures and sound mass, gradual metamorphosis, complex changing rhythms (you can hear a fair amount of this in his keyboard works), and of course his sense of humor, which is quite apparent in the score.


well, yes. I was talking about the instrumentation mainly, the majority of Ligeti's major textural works are for orcherstra or others 'conventional' instruments (like the organ). Also, the Poeme Symphonique has a great conceptual meaning (Ligeti has said that he wanted to represent in a very direct way some images of his childhood, where a neighbor of him was a meteorologist and had in his house a lot of 'clicking' mechanical devices). So, for me, the Poeme Symphonique has a more singular character in relation with some of his others, more 'standardized' pieces of the period.


----------



## bigshot

I'm really not interested in "representing" Ligetti. I have already done that by buying the complete set of his works. I'm looking for recommendations of Ligetti pieces that don't sound completely jarring when interspersed with other classical music. I can have a Bach chorale come up followed by a Tchaikovsky symphony and it's fine. I just don't want the next piece to come up be a bunch of metronomes clicking. I'm looking for a list of Ligetti pieces that fit within the conventional definition of classical music- in other words, not conceptual or avante garde. Does that make sense?

Thanks for the suggestions.


----------



## aleazk

bigshot said:


> I'm really not interested in "representing" Ligetti. I have already done that by buying the complete set of his works. I'm looking for recommendations of Ligetti pieces that don't sound completely jarring when interspersed with other classical music. I can have a Bach chorale come up followed by a Tchaikovsky symphony and it's fine. I just don't want the next piece to come up be a bunch of metronomes clicking. I'm looking for a list of Ligetti pieces that fit within the conventional definition of classical music- in other words, not conceptual or avante garde. Does that make sense?
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions.


well, that's hard since Ligeti _is_ an avant-garde composer . But check some of the pieces I mentioned before. For example, _Clocks and Clouds_, _Lux Aeterna_, _Nonsense Madrigals_, _cello sonata_. Some piano etudes, like White on White, Cordes à vide, Arc-en-ciel.


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## bigshot

Will do! Thanks!


----------



## Hausmusik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Recently on TC I have noticed an increase in the quantity of threads praising music by Mozart and Beethoven an all that overrated famous nonsense that all those conservative dinosaurs love. We have threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth, Mozart's Requiem and all those pieces of music that EVERYONE knows and dinosaurs listen to ALL THE TIME. For me, that music is just "there" and people enjoy it when they want to. I see people say that they think Mozart's music is so incredible and it's greatness "cannot be described in words," and I think to myself "oh yeah I didn't know that Mozart wrote good music. Nice to see someone enjoying it for a change."


COAG,

I am glad for you that you have been aware of Mozart's music for what seems to be your whole life. Believe it or not, other people--some older than you, some younger--discover Mozart (and Beethoven, and so forth) every single day. If someone comes to Mozart later than you, and discovers wonders like the _Sinfonia concertante_ and the clarinet Quintet and the piano concertos, etc., and enjoys them, it makes him a dinosaur because you got there first? You way wish to consider how smug, self-involved, and narcissistic that sounds.

I know many people, musicians and composers, who embrace what you call the "avant garde" and love much of Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I am, like you, a big fan of your man Ligeti, and he himself pays tribute in his music to the likes of Brahms (the horn trio) and Chopin (the etudes) and their "overrated nonsense." I wonder what Ligeti would think of your post? I think the belief that music has to be a zero-sum game--either Ligeti _or _Beethoven, there can be only one--is a sign of intellectual immaturity. I think Ligeti would agree.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> I'm really not interested in "representing" Ligetti. I have already done that by buying the complete set of his works. I'm looking for recommendations of Ligetti pieces that don't sound completely jarring when interspersed with other classical music. I can have a Bach chorale come up followed by a Tchaikovsky symphony and it's fine. I just don't want the next piece to come up be a bunch of metronomes clicking. I'm looking for a list of Ligetti pieces that fit within the conventional definition of classical music- in other words, not conceptual or avante garde. Does that make sense?
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions.


XD hah! Good luck with that 

But seriously, you may be interested in some of his early works, mostly for keyboards, which tend to be extensions and evolutions of the ideas of Bartok. Many of those are modal or tonal, and are good music just like his later works, but with more traditional methods and sonorities.


----------



## aleazk

Hausmusik said:


> COAG,
> 
> I am glad for you that you have been aware of Mozart's music for what seems to be your whole life. Believe it or not, other people--some older than you, some younger--discover Mozart (and Beethoven, and so forth) every single day. If someone comes to Mozart later than you, and discovers wonders like the _Sinfonia concertante_ and the clarinet Quintet and the piano concertos, etc., and enjoys them, it makes him a dinosaur because you got there first? You way wish to consider how smug, self-involved, and narcissistic that sounds.
> 
> I know many people, musicians and composers, who embrace what you call the "avant garde" and love much of Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I am, like you, a big fan of your man Ligeti, and he himself pays tribute in his music to the likes of Brahms (the horn trio) and Chopin (the etudes) and their "overrated nonsense." I wonder what Ligeti would think of your post? I think the belief that music has to be a zero-sum game--either Ligeti _or _Beethoven, there can be only one--is a sign of intellectual immaturity. I think Ligeti would agree.


Of course he would not agree:

"Question: I want to talk a bit about the past and your connection with the past, because you say 'I like all good music' - Gesualdo, The Renaissance; Monteverdi, of course, one of your great loves; the first Viennese school. Now there are many composers who say they're not interested in the past, they're only interested in what is being written now and indeed, they would be happy if there was no knowledge of the past. What do you feel about those people who say 'I am not interested in 500 years of music that has been written before I came to writing'? What is your reaction?

Ligeti: I think this is extremely egocentrical idea, thinking the self-importance and thinking in the future... Wagner began this foolish way of thinking he's the most important composer. He accepted Beethoven's 9th Symphony, but now he will create a music of the future. What he created was a contribution to the Nazi Germany, in fact. I'm against it. And also Schonberg . Schonberg who taught with the method of 12 tone rows - "I made sure the domination of German music for the next 100 years", well this is extremely pretentious and stupid."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/ligeti_transcript.shtml

.


----------



## BurningDesire

Hausmusik said:


> COAG,
> 
> I am glad for you that you have been aware of Mozart's music for what seems to be your whole life. Believe it or not, other people--some older than you, some younger--discover Mozart (and Beethoven, and so forth) every single day. If someone comes to Mozart later than you, and discovers wonders like the _Sinfonia concertante_ and the clarinet Quintet and the piano concertos, etc., and enjoys them, it makes him a dinosaur because you got there first? You way wish to consider how smug, self-involved, and narcissistic that sounds.
> 
> I know many people, musicians and composers, who embrace what you call the "avant garde" and love much of Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I am, like you, a big fan of your man Ligeti, and he himself pays tribute in his music to the likes of Brahms (the horn trio) and Chopin (the etudes) and their "overrated nonsense." I wonder what Ligeti would think of your post? I think the belief that music has to be a zero-sum game--either Ligeti _or _Beethoven, there can be only one--is a sign of intellectual immaturity. I think Ligeti would agree.


That isn't what he's saying at all. The people he calls dinosaurs are people who only listen to old music, and don't really give new music a chance.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Hausmusik- I know many people, musicians and composers, who embrace what you call the "avant garde" and love much of Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I am, like you, a big fan of your man Ligeti, and he himself pays tribute in his music to the likes of Brahms (the horn trio) and Chopin (the etudes) and their "overrated nonsense." I wonder what Ligeti would think of your post? I think the belief that music has to be a zero-sum game--either Ligeti or Beethoven, there can be only one--is a sign of intellectual immaturity. I think Ligeti would agree.

Bingo!!! Absolutely! :tiphat:


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

BurningDesire-That isn't what he's saying at all. The people he calls dinosaurs are people who only listen to old music, and don't really give new music a chance.

Perhaps he was addressing an individual who might write something to the effect of:

"_I find the Ligeti love a little more appealing than the necrophiliac fetishization of Mozart and Bach_" who were undoubtedly famous for their "_formulaic composition that is generic of the times..._"

Hausmusik-I know many people, musicians and composers, who embrace what you call the "avant garde" and love much of Mozart, Beethoven, etc. I am, like you, a big fan of your man Ligeti, and he himself pays tribute in his music to the likes of Brahms (the horn trio) and Chopin (the etudes) and their "overrated nonsense." I wonder what Ligeti would think of your post? I think the belief that music has to be a zero-sum game--either Ligeti or Beethoven, there can be only one--is a sign of intellectual immaturity. I think Ligeti would agree.

I couldn't say if better.


----------



## Ukko

BurningDesire said:


> That isn't what he's saying at all. The people he calls dinosaurs are people who only listen to old music, and don't really give new music a chance.


I don't know who those people are, who only listen to 'old' music. Is 'tweener music old music? I have found Sculthorpe to be a bridge to Finnessey. It seems to me that Sculthorpe's music ought to be accessible to most 'dinosaurs'. It requires only one more listening 'step' to connect with "Red Earth". Maybe COAG and his band of brothers could try providing links of their own. We dinosaurs may only need a little help.


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## neoshredder

Ligeti is awesome.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

neoshredder said:


> Ligeti is awesome.


That is an understatement.


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## Hausmusik

BurningDesire said:


> That isn't what he's saying at all. The people he calls dinosaurs are people who only listen to old music, and don't really give new music a chance.


And what do you call someone who says "Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best" whereas "Ligeti is awesome" is "an understatement"?


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## BurningDesire

Hausmusik said:


> And what do you call someone who says "Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best" whereas "Ligeti is awesome" is "an understatement"?


a reasonable fellow, and a hardcore-Ligeti fan, respectively


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## moody

neoshredder said:


> Ligeti is awesome.


How do you mean ?


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## Carpenoctem

Haha, it's a crime to put Mozart and Ligeti in the same sentence.


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## Eschbeg

Carpenoctem said:


> Haha, it's a crime to put Mozart and Ligeti in the same sentence.


Could not agree more. Let's not insult Ligeti like that.


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## Carpenoctem

Eschbeg said:


> Could not agree more. Let's not insult Ligeti like that.


Yeah, sorry I apologize, I didn't know what I was thinking.

Ligeti's music is full of emotion, wit, intelligence and brilliance, and Mozart sounds lightweight + every piece he composed sounds the same.


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## neoshredder

Carpenoctem said:


> Yeah, sorry I apologize, I didn't know what I was thinking.
> 
> Ligeti's music is full of emotion, wit, intelligence and brilliance, and Mozart sounds lightweight + every piece he composed sounds the same.


Now you are making sense. They are basically opposites as well. Can you find 2 composers more different?


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## bigshot

Hausmusik said:


> And what do you call someone who says "Mozart, he's an alright composer, very skilled, not the best" whereas "Ligeti is awesome" is "an understatement"?


I would probably let it go and chalk it up to his age.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I would probably let it go and chalk it up to his age.

But were you ever that... immature?


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## neoshredder

bigshot said:


> I would probably let it go and chalk it up to his age.


Gotta give credit to him. At 15, I was barely passed my Green Day/Smashing Pumpkins stage. I didn't think much of classical at that point. CoAG defies the odds.


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## science

Yeah, hard to believe he's 15. He's not a bad guy, either.


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## moody

Eschbeg said:


> Could not agree more. Let's not insult Ligeti like that.


Oh, go on let's!


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## bigshot

It's not going to be a popular opinion, but I think people under 25 usually aren't qualified to criticize music. In order to do that well, you need a broader frame of reference than you can pick up in a few years. When I first got interested in classical music, I had favorites, but I just figured the music I didn't appreciate required something I didn't have yet. I set aside Bach for that very reason, and only now after thirty years do I feel I'm ready to begin down that road.

My advice for young people is to not get too attached to any one thing. Before you start diving in to be a completist in any particular area, get a lay of the land first. Sample a lot of things, and don't dismiss them... Try to understand them on their own terms. There's an awful lot of classical music to listen to.

It's always better to listen before speaking. When I hear a kid be very critical, as some kids are here of Mozart, I know they're speaking from ignorance. Kids are usually most critical about things they don't know much. It's a defense mechanism to bluff people into thinking they know more than they actually do. Best to try to avoid that and just say you don't know if you don't know. There's no shame in that at all.


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## Guest

Age doesn't come into it. I loved Ligeti long before I'd heard even heard any Mozart (at least, that I knew was Mozart!) The soundtrack to _2001: A Space Odyssey _was one of the first three LPs I bought with 'Classical' content, (Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ and Holst's _Planet Suite_ the others). Can't remember the guy who did the pop version of Mozart's 40th, but I hated it, and it's been a bit off-putting since.

Undeterred, I picked up 3 CDs for £5 each today - 6 Chopin Ballades (Ashkenazy), 4 Haydn London Symphonies (Davis/Concertgebouw) and 3 Mozart (25, 40, 41, Marriner/Academy of St Martin).


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## Ukko

bigshot said:


> [...]
> It's always better to listen before speaking. When I hear a kid be very critical, as some kids are here of Mozart, I know they're speaking from ignorance. Kids are usually most critical about things they don't know much. It's a defense mechanism to bluff people into thinking they know more than they actually do. Best to try to avoid that and just say you don't know if you don't know. There's no shame in that at all.


(Your opinion not being popular seems like a safe guess.) The 'kids' here who reveal their ignorance by being hypercritical of composers active 'way back when' - I think they are special. And it's obvious that they agree with me. We may differ in the details.


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## BurningDesire

Carpenoctem said:


> Haha, it's a crime to put Mozart and Ligeti in the same sentence.


Yeah, one is a creative genius, a superb master craftsman of music, and the other is Mozart. :3


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## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> Now you are making sense. They are basically opposites as well. Can you find 2 composers more different?


Beethoven and Cage?


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## Very Senior Member

bigshot said:


> It's not going to be a popular opinion, but I think people under 25 usually aren't qualified to criticize music .....


I agree partly with what you say but I'm not so sure I could pick an exact age when one is presumed capable of criticising music. This must partly depend upon the age at which one started listening and collecting, how much music has been acquired in the meantime, and how much knowledge about the general subject has been absorbed. I would have thought that after a few years it should be possible to make some reasonable judgements that are worth reporting.

Rather than age per se, I would suggest that it's mainly a question of the degree of modesty with which opinions are expressed. I'm quite happy to listen to the opinion of anyone, regardless of age, whether for or against individual composers, provided they're reasonably expressed. This kind of comment still exists on the Forum, but lately we've seen the growth of a new breed of highly assertive, almost dictatorial negative opinions expressed about various famous composers by some of the younger members, combined with highly favourable comments about a few composers who are relative minnows, and in one or two cases composers who are generally not even regarded as classical composers but mainly rock artists.

What's more a lot of this comment is dressed up as if it's based on lots of listening experience, but it clearly it isn't judging from the ages of some involved, and the often naive and misinformed comment that often accompanies much of the comment. This latest development probably started out as a joke but seems to have grown somewhat out of hand. Finding balanced and generally sensible comments in this poluuted environment is becoming more and more difficult. Tackling the issue head-on is a risky venture given that one cannot be sure what might be deemed to be a breach the TOS. Some older members clearly feel gagged. Generally, I don't bother answering a lot of the nonsense spewed out, and let it slide, often reluctantly.


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## StlukesguildOhio

To a great extent I agree with bigshot's above post (197). Speaking from my own experience of coming from an education in the visual arts I know for certain that I was quite often an opinionated and presumptuous twit who thought that he knew far more than his professors and was quick to speak out on art that I really knew little or nothing about. That's probably part of the reason for the old saying, "Children should be seen and not heard".:lol:

Undoubtedly I am just as opinionated today as I ever was... but now this opinion is rooted in a good deal of experience... in music as well as in art. There are areas and genre that remain greatly an unknown territory to me... and as such I tend to avoid commenting upon these. There are other areas that fail to resonate with me... in spite of my having put forth the repeated effort. Schoenberg, for example, remains largely of this ilk... and yet if I dare to comment upon his work I do so from the position of experience of having listened to a great deal of his music... as well as that of others.

I especially agree with the following:

_My advice for young people is to not get too attached to any one thing. Before you start diving in to be a completist in any particular area, get a lay of the land first. Sample a lot of things, and don't dismiss them... Try to understand them on their own terms. There's an awful lot of classical music to listen to._

Becoming obsessed with a single composer without having adequately explored the wealth of music that is out there... within the same ilk... or of an alternative voice leads to the sort of over-inflation of reputations that we have seen bandied about... and essentially its no different from the sort of fanaticism we see with pop music. There is nothing wrong with loving the music of a given composer, but one should perhaps develop the degree of maturity needed to recognize that some things that we like may not be the "greatest ever" and some things that we dislike may actually be of the greatest worth. We might consider that this may be especially true of those composers/artists who are held in great respect and admiration by experienced listeners, musicians, subsequent artists/composers, etc... To argue (largely for the sake of argument) that this or that highly regarded "old master" (be it Mozart, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi...) is grossly overrated and/or inferior to your latest discovery or "flavor of the month" seriously undermines anything else the individual might have had to say. Such is also truly the height of presumption... assuming one's personal opinion trumps those of everyone else... regardless of their experience.

Again... speaking to my own likes... I have never been able to get into more than a few of Schoenberg's works. From Berg I love any number of works... and also have a number of favorite pieces by Webern. But I recognize the respect in which Schoenberg is held... by many highly-experienced listeners... and as such I'm not likely to suggest that Schoenberg is grossly overrated... inferior to dozens of other composers of the era... not unless it were all tongue in cheek... and I'd probably do my best to make this clear.


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## moody

MacLeod said:


> Age doesn't come into it. I loved Ligeti long before I'd heard even heard any Mozart (at least, that I knew was Mozart!) The soundtrack to _2001: A Space Odyssey _was one of the first three LPs I bought with 'Classical' content, (Grieg's _Peer Gynt_ and Holst's _Planet Suite_ the others). Can't remember the guy who did the pop version of Mozart's 40th, but I hated it, and it's been a bit off-putting since.
> 
> Undeterred, I picked up 3 CDs for £5 each today - 6 Chopin Ballades (Ashkenazy), 4 Haydn London Symphonies (Davis/Concertgebouw) and 3 Mozart (25, 40, 41, Marriner/Academy of St Martin).


Have you missed the point ? It was regarding criticising music, not whether you like some of it.


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## bigshot

Hilltroll72 said:


> I think they are special. And it's obvious that they agree with me. We may differ in the details.


Your command of the fine art of speaking over the heads of the "little ears that are listening" is amazing!


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## bigshot

Very Senior Member said:


> Rather than age per se, I would suggest that it's mainly a question of the degree of modesty with which opinions are expressed.


I don't suffer fools gladly, I'm afraid. I tend to just state things baldly without dressing them up politely. So I can appreciate it when other people speak their minds directly. I guess my objection is more with content than tone. When I talk about a subject, I try to be sure that I know what I'm talking about. If I make a mistake, I admit it and try not to make that mistake again. If the inexperienced ones did that too, they wouldn't have any problems, even if they did speak plainly without apology.

Elaborating a bit on the Saint's point... I think the feeling I detect in some regarding the inferiority of the core repetoire is entirely wrong-headed. These works are highly regarded and popular for good reason. Mozart and Wagner aren't totally divorced from our time. Knowledge of the history of music is the foundation that everything today is based upon. Imagine reading Kerouac without knowing anything about Shakespere, Dickens or Mark Twain.

I understand the feeling that the past is very difficult to live up to. It's a lot easier to sweep it aside and not have to compete with 500 years of musical genius. I see that being attempted in the catty quotes from Cage and Ligeti that are used to justify marginalizing history. But ultimately, that's a bluff on the part of a couple of modern composers to try to avoid comparisons that wouldn't favor them while still associating themselves with the great names as peers. It's a pretty lame way of wiping out competition. Ultimately great music will survive because of its intrinsic value, not because it is the only game in town.

In a hundred years, Ligeti and Cage will be as old and historical as Beethoven and Mozart, and they'll be competing directly on the playing field of legacy. Might as well begin to try to live up to the greatness of the past now instead of shuffling and jiving until then.


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## Hausmusik

Well I didn't realize how young CoAG was when I accused him of holding immature views. His understanding of classical music is more assured and mature than the views I held at that age, I am sure.


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## aleazk

_Elaborating a bit on the Saint's point... I think the feeling I detect in some regarding the inferiority of the core repetoire is entirely wrong-headed. These works are highly regarded and popular for good reason. Mozart and Wagner aren't totally divorced from our time. Knowledge of the history of music is the foundation that everything today is based upon. Imagine reading Kerouac without knowing anything about Shakespere, Dickens or Mark Twain._

Nobody, I think, is saying that the core repertoire is inferior. Really, the main critique is that some people seem only confortable with the core repertoire and they make anachronic assertions about the music of modern composers. Assertions that, at least for me, sound very naive instead of conservative (conservative people are not naive, they know what they are talking about, they have experience and they have made a choice). The attacks (personal or towards the core repertoire) are only the result of some kind of frustration, I myself feel frustration when I read some assertion like 'X modern composer is noise, Mozart is true music...'.

'quotes from Cage and Ligeti that are used to justify marginalizing history'. I don't know about Cage, but Ligeti wasn't an antipast at all, read my quote of him some posts above.

'But ultimately, that's a bluff on the part of a couple of modern composers to try to avoid comparisons that wouldn't favor them' 
Would you say that some of Beethoven's music is inferior to Bach because the former is inferior in its counterpoint technique?, I think not. They are not comparable, they develop different kind of musical ideas. Pears and oranges. Personally, I try to listen to the music itself, instead of comparing it with that of some composer dead 200 years ago... Not only is not useful, it's short minded.


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## bigshot

I don't think that Beethoven is inferior to Bach or vice versa, but I do think that you have to look long and hard to find a contemporary artist of any creative discipline that compares to the Rembrandts and Wagners of the past. There are a few, but most great creative artists are now in commercial art. Our artistic era has sacrificed expression and technique for theoretical concepts. Art has suffered because of it. Our society doesn't value art, and it values artists even less.

I don't see any difference comparing an artist from 2011 to one from 1811, any more than I do comparing artists from 1811 with those from 1611. The style changes, but artists are artists.


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## science

Rzewski: Variations on "The People United will never be Defeated."


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## Sid James

I'll not weigh too heavily into this, and I've not had time to read all the thread (even a fraction of it), but I just reply this to the OP, 'CoAg' -



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ...
> We have threads praising the same music that has been praised for centuries, but then I saw this written about one of the most famous composers alive today (Elliott Carter):
> ...
> 
> oooooh harsh. That guy is gonna get into a very sticky situation in no time. Just a warning, starting these threads will cause arguments with the, let's say, insane anti-dinosaur modernist extremists and these debates put me in a bad mood...


I actually didn't mind the new member called Xavier bringing up the thread on Carter (or this member's critical view of Carter's music). To look at it positively, at least it led to some discussion of Carter's music. We don't often get that on this forum.

I think I am less harsh on people critical of music that I like than I was before. I'm trying to give people the freedom to express what they want about music, as long as its not nasty, targeted, primitive, driving some really toxic agenda, etc.

& I don't think Xavier's thread was like that. I have read qualified writers on music, musicologists, say Carter is too complex for his own good. Or some of his works described like that at least. By the same token, I've read things like Ravel describing Beethoven's cello sonatas as "abonimable music."

I mean I give the benefit of the doubt to critics, as well as praisers of different musics. Eg. if they say they've listened to the music, thought about it, learnt about it, I mean what more can I ask? Do I ask Xavier to build a shrine to Carter, even though his heart and mind says no to doing that? Or should Ravel have lied that he admired LvB's cello sonatas, even though his gut reaction to them was that they were "abonimable?"

So what I'm saying is that we can counter and argue against things. We can speak of our experience. We can say what we agree with and what we don't. We can validate some things, but not others. We can describe our passions, for or against.

I'm okay with people who just out with it and speak their mind. I'm not okay with people who use ideology and jargon to say certain things in a way that for example indirectly insults people. Eg. you're an idiot if you don't like what I like. Now that's simply not on. Its horrible behaviour.

So I'm more about attitude than pulling down dinosaurs. I don't like them but I don't see many on this forum. ANd you are right CoAg, there are dinosaurs of the modernist kind too. People who go with ideology, not reality. That's what they have in common with other dinosaurs, who worship Mozart or whatever. Not much to do with what they listen to, but their atitude, ultimately.

That's why I made that parody thread. Its about these boxes and cliches listeners tastes are funnelled into. Waste of time, imo, I would rather just talk about music (not junk ideology).

In conclusion, here is a thing I always praise. 'Praise Natural Mayonnaise.' Very good Aussie product. Yum but fattening in excess. A bit like Mozart?...or Bach...or...or...um...Ligeti?


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## BurningDesire

Sid James said:


> In conclusion, here is a thing I always praise. 'Praise Natural Mayonnaise.' Very good Aussie product. Yum but fattening in excess. A bit like Mozart?...or Bach...or...or...um...Ligeti?


Ewww mayo D: keep it away.

Bach strikes me more as lean meat, and Ligeti would be like.... cotton candy dipped in mountain dew and ketchup, but actually tasting good :3


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## Guest

moody said:


> Have you missed the point ? It was regarding criticising music, not whether you like some of it.


I think it was about both, actually. My post was a general response to the idea that you have to wait until a certain age before you can express a valid opinion on music (like, dislike, good, bad - 'criticising' music can encompass it all) and that one's musical tastes might evolve in a linear way (Mozart first, then Beethoven, then onto the more worthy 'difficult' Ligeti).

What's _your _point?


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## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> I think it was about both, actually. My post was a general response to the idea that you have to wait until a certain age before you can express a valid opinion on music ...


Well Mozart did not have to wait till he was 6 to compose. He was most likely composing in the womb. Just didn't have a pen and paper to write it all down. What a shame! :lol: Then we could go further back to Wolfie's 'womb period.' Which brings me to this -



> ... and that one's musical tastes might evolve in a linear way (Mozart first, then Beethoven, then onto the more worthy 'difficult' Ligeti)...


Oh yeah, the 'linear' argument. Again not commenting on this thread, but just that idea I've read before online. Well whatever the merits of that approach, it comes across as rigid and not very flexible. One size fits all approach. Kind of like Stalin's five year plans. If I was doing that with opera, I wouldn't have gotten very far beyond some wig opera, and I generally don't like that. So nobody should tell me something like to start with that, even though it might well have worked for them.

As I keep sayin' - different folks, different strokes. But who cares?


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## moody

MacLeod said:


> I think it was about both, actually. My post was a general response to the idea that you have to wait until a certain age before you can express a valid opinion on music (like, dislike, good, bad - 'criticising' music can encompass it all) and that one's musical tastes might evolve in a linear way (Mozart first, then Beethoven, then onto the more worthy 'difficult' Ligeti).
> 
> What's _your _point?


The point was bigshot's not mine, he thought that people under 25 usually aren't qualified to criticize music.
Age certainly comes into it because ,like most things in life, you need experience of music whether recorded or in concert before you can compare. How many concerts has the average teenager been to and how big a collection of recordings do they have /

i note that you 've : "......been happy to listen to a mix of classical music for donkey's years.....but can count on the fingers of one hand the number of concerts attended so not exactly experienced ".
You can of course say that you like this piece of music or dislike that piece .But you can't say it's good or bad music unless you have some criteria to work on.
But you can be a twit whatever age you happen to be and we see the evidence day by day.
Also
, being a music student does not mean you know music any more than studying military history makes you capable of fighting a battle.
How does your Vladimir Ashkenazy version of the Chopin ballades compare with Rubinstein, Stefan Askenaze, Perlemuter, Horowitz, Malcuzynski, Pollini, Michelangeli, Cortot, and Moiseiwitsch ?
I would not have thought that this needs putting down in black and white as it is self evident.
I well remember seeing the film of Mario Lanza as Caruso and informing my uncle , a music critic on the Manchester Guardian, that he w as the greatest tenor ever , far superior to Caruso, Gigli, etc. What a fool I must have looked.


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## moody

Sid James said:


> Well Mozart did not have to wait till he was 6 to compose. He was most likely composing in the womb. Just didn't have a pen and paper to write it all down. What a shame! :lol: Then we could go further back to Wolfie's 'womb period.' Which brings me to
> 
> Oh yeah, the 'linear' argument. Again not commenting on this thread, but just that idea I've read before online. Well whatever the merits of that approach, it comes across as rigid and not very flexible. One size fits all approach. Kind of like Stalin's five year plans. If I was doing that with opera, I wouldn't have gotten very far beyond some wig opera, and I generally don't like that. So nobody should tell me something like to start with that, even though it might well have worked for them.
> 
> As I keep sayin' - different folks, different strokes. But who cares?


s
Sid, Mozart is a red herring as you know well. there aren't many geniuses on these forums. And was he writing music critiques at six or whatever ?


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## Arsakes

There is a species of Dinosaurs -that shall be called- "Trollosaurus" yet to be found which despise everything they listen to! :lol:


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## bigshot

My point was actually even simpler than that... I was pointing out that the core repetoire is so broad, I can't imagine having enough time to absorb it all in just five or ten years. I imagine it's possible, but one would have to make it his full time job. I'm still working on grasping it all, and I've been at it for thirty years.


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## Jared

bigshot said:


> My point was actually even simpler than that... I was pointing out that the core repetoire is so broad, I can't imagine having enough time to absorb it all in just five or ten years. I imagine it's possible, but one would have to make it his full time job. I'm still working on grasping it all, and I've been at it for thirty years.


The expression 'Life is short and Art is long' springs to mind..


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## Ukko

Jared said:


> The expression 'Life is short and Art is long' springs to mind..


Yeah. BTW your sig is great. Reminds me of my mother's hamburg - she was mostly a very good cook, but that hamburg... .


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## DeepR

All this puts dinosaurs in a bad light. Have some respect for the mighty creatures who roamed our planet for 150 something million years. Far longer than we'll ever be around.


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## Sid James

moody said:


> s
> Sid, Mozart is a red herring as you know well. there aren't many geniuses on these forums. And was he writing music critiques at six or whatever ?


Yeah, well I like Mozart's music, he was a genius (& I don't often use that term).

But what I'd add is that what if the OP, 'CoAg,' did not reveal his age when he came to this forum? What if he said he's your age, or my age, or no specific age? I mean there's an element of ageism here I think. Maybe going both ways. Maybe a 'generation gap.'

But again, I have not read the majority of this thread. Its just what I'm kind of thinking off the bat right now.


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## Guest

moody said:


> The point was bigshot's not mine,


I know. I wanted to know what _your _point was in telling me I'd missed the point! That's why I italicised 'your' the first time around.



moody said:


> he thought that people under 25 usually aren't qualified to criticize music.


I know that too. That's what I disagreed with.



moody said:


> Age certainly comes into it because ,like most things in life, you need experience of music whether recorded or in concert before you can compare.


Well, I guess I couldn't have written for _Gramophone_ before emerging from the womb, but anyone at any age is entitled to 'criticise' music if they wish. Whether anyone attaches any worth to the criticism is up to them, but if the pre25s aren't 'qualified', any student of music up to degree level - possibly even PhD - has to give up and go home.

Aside from that, the qualification to criticise is merely that you engage with a piece of music and express an opinion. The more you engage with, the more others might attach validity to your criticism, but it's not a requirement.



moody said:


> How many concerts has the average teenager been to and how big a collection of recordings do they have


I don't know. You tell me, since you seem to think it's significant.



moody said:


> You can of course say that you like this piece of music or dislike that piece .But you can't say it's good or bad music unless you have some criteria to work on.


Actually, I can say anything I like, with whatever criteria I choose: who are you tell me what criteria I should use?



moody said:


> But you can be a twit whatever age you happen to be and we see the evidence day by day.


I first came to _Talk Classical _to find out more about some of the music I like to listen to, assuming that there are people here more experienced and more knowledgeable than me. Indeed, that's what I've found. It happened that I wanted to know more about Beethoven symphonies, and my first question about the size of orchestra has been answered, but what I've also found is that several threads here (and some posters within) simply wish to put each other down for their tastes (or lack of) or for their lack of erudition. Apparently, before I am qualified to express an opinion, I must either listen widely and not spend long on a single composer (especially not Wagner or Ligeti); or I must listen deeply to endless interpretations on a single composer (preferably Wagner or Ligeti) and at no time must I say that I like Mozart or Beethoven.

As a newbie, I must settle down and weigh up the feel of the forum before wading in and calling anyone a twit for holding such opinions. (Do I have to accumulate 25 years experience of internet forums before I'm qualified to criticise other posters, I wonder?)



moody said:


> Also, being a music student does not mean you know music any more than studying military history makes you capable of fighting a battle.


Eh? Are you suggesting that only those who play are qualified to criticise?



moody said:


> How does your Vladimir Ashkenazy version of the Chopin ballades compare with Rubinstein, Stefan Askenaze, Perlemuter, Horowitz, Malcuzynski, Pollini, Michelangeli, Cortot, and Moiseiwitsch ? I would not have thought that this needs putting down in black and white as it is self evident.


I don't know, nor do I pretend to know. Are you saying that it is self-evident which of the interpreters of Chopin is the best? Why not just tell me, then we both know, and I've gained from your knowledge, and you've gained from sharing it.

Or am I missing the point again?


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## Guest

aleazk said:


> This is a classical music forum, but not for the amateur listener


I missed the sign on the door when I walked in. My mistake? Should I leave?


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## aleazk

MacLeod said:


> I missed the sign on the door when I walked in. My mistake? Should I leave?


It was just a provocative phrase in the frame of the infamous discussion above, as I have stated.


----------



## Guest

aleazk said:


> It was just a provocative phrase in the frame of the infamous discussion above, as I have stated.


Oh, so it's my mistake to have misread your provocative phrase as a statement of fact?

Thank God it's all down to me.


----------



## aleazk

MacLeod said:


> Oh, so it's my mistake to have misread your provocative phrase as a statement of fact?
> 
> Thank God it's all down to me.


I have said that it was _my_ mistake, I think there's not much more to say about it.


----------



## moody

MACLEOD.

You don't seem to read what you are complaining about very carefully. Bigshot said that he thought that one needed a broader frame of reference than you can pick up in a few years . He also said that it's better to listen before speaking.
Did you see the remark by one member saying that Ligeti is a creative genius, a superb master craftsman of music and the other is (only ?) Mozart. That's a self- destruct if ever I saw one.
Very Senior Member appears to concur with Bigshot's original points and adds some of his own, St.Luke's also. These three have a vast amount of knowledge between them and although it is not necessary to agree with them it certainly is worth listening.
I will answer the comments from your latest missive although I am possibly unwise to do so because I think you may be looking for conflict and that annoys the powers that be.
1.If you read the posts from the three mentioned members again plus mine it might possibly give you some c lues re: " the point".
2. It is obvious that an under 25 is probably LESS experienced to criticise---but not to appreciate.
Bigshot said exactly this.
3. As for students please see the comments already made. 
Engaging with a piece of music and expressing your feelings is not criticism.
4. The number of concerts attended and number of recordings owned is of course significant otherwise you have no way of comparing a performance ,without criteria you can judge nothing in life. If I told you that I had been to a performace of "Hamlet" and it was undoubtedly the best ever. You might ask how many I'd seen, if I answered "Well none actually" you might look at me askance.
5. You say that you came to TC to find out more assuming that there are people more experienced and more knowledgeable--well you were right, so listen to them. Before one expresses an opinion on a subject one needs the knowledge, that would seem basic don't you think ?
6. You can say that you like Mozart and Beethoven as much as you wish and there is no need for you to listen to any other composer at all, us dinosaurs would support you in this. We all believe that the putting down of members because of their musical preferences is absolutely wrong.
7. COAG is the big supporter of Ligeti, I know virtually nothing of this composer and have said nothing for or against him because 
I would easily be made to look ignorant.
8. You don't need 25 years experience to criticise---you do need to know what you are talking about. I have 64 years of experience and have great gaps in my musical knowledge, but am now content and in any case have little time left to bother learning more.
9. I indicated nothing about needing to be able to play--try reading that bit again.
10. Lastly, thank the Lord, my allusions to other pianists' versions of the Ballads appeared to illude you. These are some of the versions that I have ( I have more), so when I hear a performance I am mentally comparing. Which one I prefer is irrelevant and I did not mention it.

This the end of this subject as far as I am concerned, I believe it has been covered ad nauseum.


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## Guest

No, I am not looking for "conflict", I'm looking to assert my point of view which conflicts with yours, that is all. However, I'll not go through all your points, just respond to a few.



> Bigshot said that [...] it's better to listen before speaking.





> you were right, so listen to them. Before one expresses an opinion on a subject one needs the knowledge, that would seem basic don't you think ?


If Bigshot wants to tell me to listen and not speak, I'm sure s/he can do it for himself. I'm curious to know why you're so keen for me not to speak? It wouldn't be much of a Forum if we all sat and listened. In any case, I'll post what I like when I like.



> Engaging with a piece of music and expressing your feelings is not criticism


What I actually said was "the qualification to criticise is merely that you engage with a piece of music and express an _opinion_". As you've not given your definition for me to consider, I'm content to stick with mine.



> I [...] am now content and in any case have little time left to bother learning more.


Difficult to know what to say to such a disheartening comment.



> my allusions to other pianists' versions of the Ballads appeared to illude you. These are some of the versions that I have ( I have more), so when I hear a performance I am mentally comparing. Which one I prefer is irrelevant and I did not mention it.


Which one you prefer is entirely relevant and I wish you had "mentioned it".



> I indicated nothing about needing to be able to play--try reading that bit again.


So, if I misunderstood your point about 'studying military history', why not explain it to me, so I don't misunderstand, instead of just telling me to read again what you wrote?


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## bigshot

Well, I'll offer these two tidbits of unsolicited advive...

1) When you chop up a post line by line to reply, it makes it impossible for anyone to follow your train of thought. Also, one line contradictions don't prove your point. Better to select a section and write two or three paragraphs answering it, sharing as much information and as many supprting examples to back up your opinion as you can.

2) The purpose of discussion isn't just to assert your point. If that's your goal, you don't need us. All we can do is make it difficult for you. The purpose of discussion is to exchange information. Accepting information from other people is just as important as asserting it. In fact, it's more important, because if you don't take the time to fully understand the other person's position, you can't effectively answer it.

I've stated and clarified my comment a couple of times already. But I'll do it again if you want to discuss it with me.

Core repetoire is a vast subject... It includes orchestral music, chamber music, solo piano, opera and vocal music spanning centuries. Assuming you could listen to music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a year, you still wouldn't have gotten all the way through just "the usual suspects". There's a thread where people are ranking themselves as a music listener. Most everyone is listing themselves as "experienced" but I'm willing to bet their experience has huge gaping holes... Maybe they haven't listened to much opera, or baroque, or chamber music... That isn't experienced.

This really isn't a criticism of anyone. Who has the time to listen to and process all that music? It takes decades. If one is 20 years old, one may be experienced in comparison to other 20 year olds, but they likely aren't even close to being experienced in the overall sense.

Now, I'm betting no one disagrees with me so far. If you've wrapped your head around that, I'll move on to the "if/then" part of my point...

If someone is 20 years old and hasn't fully gotten even a basic feel for the full range of the core repetoire, how are they qualified to express an opinion comparing one composer to the rest. When a 20 year old says, "Ligeti is a genius and Mozart is a bum." that doesn't tell me anything about Ligetti or Mozart. That tells me that this kid probably knows something about Ligeti, but very little about Mozart. He certainly doesn't know enough about the ocean of music that makes up classical music to be able to accurately determine their relative place among all that music.

I'm not being insulting, honestly. I'm stating the obvious.


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## Guest

Thanks for your reply bigshot, even if it has a somewhat crusty opening (your "Unsolicited advice")

Let's start with what I agree with. I accept that there is a huge body of work out there (and that's before we get on to the contentious composers); that to get through it all would take a long time and a lot of condensed listening; and that I have massive gaps in my knowledge (something I've acknowledged often enough already in just over 50 posts).

But your definition of 'experienced' and mine don't quite tally. Whilst there may be many people who might claim to have a significant knowledge, few would claim to be knowledgeable about it all, irrespective of either their age or their experience. However, experience" is not a 'YES/NO" condition. Experience accumulates over time, by degrees, and I simply didn't accept the proposition that at any particular age, you may be deemed experienced enough to offer criticism. One part of 'experience' is to offer an opinion to others for consideration and have it rejected through careful argument. If I'd waited until I were 25 to criticise the literature I read at school and college, I would not have got very far with my study.

Of course, anyone who merely states 'Mozart is a genius' is not offering criticism (not by my definition) unless and until they go on to give some supporting evidence and explanation. But then I didn't think anyone here was seriously arguing that it is. Even so, I see no reason why someone of 16 or 20 must restrain themselves until they reach a magic age from offering a considered, evidence based opinion.

If this now seems laboured, it's because the original point I wished to make - simply, briefly - has become so mangled in the replies offered by moody (which also fail to actually quote anything I wrote) that I felt compelled to defend my position. I don't like to be misunderstood or misrepresented, but so as to be sure that I myself am not misunderstanding, my habit is to ask questions as a means to engage with another poster - to seek the same clarification I'm willing to offer. Thus far, moody has chosen not to explain, merely to restate, with apparently subtle insult.

As for chopping up a post to reply, it seems to me to be the best way to evidence the points I'm making. It may not suit you (or moody) to have words dissected in this way, but I'd be surprised if _nobody _could follow my train of thought (which in any case requires the reader to have followed all the exchanges, with or without quotes).

If the mods don't like my style of posting, I'm sure they'll let me know, and I'll be happy to respond to any suggestions they may make about how to improve my contributions.


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## moody

BurningDesire said:


> Just keep your earplugs in, god forbid you expand your horizons and grow as a human being.


I don't thing I'll expand as a human being by listening to music that you and your crowd demand that I should.
Music is for pleasure and not for education, I really don't understand where you get your ideas from.


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## moody

kv466 said:


> Come on Coag,...the alleged dinosaurs have as much right as you do with your already way too familiar rants on Ligeti that make even Polednice's love affair with Brahms seem minuscule. I guess that is one way to make it to the top posters of all time list in less than a year, you little Dilophosaurus.


You might well have put your finger on it !


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## Very Senior Member

MacLeod said:


> .......If this now seems laboured, it's because the original point I wished to make - simply, briefly - has become so mangled in the replies offered by moody (which also fail to actually quote anything I wrote) that I felt compelled to defend my position.


What exactly was the original point you wished to make? I have looked back but can't be sure I have located the relevant post.


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## Vesteralen

I get what you're saying MacLeod, and I think, overall you're doing a very responsible job in expressing yourself.

Additional experience can modify the viewpoints of all of us, old or young, if we let it. In the meantime, all we have to do is be _honest_ in expressing our opinions and they will have value.


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## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> As for chopping up a post to reply, it seems to me to be the best way to evidence the points I'm making. It may not suit you (or moody) to have words dissected in this way, but I'd be surprised if _nobody _could follow my train of thought (which in any case requires the reader to have followed all the exchanges, with or without quotes).


Feel free to post however you'd like, but when things get chopped into bits with back and forth single lines, it shouldn't be surprising that your context gets misunderstood. You're asking the reader to get whiplash going back and forth line by line like that. I know for myself, when I see a post like that, I only read the first few lines then give up. I imagine I'm not alone in that.

Just a stylistic thing that I imagine your old high school English teacher would agree with!

One more point that I didn't make before, but it deserves to be said...

When one is still a novice, and one comes across someone with much more experience, it's best to not argue contentiously with that person, but rather take it as an opportunity for learning. I love to surround myself with people who know a lot more than me, particularly artists, musicians and filmmakers. I've been lucky enough to work with some drop dead geniuses in my career. They wouldn't have suffered my presence for a second if I immediately launched into disagreements with them without fully understanding where they were coming from first.

Learning from those who know things you don't know is what the game is all about. It's about take and give (in that order).


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## Ukko

Vesteralen said:


> I get what you're saying MacLeod, and I think, overall you're doing a very responsible job in expressing yourself.
> 
> Additional experience can modify the viewpoints of all of us, old or young, if we let it. In the meantime, all we have to do is be _honest_ in expressing our opinions and they will have value.


Yes, they will have value. they are unlikely to be _authoritative_, But I am willing to leave that realm to C. Rosen - regarding a few specific subjects. Please remember, people, these boards are filled with IMO posts, supplemented with a few facts here and there. Even the geezers, who may have heard a lot of music, have mangled memories about what they heard (memory is unreliable that way). What we have to refer to is the 3rd or 6th or umpteenth recall of a memory - and every time we recall it we mangle it a little more. When a geezer listens to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, after a decade away but for the umpteenth time, he always knows what theme or phrase is coming next; but the precise effect of that wind choir entrance is either new again, or he has blocked it out in favor of a mangled memory.

There b'God, is a rant.


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## Very Senior Member

I agree


bigshot said:


> Feel free to post however you'd like, but when things get chopped into bits with back and forth single lines, it shouldn't be surprising that your context gets misunderstood. You're asking the reader to get whiplash going back and forth line by line like that. I know for myself, when I see a post like that, I only read the first few lines then give up. I imagine I'm not alone in that.
> 
> Just a stylistic thing that I imagine your old high school English teacher would agree with!
> 
> One more point that I didn't make before, but it deserves to be said...
> 
> When one is still a novice, and one comes across someone with much more experience, it's best to not argue contentiously with that person, but rather take it as an opportunity for learning. I love to surround myself with people who know a lot more than me, particularly artists, musicians and filmmakers. I've been lucky enough to work with some drop dead geniuses in my career. They wouldn't have suffered my presence for a second if I immediately launched into disagreements with them without fully understanding where they were coming from first.
> 
> Learning from those who know things you don't know is what the game is all about. It's about take and give (in that order).


I agree with all you say.


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## moody

Hilltroll72 said:


> Yes, they will have value. they are unlikely to be _authoritative_, But I am willing to leave that realm to C. Rosen - regarding a few specific subjects. Please remember, people, these boards are filled with IMO posts, supplemented with a few facts here and there. Even the geezers, who may have heard a lot of music, have mangled memories about what they heard (memory is unreliable that way). What we have to refer to is the 3rd or 6th or umpteenth recall of a memory - and every time we recall it we mangle it a little more. When a geezer listens to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, after a decade away but for the umpteenth time, he always knows what theme or phrase is coming next; but the precise effect of that wind choir entrance is either new again, or he has blocked it out in favor of a mangled memory.
> 
> There b'God, is a rant.


Mangled memory,cheek ! I may have had a lot of things mangled but not my memory.
I'm not sitting on my porch, smoking a corncob pipe and listening to Hoagy Carmichael songs a bout moonlight.
In any case you can't be a Bridgemaster with such mangling because you have to remember every card.
But seriously--how boring--to an extent it depends what the occasion was and what stage you were at. When I went to the Toscanini concert that I have mentioned before I was only ten, I remember every expression on his face and the explosion of the music pinned me back in my seat it and seems like yesterday.


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## Ukko

moody said:


> Mangled memory,cheek ! I may have had a lot of things mangled but not my memory.
> I'm not sitting on my porch, smoking a corncob pipe and listening to Hoagy Carmichael songs a bout moonlight.
> In any case you can't be a Bridgemaster with such mangling because you have to remember every card.
> But seriously--how boring--to an extent it depends what the occasion was and what stage you were at. When I went to the Toscanini concert that I have mentioned before I was only ten, I remember every expression on his face and the explosion of the music pinned me back in my seat it and seems like yesterday.


In a bridge game the cards etc. are stored in short term memory; no problem there. It's long term memory that gets 'processed' every time it's retrieved. And there's no way you can tell it's been modified, unless you make a detailed record of the memory the 1st time it is retrieved... and I suspect that attention from the forebrain intensifies the modification process. So that '1st pass' recording already has mangled the memory. For all we know, Toscanini stuck his tongue out at you.


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## moody

Hilltroll72 said:


> In a bridge game the cards etc. are stored in short term memory; no problem there. It's long term memory that gets 'processed' every time it's retrieved. And there's no way you can tell it's been modified, unless you make a detailed record of the memory the 1st time it is retrieved... and I suspect that attention from the forebrain intensifies the modification process. So that '1st pass' recording already has mangled the memory. For all we know, Toscanini stuck his tongue out at you.


As a matter of interest I believe the concert is available. Also now you've brought it all back to me he did stick his tongue out at me. As for the long term memory thing---psychobabble, and anyway it's my memory hands off!


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## Ukko

moody said:


> As a matter of interest I believe the concert is available. Also now you've brought it all back to me he did stick his tongue out at me. As for the long term memory thing---psychobabble, and anyway it's my memory hands off!


Will do. I too have memories that I don't want messed with.


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## BurningDesire

moody said:


> Did you see the remark by one member saying that Ligeti is a creative genius, a superb master craftsman of music and the other is (only ?) Mozart. That's a self- destruct if ever I saw one.
> 
> 6. You can say that you like Mozart and Beethoven as much as you wish and there is no need for you to listen to any other composer at all, us dinosaurs would support you in this. We all believe that the putting down of members because of their musical preferences is absolutely wrong.


1. That was a joke. Nobody is sacred, I don't think Mozart is uncreative or unskilled as a craftsman, but he's not perfect. A simple joke about the god of classical music is intolerable, but genuine invective leveled at modern composers is fine, thats just opinion, right?

2. Unless the music they only or mostly like is modern music. Then its fine to criticize them, and obviously if they say anything bad about the great composers of the past, they must be trolling, or trying to inflate the greatness of the composers they like. It couldn't possibly be a genuine, separate opinion from their opinions on modern composers they like. *sarcasm btw*


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## bigshot

BurningDesire said:


> A simple joke about the god of classical music is intolerable, but genuine invective leveled at modern composers is fine, thats just opinion, right?


no human is perfect. But depending on the criteria you use to judge by, some will come ut on top over others. Modern music is primarily reductive. Less does not always mean more.


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## Guest

Very Senior Member said:


> What exactly was the original point you wished to make? I have looked back but can't be sure I have located the relevant post.


My post was this one http://www.talkclassical.com/20489-always-praising-same-music-14.html#post335013

It was bigshot's post here http://www.talkclassical.com/20489-always-praising-same-music-14.html#post335004

that prompted me to write a response. Actually, my post was a little clumsy and disjointed, but my two points were

1. I disagreed with bigshot on the idea that "people under 25 usually aren't qualified to criticize music."
2. I wanted to illustrate that there is no such thing as an ordered procession in the acquisition of experience, knowledge and understanding of music (of any type, actually, never mind that which some want to classify as 'classical'). My example was that I paid attention to Ligeti before Mozart, bought Holst before Haydn etc...

How was this relevant to the OP? COAG said that Mozart is "very popular among dinosaurs and other very limited conservative listeners" as if liking Mozart disqualified people from liking the stuff that he likes (he referenced Carter and Ligeti). He was also tiring of those "threads where members confess their love to Beethoven's Ninth". Given that Beethoven's Ninth is a piece I've just been trying to become acquainted with, this seemed a trifle provocative (not that I have a problem with provocative per se). In fact, I attempted to ask for others' opinions on the Ninth, precisely because I wanted to know whether what my ears were telling me (that HvK's 1977 was muddled, and MacKerras' 1994 was better) made sense to anyone else.

http://www.talkclassical.com/16690-post-your-ninths-beethoven-4.html#post332585 [sorry, this one won't hyperlink]

Contrary to COAG's belief, there was not then a stampede of dinosaurs to join in the discussion. In fact, no-one has replied. The vast wealth of experience that some claim is here to be listened to was curiously absent on the topic that COAG asserts is interminable.

I answered COAG at http://www.talkclassical.com/20489-always-praising-same-music-12.html#post333678 but he has chosen not to reply.

Lastly, to save writing a separate post to respond to this one by bigshot

http://www.talkclassical.com/20489-always-praising-same-music-16.html#post336542

where he says, "When one is still a novice, and one comes across someone with much more experience, it's best to not argue contentiously with that person, but rather take it as an opportunity for learning".

I disagree (provided that 'contentious argument' does not imply disrespect). After all, I was under the impression that such an approach to debate has a long distinguished tradition (Socratic/Platonic dialogue was just that: a challenging discussion between a novice and their master).

Anyway, I'm not aware that I have yet argued contentiously with anyone on a matter about which I am a novice or they someone with much more experience - chance would be a fine thing!


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## bigshot

I think you're on the right road with Beethoven. There's a ton of incredible stuff in that direction. The direction of Ligeti is a much smaller, and ultimately less important field. But you can't really know that for yourself until you know both.


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## aleazk

bigshot said:


> I think you're on the right road with Beethoven. There's a ton of incredible stuff in that direction. The direction of Ligeti is a much smaller, and ultimately less important field. But you can't really know that for yourself until you know both.


, boring provocations as usual... This 'debate' is getting really annoying, you have posted more negative and provocative comments about modern music that all the provocative comments against Mozart together...


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## moody

BurningDesire said:


> 1. That was a joke. Nobody is sacred, I don't think Mozart is uncreative or unskilled as a craftsman, but he's not perfect. A simple joke about the god of classical music is intolerable, but genuine invective leveled at modern composers is fine, thats just opinion, right?
> 
> 2. Unless the music they only or mostly like is modern music. Then its fine to criticize them, and obviously if they say anything bad about the great composers of the past, they must be trolling, or trying to inflate the greatness of the composers they like. It couldn't possibly be a genuine, separate opinion from their opinions on modern composers they like. *sarcasm btw*


Well, I think I've striven manfully in the last few days to get with it as far as modern music is concerned. 
I would advise you, in a friendly way, to be just a bit less shrill in your viewpoints--this way you have more chance of convicing people.


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## Very Senior Member

BurningDesire said:


> 1. That was a joke. Nobody is sacred, I don't think Mozart is uncreative or unskilled as a craftsman, but he's not perfect. A simple joke about the god of classical music is intolerable, but genuine invective leveled at modern composers is fine, thats just opinion, right?


I've never actually seen you talk about Mozart except in vague generalities. Which of Mozart's most significant works do you think are over-rated?


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## Petwhac

I think it's perfectly acceptable to criticise any composer from any era as long as it is an intelligent and reasoned criticism.
A lot of the opinions I see on TC seem to be 'received', meaning members express opinions that do not originate from their own explorations but are handed down by writers, scholars and critics etc. 
If someone wants to claim that Mozart is overrated, that may be a perfectly legitimate view but they do need to be able to justify it, or back it up with an analysis of the music.
It is natural to be influenced by the opinions of those we respect but we really should make up our own minds-through extensive listening and thought.
We live in an age of unprecedented access to music (those of us with the internet that is). Once upon a time Mozart was a big fish in a fairly small pond, but now that pond is an unending ocean. Look on youtube and you'll find dozens even hundreds of composers past and present that you haven't heard of. Will there be another Mozart out there or a Ligeti? Quite possibly but that composer will need to be championed by a 'name' in the music world before he/she will even get on the radar of forums, radio or concert halls.
Personally, I do not care for almost all serial music. My opinion that it is a limited expressive language incapable of doing certain things is one that I hold through study, listening and thinking. Obviously there are a great many famous composers who disagree with me and I am open to the possibility that one day I may change my view, just as one day they might change theirs.


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## bigshot

aleazk said:


> , boring provocations as usual... This 'debate' is getting really annoying, you have posted more negative and provocative comments about modern music that all the provocative comments against Mozart together...


What brought that on? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?


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## Ukko

bigshot said:


> What brought that on? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?




I think it's the side one rolls out on that is supposed to count.

"I think you're on the right road with Beethoven. There's a ton of incredible stuff in that direction. The direction of Ligeti is a much smaller, and ultimately less important field. But you can't really know that for yourself until you know both."

The criterion appears to be quantity of quality output. It's a valid criterion, as is the validity of the last sentence. I really can't picture Ligeti disagreeing with you. Now, if his music were put in the balance scale (like the one _Justice_ wields) with Barber's... I figure there is considerable room for debate. There are several other modern 'fair candidates' too, most of them with names I don't remember how to spell, like Dutil... and Lutosl... those guys. Hungarian names tend to be easier to spell, though they may be as hard as Czech names for a hillbilly to pronounce.


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## Taneyev

Or Georgians as Ottar Taktakishvili (whos first violin concerto is just extraordinary)


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## bigshot

Modern music just leads to modern music. Beethoven leads to centuries and centuries of great classical music, both backwards and forwards. It's OK to focus on one comparitively small area of music, but I really think it's better to spread outward, rather than drill downward. Especially when you're just starting out. If you're just listening to Beethoven's 9th for the first time, you're starting out at the first sentence of chapter one. Why skip from there to the last three pages?


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## Ukko

/\ Beethoven? We must have some sort of com disconnect here. Even Dufay isn't 'the first sentence'. Why does it matter where one starts? If I had tried to start with the Renaissance, I would probably have sloughed it off, and not got beyond Scots-Irish-Appalachian folk-bluegrass. That wouldn't have been a bad place to be, but it's just one ripple in the pond of music.


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## Very Senior Member

Hilltroll72 said:


> ..There are several other modern 'fair candidates' too, most of them with names I don't remember how to spell, like *Dutil... and Lutosl... *those guys. Hungarian names tend to be easier to spell, though they may be as hard as Czech names for a hillbilly to pronounce.


- Dutilleux (very nice Oboe Sonata, and Sonatine for flute & piano)

- Lutoslawski (definitely worth having: Concerto for Orchestra)

Others (all still alive as far as I know), with a few examples:

- Fitkin (Cello concerto)

- Shchedrin (Carmen ballet, worth a listen at least, although very old-fashioned)

- Rorem (Symphony No 1, Piano Sonata no 2)

- Koehne (String Quartet No 1)

All infinitely more palatable to my tastes than the kind of material on the others side of the scales.


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## bigshot

Hilltroll, I'm not talking chronologically. I'm talking about a piece of music that is generally thought of as being one of the central works in all of classical music. Maybe some people with more tightly focused or esoteric tastes might choose something else, but I think for most who click "classical music guru" in the poll, Beethoven's 9th would be one of the top handful of works which could be considered ground zero for an initial exploration of what cassical music is all about. I think that's why he's listening to it.


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## Ukko

bigshot said:


> Hilltroll, I'm not talking chronologically. I'm talking about a piece of music that is generally thought of as being one of the central works in all of classical music. Maybe some people with more tightly focused or esoteric tastes might choose something else, but I think for most who click "classical music guru" in the poll, Beethoven's 9th would be one of the top handful of works which could be considered ground zero for an initial exploration of what cassical music is all about. I think that's why he's listening to it.


Could be. Personally, I don't care much for it. It isn't among the Beethoven works I would recommend to anyone, much less a newbie.


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## bigshot

I don't think you're typical on that one. Perhaps internet forums aren't representative of the tastes and opinions of classical music listeners as a whole. The internet might attract contrarians.


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## Very Senior Member

bigshot said:


> I don't think you're typical on that one. Perhaps internet forums aren't representative of the tastes and opinions of classical music listeners as a whole. The internet might attract contrarians.


If Hliltroll is suggesting that Beethoven Symphony No 9 is not the best place for a "noob" to start with Beethoven, I would agree. It's too long and over-powering, and the choral ending may put them off, thinking "what the hell's this?"

For a noob, the correct order is Beethoven 5, then 7, then 6, 3, 8, 1, 4, 9 (forget about 2). It's written in some "Book" somewhere (Samuel, Judges, Saul?, I forget now).

For a noobette, Beethoven might be a touch too "butch". Better off with Mozart 39, 40, 41 followed by Schubert 8, 9. Then maybe Beethoven 6.


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## Ukko

bigshot said:


> I don't think you're typical on that one. Perhaps internet forums aren't representative of the tastes and opinions of classical music listeners as a whole. The internet might attract contrarians.


It probably does; not so apt to get slapped upside the head. But I choose to consider myself as an 'independent thinker'. I even dare (with the the exception of the 6th) to consider Beethoven's even numbered symphonies the equal of the others.


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## moody

bigshot said:


> I don't think you're typical on that one. Perhaps internet forums aren't representative of the tastes and opinions of classical music listeners as a whole. The internet might attract contrarians.


He is definitely a contrarian, that's what I love about him.


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## BurningDesire

Very Senior Member said:


> For a noobette, Beethoven might be a touch too "butch". Better off with Mozart 39, 40, 41 followed by Schubert 8, 9. Then maybe Beethoven 6.


So Beethoven is too much for women to handle? Also, the idea that there is a "correct order" to hear works is pretty absurd.


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## BurningDesire

Hilltroll72 said:


> It probably does; not so apt to get slapped upside the head. But I choose to consider myself as an 'independent thinker'. I even dare (with the the exception of the 6th) to consider Beethoven's even numbered symphonies the equal of the others.


Whats wrong with the 6th?


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## Ukko

BurningDesire said:


> Whats wrong with the 6th?


It's program music. Rather inane program music. Even the orchestration is inane. What more do you need to be 'wrong'?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Are you mad, man!? The 6th is a marvelous work.

Personally, I began with Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi; moved forward into the Classical era with Mozart and Haydn; struggled a bit with the broad sprawling forms of Romanticism, and finally emerged into early Modernism (Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Bartok, etc...) before doubling back into opera and "Early Music" (Medieval and Renaissance). I have tended to explore every perceived gap in a somewhat logical and systematic manner. About three years ago I decided to flesh out my grasp of the Baroque. I made a conscious effort to focus first upon the French, then the Germans, Italians, and English. Of course... at the same time I also listen to music from my accumulated wealth of discs in a rather random manner. On a given day I might listen to Wagner followed by Byzantine Chant then Muddy Waters followed by Duke Ellington, Bach, Mozart, Johnny Cash, and the Rolling Stones.


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## bigshot

StlukesguildOhio said:


> On a given day I might listen to Wagner followed by Byzantine Chant then Muddy Waters followed by Duke Ellington, Bach, Mozart, Johnny Cash, and the Rolling Stones.


me too. wanna swap itunes libraries?


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## bigshot

Hilltroll72 said:


> It's program music. Rather inane program music. Even the orchestration is inane. What more do you need to be 'wrong'?


nothing else! You've achieved it perfectly!


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## Orpheus

Hilltroll72 said:


> It's program music. Rather inane program music. Even the orchestration is inane. What more do you need to be 'wrong'?


Did you listen to Simon Rattle's travesty lately or something?

If you did, I would agree with you, on the basis of that version and that version only.


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## aleazk

Certain member here is very interested in impositions, it seems. '25 yo people _is not_ qualified to criticize music', 'music _must_ be listened in certain order'. , sorry, but we live in democracy.


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## BurningDesire

Hilltroll72 said:


> It's program music. Rather inane program music. Even the orchestration is inane. What more do you need to be 'wrong'?


Program music is awesome, and nothing about that symphony is inane. It is brilliant.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> It is natural to be influenced by the opinions of those we respect but we really should make up our own minds-through extensive listening and thought.


Quite right. My older brother strongly influenced the choices I've made in the music I've listened to, some of which I've kept with (Zappa, Beethoven) some of which I've rejected (Schoenberg, at least, for the moment) but all of which I've made up my own mind about, mostly on the basis of listening to it! He's a fan of Lutoslawski too, but I've not tried that yet. I will.



Petwhac said:


> Personally, I do not care for almost all serial music. My opinion that it is a limited expressive language incapable of doing certain things is one that I hold through study, listening and thinking.


Hmmm. This seems to imply that music has only a single purpose, and to fulfil that purpose, it should use a comprehensive language enabling it to do all things. (Feel free to put me right if I've overinterpreted, Petwhac.) Don't you find that some music is great to listen to in some circumstances, but not others? I've made an active choice to familiarise myself with all of Beethoven's symphonies because I want to make my brain work harder, but I couldn't listen to it all the time.



bigshot said:


> Modern music just leads to modern music. Beethoven leads to centuries and centuries of great classical music, both backwards and forwards. It's OK to focus on one comparitively small area of music, but I really think it's better to spread outward, rather than drill downward. Especially when you're just starting out. If you're just listening to Beethoven's 9th for the first time, you're starting out at the first sentence of chapter one. Why skip from there to the last three pages?


If music is like a book, then I started at the last three pages, hopped back to the first three, on to chapter 34, then 56, back again to chapter 17...and I didn't know I was reading a book anyway!

I'm puzzled why you're so keen for people to engage with music in any particular order?



bigshot said:


> Beethoven's 9th would be one of the top handful of works which could be considered ground zero for an initial exploration of what cassical music is all about. I think that's why he's listening to it.


Assuming I'm still the 'he' you're referring to, I'm exploring it for several reasons.

It's a Beethoven symphony, so I can hardly leave it out of a conscious listening exercise.
It's generally considered one of the greats - at least within the mainstream dialogue about music - and I want to understand why
I'm already familiar with the 'Ode to Joy' since it has been absorbed into other arts and culture generally, and slices of it are endlessly used as background, so I'm assuming that the rest that I'm not familiar with will be equally rewarding.
Mastering the whole will give greater overall pleasure than simply knowing some of the parts.
However, whilst I'm a newbie on TC, I don't consider myself a newbie starting out on an exploration of classical music. I began that journey a very long time ago.



bigshot said:


> I don't think you're typical on that one. Perhaps internet forums aren't representative of the tastes and opinions of classical music listeners as a whole. The internet might attract contrarians.


My wife has a saying - that I'd defend the dead dog in the middle of the road, just to have a different opinion from her.



Very Senior Member said:


> If Hliltroll is suggesting that Beethoven Symphony No 9 is not the best place for a "noob" to start with Beethoven, I would agree. It's too long and over-powering, and the choral ending may put them off, thinking "what the hell's this?"
> 
> For a noob, the correct order is Beethoven 5, then 7, then 6, 3, 8, 1, 4, 9 (forget about 2). It's written in some "Book" somewhere (Samuel, Judges, Saul?, I forget now).
> 
> For a noobette, Beethoven might be a touch too "butch". Better off with Mozart 39, 40, 41 followed by Schubert 8, 9. Then maybe Beethoven 6.


I'm so glad I've made friends here who are keen to give me some kind of road map! 
The actual order I've encountered Beethoven is, like many people who just get on with life and aren't making a deliberate study of music, in bits and pieces: a movement here, a passage there. In my case, cinema is a strong influence. In 1973, _Soylent Green_ prompted me to find the 6th, and in 2012, _The King's Speech _led me to the 7th - 2nd movement. I didn't know I knew the 4th movement of the 1st (children's TV animation called _Ludwig_, 1977). Watching _Eroica _(2003) inevitably took me to the Eroica, oddly enough, and so on. Only the 2nd, 4th and 8th were, I now realise, wholly unknown to me when I started my listening exercise.

As for the choral ending, yes, it is off-putting, though I can't quite say why yet. Probably because the voices get in the way of a great tune!


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## Very Senior Member

MacLeod said:


> I'm so glad I've made friends here who are keen to give me some kind of road map!


I note the rolly eyes, and in this regard it might be helpful if you could clarify what you are looking for, only I'm somewhat puzzled..

Apart from a couple of specific queries on the orchestration of Beethoven's early symphonies (which I did my best to answer), I've never been clear about exactly what further advice you are seeking on how to explore the main classical music repertoire. You seem to enjoy geeting embroiled in some of the more contentious threads where disagreements are likely, and making your own statements of philosophical principle even though you qualify them by admitting your lack of acquaintance with much of the repertoire.

On specfics, I had understood that you were asking for advice on which version of Beethoven''s Symphony No 9 to go for. Rather than discuss specifics, "Bigshot" was saying that he felt it was a work that should be tackled early on, but "Hilltroll" was suggesting otherwise. I then put in my two-penneth in by agreeing that it's a long work which may prove somewhat indigestible to a newcomer.

If this sort of contribution is not helpful to you could you please say so. If you would like advice specifically on which version of the Ninth to go for, then I'd be please to help. However this forum is awash with recommendations and discussions on that subject, and I'm sure it's as easy for you to find them as it is for anyone else. But, as I say, if you have trouble locating any of them just say so and I'm sure that you will soon be bowled over by the number of recommendations.


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## Guest

What I'm "looking for" is exchange, dialogue, an opportunity to express some of my thoughts and consider others' thoughts: in other words, what I presume everyone else has come here for. I'm not expecting to use TC as some kind of reference library, merely to 'find things out' and then go away again.

As I've said before (can't remember who to) I'll make whatever contribution to whichever thread I like. If I wish to make statements of philosophical principle based on my relative ignorance, I will. If you don't like my contributions, you can ignore them. Or you could consider my statements of principle and offer some evidenced criticism of them. (However, remember that "if you don't like them, I've got others.") What I'm not expecting is to be guided to make the _right _kind of contribution by another member who seems to think that I'm making the _wrong _kind.

My rolleyes was at the idea that there is a "correct order" in which to listen to LvB's symphonies, and at the idea that anyone would think to make such a pronouncement.


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## Ukko

MacLeod said:


> [...]
> My rolleyes was at the idea that there is a "correct order" in which to listen to LvB's symphonies, and at the idea that anyone would think to make such a pronouncement.


:devil:

Matter of fact there is a _useful_ order: chronologically by dates-of-composition.

Going that route makes it easier, at least in the 1st three symphonies, to follow the progress of his divergence from the styles of his immediate predecessors.

The 4th and 5th symphonies were pretty much concurrent creations; the ways they differ, the choices he made in what music to place where, could be of interest. The 6th symphony seems to me to be a one-off; I haven't researched its history. I'll leave the last three symphonies untainted by my "contrarian" opinions. Well, I suppose the 9th is out of the bag.

This 'useful' order is not, of course, how I was introduced to the symphonies - it would have been a good way though, I think. Maybe.


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## Petwhac

MacLeod said:


> Hmmm. This seems to imply that music has only a single purpose, and to fulfil that purpose, it should use a comprehensive language enabling it to do all things. (Feel free to put me right if I've overinterpreted, Petwhac.) Don't you find that some music is great to listen to in some circumstances, but not others? I've made an active choice to familiarise myself with all of Beethoven's symphonies because I want to make my brain work harder, but I couldn't listen to it all the time.


I'm not sure what you mean by single purpose. I'm not criticizing composers for wanting to write serial music or listeners for wanting to listen to it but I believe that it _is_ the intention of such composers to be listened to. That is the only purpose I can see for writing it. This is in contrast to film music which serves to support the visuals. Or dance music , whether it be J.Strauss or Drum and Bass. Or relaxation music or jingles or background wallpaper music. These other musics are perfectly legitimate and often executed with great artistry and expertise but I see them as fundamentally different in their _aims_.
I too would soon get sick of Beethoven's symphonies if I listened to them _all_ the time but they _were _written to serve no other purpose than to be listened to. I think a listener can have different 'hats'. I listen to Jazz or Rock or Country or Folk but I don't have the same expectations for each and don't expect to respond in the same way to each. If I am at a concert of string quartets with music by Haydn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern and Maxwell Davies I am fully confident that each composer intended their work to be given the full attention of the listener.
I'm not sure if I have addressed your point or missed it entirely, so let me know.


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## Eschbeg

Petwhac said:


> If I am at a concert of string quartets with music by Haydn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern and Maxwell Davies I am fully confident that each composer intended their work to be given the full attention of the listener.


That would be only partially true of Haydn. Many of his instrumental works were designed to be sonic wallpaper for aristocratic functions.


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## Ramako

Eschbeg said:


> That would be only partially true of Haydn. Many of his instrumental works were designed to be sonic wallpaper for aristocratic functions.


Not the quartets. No one knows why he composed the quartets 

Actually, many were written as much for the performer(s) as the listener, in this case and in many others.


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## Very Senior Member

Hilltroll72 said:


> :devil:
> 
> Matter of fact there is a _useful_ order: chronologically by dates-of-composition.
> 
> Going that route makes it easier, at least in the 1st three symphonies, to follow the progress of his divergence from the styles of his immediate predecessors.
> 
> The 4th and 5th symphonies were pretty much concurrent creations; the ways they differ, the choices he made in what music to place where, could be of interest. The 6th symphony seems to me to be a one-off; I haven't researched its history. I'll leave the last three symphonies untainted by my "contrarian" opinions. Well, I suppose the 9th is out of the bag.
> 
> This 'useful' order is not, of course, how I was introduced to the symphonies - it would have been a good way though, I think. Maybe.


I see the merit in your suggestion, but I would have thought that accessibility is an alternative criterion for somone who wants to avoid the possibilty of getting fed up half way through.

To tell the truth I can't for the life of me work out why anybody needs any help with anything like this. The only reason I commented was to question whether the Ninth is the best starting point in exploring Beethoven's symphonies.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by single purpose. I'm not criticizing composers for wanting to write serial music or listeners for wanting to listen to it but I believe that it _is_ the intention of such composers to be listened to. That is the only purpose I can see for writing it. This is in contrast to film music which serves to support the visuals. Or dance music , whether it be J.Strauss or Drum and Bass. Or relaxation music or jingles or background wallpaper music. These other musics are perfectly legitimate and often executed with great artistry and expertise but I see them as fundamentally different in their _aims_.
> I too would soon get sick of Beethoven's symphonies if I listened to them _all_ the time but they _were _written to serve no other purpose than to be listened to. I think a listener can have different 'hats'. I listen to Jazz or Rock or Country or Folk but I don't have the same expectations for each and don't expect to respond in the same way to each. If I am at a concert of string quartets with music by Haydn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern and Maxwell Davies I am fully confident that each composer intended their work to be given the full attention of the listener.
> I'm not sure if I have addressed your point or missed it entirely, so let me know.


I would agree that the composers you cite want their work to be actively listened to, certainly. But they may be composing work to explore a prescribed musical form, rather like poets write sonnets, or to subvert it. Others write to express emotion, or stir emotion in others ('Joy' for example?) I would argue that more recently, the ability to record has enabled composers to play with music entirely based on the sonic figures or patterns they hear, rather than the written form - Steve Reich, perhaps. Consequently, what they produce uses a different language for a different purpose.



Hilltroll72 said:


> Matter of fact there is a _useful_ order: chronologically by dates-of-composition.
> 
> Going that route makes it easier, at least in the 1st three symphonies, to follow the progress of his divergence from the styles of his immediate predecessors.
> 
> The 4th and 5th symphonies were pretty much concurrent creations; the ways they differ, the choices he made in what music to place where, could be of interest. The 6th symphony seems to me to be a one-off; I haven't researched its history. I'll leave the last three symphonies untainted by my "contrarian" opinions. Well, I suppose the 9th is out of the bag.
> 
> This 'useful' order is not, of course, how I was introduced to the symphonies - it would have been a good way though, I think. Maybe.


Ah, very happy with the idea of a _useful _order. Thanks.


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## Very Senior Member

MacLeod said:


> My rolleyes was at the idea that there is a "correct order" in which to listen to LvB's symphonies, and at the idea that anyone would think to make such a pronouncement.


You asked for advice. I gave it. For "correct order" read "accessibility" if it bothers you.

Are you sure you need any advice, only you seem to have all the answers up your sleeve on most things already?


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## Guest

Very Senior Member said:


> You asked for advice. I gave it. For "correct order" read "accessibility" if it bothers you.
> 
> Are you sure you need any advice, only you seem to have all the answers up your sleeve on most things already?


In one of my earliest posts, I did ask for _information _- about the number of instruments used for LvB's symphonies - and you replied. Thank you.  (I seem to recall 'liking' your post at the time: if I didn't, my apologies, and I'll put that right.

Subsequently, I expressed an opinion about the symphony I am currently listening to and asked for others' opinions (not advice). I don't recall asking for advice on the particular exercise I've written about here - certainly not whether there is some order in which the symphonies should be listened to.


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## Eschbeg

Ramako said:


> Not the quartets. No one knows why he composed the quartets


We do know that he wrote some of them because he was asked to do so. The Op. 1 quartets were likely the result of a request from Baron Carl von Joseph Edler von Fürnberg, and it is telling that when they were published they were listed not as "quartets" but as "divertimenti," which shows that Haydn, at least at this stage in his career, considered the quartet to be an extension of a genre that was designed as much for background music as for "the full attention of the listeners."


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## bigshot

Well, I guess I'm the one who started all this, but my original point was loss in all the posturing. All I was saying was that I was surprised someone would consider themselves an experienced classical music listener and be only hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time. That makes me wonder if the person is also not familiar with Schubert's symphonies, or Mendelssohn's, or Tchaikovsky's, or the late Mozart symphonies, or Haydn's London symphonies... Not to mention concertos, vocal music, opera, chamber music and solo piano works that are an indispensable part of "classical music 101".

It really doesn't matter which one starts with, but I would expect that even novice classical music listeners would have heard the things that sit smack dab middle of the core.

I suspect a lot of younger listeners might be skipping the beginnning and middle and focusing just on the modern music... and then presuming they're qualified to comment on the music they skipped over! To me, that's like eating just the rind of an orange and assuming that tells you what an orange tastes like.


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## bigshot

Eschbeg said:


> Haydn, at least at this stage in his career, considered the quartet to be an extension of a genre that was designed as much for background music as for "the full attention of the listeners."


Haydn's "background music" is more worthy of our full attention than more than a few other composers' serious music.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> All I was saying was that I was surprised someone would consider themselves an experienced classical music listener and be only hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time. That makes me wonder if the person is also not familiar with etc...


As this thread becomes increasingly...tortuous, would you mind being clear which 'person' you're referring to? Thanks


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## aleazk

bigshot said:


> Well, I guess I'm the one who started all this, but my original point was loss in all the posturing. All I was saying was that I was surprised someone would consider themselves an experienced classical music listener and be only hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time. That makes me wonder if the person is also not familiar with Schubert's symphonies, or Mendelssohn's, or Tchaikovsky's, or the late Mozart symphonies, or Haydn's London symphonies... Not to mention concertos, vocal music, opera, chamber music and solo piano works that are an indispensable part of classical music.
> 
> It really doesn't matter which one starts with, but I would expect that even novice classical music listeners would have heard the things that sit smack dab middle of the core.
> 
> I suspect a lot of younger listeners might be skipping the beginnning and middle and focusing just on the modern music. And then presuming they're qualified to comment on the music they skipped over! To me, that's like eating just the rind of an orange and assuming that tells you what an orange tastes like.


Personally I have listened to all those pieces many years ago. Currently, I only listen to them very sporadically, but I'm not a big fan of romanticism either. Currently I listen to a lot of modern music because I'm interested in composing modern music, because I like the ideas explored in modern music. When I was studying piano, I have been exposed to a lot of the 'core repertoire'. So, from my part, I'm an 'experienced listener' with good knowledge of the core repertoire. I don't think that nobody of the modern music enthusiasts here have a poor exposure to the core repertoire, on the contrary.


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## Ukko

bigshot said:


> Haydn's "background music" is more worthy of our full attention than more than a few other composers' serious music.


Yeah. I'm wondering about the 'divertimenti' label. Is its meaning closely related to 'diversion'? Maybe diversion from the mundane? If so, how could the music 'divert' one's preoccupation with the mundane unless he pays attention to it? Eh?


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## Very Senior Member

MacLeod said:


> In one of my earliest posts, I did ask for _information _- about the number of instruments used for LvB's symphonies - and you replied. Thank you.  (I seem to recall 'liking' your post at the time: if I didn't, my apologies, and I'll put that right.
> 
> Subsequently, I expressed an opinion about the symphony I am currently listening to and asked for others' opinions (not advice). I don't recall asking for advice on the particular exercise I've written about here - certainly not whether there is some order in which the symphonies should be listened to.


My comment was meant to be complimentary with regard to your knowledge, interest and enthusiasm. I was only speculating that perhaps you know a lot more than you are letting on, for the sake of stimulating interesting discussion that is. You've certainly managed to get all or most of TC's "old stags" out, locking horns on this and that. But there's one heavyweight member you haven't yet met. I do hope he comes along in due course, if not here possibly in another of these very entertaining threads, in order to put us all straight. You will recognise him by his punctilious attention to correct spelling and grammar, and his formidable skill in giving people a punch on the nose without them even noticing. I hasten to add that I have much respect for this individual's very wide knowledge of music.


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## Guest

Very Senior Member said:


> My comment was meant to be complementary with regard to your knowledge, interest and enthusiasm. I was only speculating that perhaps you know a lot more than you are letting on, for the sake of stimulating interesting discussion that is.


Many thanks.


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## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> As this thread becomes increasingly...tortuous, would you mind being clear which 'person' you're referring to? Thanks


I've been trying to get my point across, but it hasn't been successful.

I am not at all criticizing... not even passive aggressively. Where ever anyone is on the continuum of experience is fine with me. I actually prefer newbies and experts to people in the middle like me. Why? Because newbies are open and welcome suggestions with no preconceived notions, and experts can offer me advice that I try to take in the same spirit.

On the internet, we might as well all be in our own individual sound proof booths. We say things, but our experiences and frame of reference is hidden. This makes it very difficult in situations like this. For instance, you say you're exploring Beethoven's 9th for the first time and ask for comments and recommendations. You say you are a longtime seasoned classical music listener, and that throws me for a loop. I don't know whether to offer you the straightforward advice I would give a newbie, or a more nuanced angle that I would give someone with the frame of reference to understand what I'm talking about.

I have to admit that I am totally confused by many of the posters in this group. I read the poll where people rate their level of experience, and most people are advanced beyond me. But I read the threads and those same people make comments that come from a totally different place. It's weird, because I don't find this to be the case at GMG or CMG where I also participate. It's only here in TalkClassical.

Again, it's fine to have any level of experience you happen to have. For me, just liking classical music is good enough to be my pal. You don't have to know anything at all. It's just I try to get a handle on where people are coming from when I chat online with people about a complex subject like classical music, and the signals are so mixed, I don't know where to start.

If you know Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, etc. already, great. If you don't, great. I'm just trying to get an idea of where you're coming from, so I know how to offer suggestions you can use.


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## bigshot

aleazk said:


> Personally I have listened to all those pieces many years ago. Currently, I only listen to them very sporadically, but I'm not a big fan of romanticism either. Currently I listen to a lot of modern music because I'm interested in composing modern music, because I like the ideas explored in modern music.


Got it! I probably don't have much in the way of information that you could use. I just play three cowboy chords on my guitar. I'm devoid of musical theory.


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## Eschbeg

Hilltroll72 said:


> Yeah. I'm wondering about the 'divertimenti' label. Is its meaning closely related to 'diversion'? Maybe diversion from the mundane? If so, how could the music 'divert' one's preoccupation with the mundane unless he pays attention to it? Eh?


Well, what the term means etymologically and how the genre was actually used are two different things. Etymologically the term "symphony" means "sounding together," but its etymology is not the sole means by which we define what a symphony is.


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## Ukko

Eschbeg said:


> Well, what the term means etymologically and how the genre was actually used are two different things. Etymologically the term "symphony" means "sounding together," but its etymology is not the sole means by which we define what a symphony is.


Jeez, pay attention. Etymology ain't in it. I'm asking about its meaning in the mid-18th C. Was the music regarded as background, or was it intended to wash away the day's cares?

To put a different slant on it, how did they manage to chat about current events with that music in their ears?


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## Eschbeg

Hilltroll72 said:


> Was the music regarded as background, or was it intended to wash away the day's cares?


Both, plus a lot more. That was the nature of a divertimento. It was often used as after-dinner music. Some people were listening and some people weren't. That was the point of the genre: to be amenable to both.



Hilltroll72 said:


> To put a different slant on it, how did they manage to chat about current events with that music in their ears?


It's not that hard. Surely you picture a scenario in which someone starts a chat at one point in the piece, but then listens at another.


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## Ukko

Eschbeg said:


> [...]
> It's not that hard. Surely you picture a scenario in which someone starts a chat at one point in the piece, but then listens at another.


Hah. That's nobody I'd want to be near.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> I've been trying to get my point across, but it hasn't been successful.
> 
> I am not at all criticizing... not even passive aggressively. Where ever anyone is on the continuum of experience is fine with me. I actually prefer newbies and experts to people in the middle like me. Why? Because newbies are open and welcome suggestions with no preconceived notions, and experts can offer me advice that I try to take in the same spirit.
> 
> On the internet, we might as well all be in our own individual sound proof booths. We say things, but our experiences and frame of reference is hidden. This makes it very difficult in situations like this. For instance, you say you're exploring Beethoven's 9th for the first time and ask for comments and recommendations. You say you are a longtime seasoned classical music listener, and that throws me for a loop. I don't know whether to offer you the straightforward advice I would give a newbie, or a more nuanced angle that I would give someone with the frame of reference to understand what I'm talking about.
> 
> I have to admit that I am totally confused by many of the posters in this group. I read the poll where people rate their level of experience, and most people are advanced beyond me. But I read the threads and those same people make comments that come from a totally different place. It's weird, because I don't find this to be the case at GMG or CMG where I also participate. It's only here in TalkClassical.
> 
> Again, it's fine to have any level of experience you happen to have. For me, just liking classical music is good enough to be my pal. You don't have to know anything at all. It's just I try to get a handle on where people are coming from when I chat online with people about a complex subject like classical music, and the signals are so mixed, I don't know where to start.
> 
> If you know Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, etc. already, great. If you don't, great. I'm just trying to get an idea of where you're coming from, so I know how to offer suggestions you can use.


I too seem to be struggling to make myself understood, but it would help if you would quote me (chop up my posts, as you would say) so I know where you get the mistaken idea that I'm "a longtime seasoned classical music listener." What I said was that "whilst I'm a newbie on TC, I don't consider myself a newbie starting out on an exploration of classical music. I began that journey a very long time ago." I did not mean anyone to infer that this meant I had in any way studied classical, or even acquired a large classical collection. In other threads (or was it this one? I don't remember) I clearly indicated that I'd picked up bits and pieces, but over 45+ years, that's quite a lot of bits and pieces, with giant gaps! I don't "know" Schubert, though I know _of _him, and his Unfinished symphony; I've only just bought 4 of Haydn's London Symphonies; I'm familiar with the popular pieces of Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, Nutcracker, and my bro had the 1812 overture for his 11th birthday, so I'd been hearing this since I was 5. However, my technical knowledge goes about as far as Initial Grade piano, and what I had to know to teach primary-aged children. So I can read easy sheet music and pick out a simple tune on a piano, and I've got basic knowledge of time signatures - _Mars _is in 5/4 for example.

I'll tell you what. If you want to make some suggestions, tell me why LvB didn't stop the Choral at the final whole-chorus rendition of the Ode to Joy? I was listening to Barenboim doing this this evening, and it made my spine tingle, again! Why did he go on to write the next piece (is it the 'adagio cantabile'?) which sounds to me like a Rossini gallop, and completely unnecessary?


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## Petwhac

MacLeod said:


> I would agree that the composers you cite want their work to be actively listened to, certainly. But they may be composing work to explore a prescribed musical form, rather like poets write sonnets, or to subvert it. Others write to express emotion, or stir emotion in others ('Joy' for example?) I would argue that more recently, the ability to record has enabled composers to play with music entirely based on the sonic figures or patterns they hear, rather than the written form - Steve Reich, perhaps. Consequently, what they produce uses a different language for a different purpose.


I don't understand why a composer would want to 'explore a prescribed musical form' or 'play with music based solely on the sonic figures or patterns they hear' or 'subvert a form' unless they wanted people to listen to their results.

I'm not against different languages but to continue your analogy with poetry. If a poet did not have a 'mother tongue' in which to write and could choose any language to write in, I think they might not choose Esperanto. Or, if that's unfair to Esperanto, then the poet would not choose a language with no adjectives or one with no adverbs.
It is my personal belief and my aesthetic position that serial music is a limited 'language' because it does not contain one of the most powerful tools that has served composers for hundreds of years and that is 'harmonic progression'. I believe non-atonal music (Ligeti's term) can 'do' anything and everything that serial music can but serial music can't 'do' harmonic progression.

As I have often said, a composer can and will write in whatever way they choose, some listeners will 'get' it and others won't. But there is a fallacy that is often put about by some on TC which is, that if you make the effort and listen enough you will eventually 'get' it. As if it were so advanced that ones ears and minds had to catch up. This idea I reject.


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## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> If you want to make some suggestions, tell me why LvB didn't stop the Choral at the final whole-chorus rendition of the Ode to Joy? I was listening to Barenboim doing this this evening, and it made my spine tingle, again! Why did he go on to write the next piece (is it the 'adagio cantabile'?) which sounds to me like a Rossini gallop, and completely unnecessary?


You mean the finale? Almost all symphonies have bits at the end to go out with a bang, so to speak. I'm not familiar with Barenboim's version, but in the ones I have it doesn't sound tacked on. The 9th has so many things to make you say "wow" I can see a conductor shooting the works too soon and having nowhere to go to push it over the top at the end.

Tchaikovsky's symphonies are wonderful and very sophisticated. The ballet suites are quite different. You should check them out- especially Pathetique, Manfred and Little Russian.


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## moody

bigshot said:


> You mean the finale? Almost all symphonies have bits at the end to go out with a bang, so to speak. I'm not familiar with Barenboim's version, but in the ones I have it doesn't sound tacked on. The 9th has so many things to make you say "wow" I can see a conductor shooting the works too soon and having nowhere to go to push it over the top at the end.
> 
> Tchaikovsky's symphonies are wonderful and very sophisticated. The ballet suites are quite different. You should check them out- especially Pathetique, Manfred and Little Russian.


Barenboim has been doing the complete Beethoven symphonies at the BBC Promenade Concerts with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. And very good they are.


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## Guest

moody said:


> Barenboim has been doing the complete Beethoven symphonies at the BBC Promenade Concerts with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. And very good they are.


It was this version I was referring to. I've recorded all five concerts and enjoyed all but the 5th and 7th which I've not yet listened to. I know that the cycle is available on CD, but I was rather hoping the concerts themselves might be put out on DVD. I find that watching an orchestra in action (even if only on TV) adds something to the music, assuming you can put aside the occasionally distracting mannerisms of the conductor!


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I don't understand why a composer would want to 'explore a prescribed musical form' or 'play with music based solely on the sonic figures or patterns they hear' or 'subvert a form' unless they wanted people to listen to their results.


Living with an artist, I can tell you that this is a real dilemma. Whilst I know of no artist that does not want their work to be seen or heard at all, I think it quite common for some of them to grapple with the compromise of producing for themselves and producing for an audience (quite apart from the challenge of which audience to produce work for - the undiscerning-but-fame- making-masses, or the smaller-cognoscenti).



Petwhac said:


> As I have often said, a composer can and will write in whatever way they choose, some listeners will 'get' it and others won't. But there is a fallacy that is often put about by some on TC which is, that if you make the effort and listen enough you will eventually 'get' it. As if it were so advanced that ones ears and minds had to catch up. This idea I reject.


A fallacy? Possibly in the way you pose it, yes. Another way of looking at it is that if an audience is accustomed to art in a particular form - melodic and harmonic progression, for example - then it takes repeated listening to become accustomed to an alternative form. Having just bought some Chopin, I can tell you that I'm going to need repeated listens to begin to appreciate it, and Chopin is working in what should be a fairly familiar form!


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## Petwhac

MacLeod said:


> Living with an artist, I can tell you that this is a real dilemma. Whilst I know of no artist that does not want their work to be seen or heard at all, I think it quite common for some of them to grapple with the compromise of producing for themselves and producing for an audience (quite apart from the challenge of which audience to produce work for - the undiscerning-but-fame- making-masses, or the smaller-cognoscenti).


I have grappled with this dilemma for many years and have concluded -
The artist must produce that which satisfies their inner compulsion. That which is the truest, most uncompromising and excellent thing they can produce. Then it is a question of finding their audience. It can be hard if even the artist's friends and family are indifferent to their art but there will be section of the public for whom the work is pleasing. Finding one's audience is not always easy and actually making money is even harder. 
I took the road of earning a living writing whatever I was paid to write. This almost never coincided with what my 'ideal' or 'art' music aspirations and as a result I have not produced much 'listening' music but a great deal of 'functional' or 'applied music. I am slowly putting this right but the task is made much harder by the fact that I get very little from listening to or producing work that is in line with much contemporary music and am having to evolve my own personal language.
Tell your co-habitee to write for themselves if they have another source of income, that's my advice.



MacLeod said:


> A fallacy? Possibly in the way you pose it, yes. Another way of looking at it is that if an audience is accustomed to art in a particular form - melodic and harmonic progression, for example - then it takes repeated listening to become accustomed to an alternative form. Having just bought some Chopin, I can tell you that I'm going to need repeated listens to begin to appreciate it, and Chopin is working in what should be a fairly familiar form!


That is probably true up to a point. But from my comments above you may see that it doesn't always work. I have been listening to serial music off and on for over 30 years. As far as your friendship with Chopin goes: Try the Preludes-there are some absolute gems there. And the sonatas. His concertos are not highly regarded examples of the form but I can't say I know them too well.


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## Dongiovanni

This is a very interesting, philosophical topic. 

COAG has a point. I think this has been the case in the history of any art. It is always good to look further then what is the closest to you. Of course it's the easiest way to appreciate art by the objects that are praised by the "connaisseurs". But in this field a hype is not so evident. Hypes wear of with some generations. You cannot hype something and keep it alive for 200 years. 

Within art there are always people who look further and put their attention on something new and probably off-beat. In history we have seen that appreciation of composers is not always evident, and is often delayed until after their death. With composers as Schubert or JS Bach we have to thank some group of people who fougth to get attention for their works. 

COAG: who knows, you might be one of those that will be thanked later to have looked at other, less known composers with (at that time) less appealing compositions.

PS. I can understand your attitude towards the establishment, but you cannot deny the genius of Mozart, Beethoven, etc.

PS2. Beethoven's 9th is also not so appealing to me


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## moody

Orpheus said:


> Did you listen to Simon Rattle's travesty lately or something?
> 
> If you did, I would agree with you, on the basis of that version and that version only.


Do people listen to Simon Wattle ?


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## bigshot

It's good to have a broad perspective. But focusing on the bleeding edges and denigrating the center isn't being broadminded.


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## PlaySalieri

Dongiovanni said:


> PS. I can understand your attitude towards the establishment, but you cannot deny the genius of Mozart, Beethoven, etc.


There are plenty on here who are in denial about that.


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## PetrB

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Don Giovanni. But that was back in January. Don't you remember the other time when I was convinced I was female and started going on about female composers and how neglected they are in a world dominated by music composed by dead European men?


oooh, as far back as January? WOW! (giggle.) Now you're 'all Ligeti all the time.' So, whippersnapper violently caught up by each passionate but passing fancy ya be, then. Don't worry, "it is just a phase."


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## moody

stomanek said:


> There are plenty on here who are in denial about that.


Yes, but we know that you're wrong don't we. Also they are certainly not plenty.


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## moody

PetrB said:


> oooh, as far back as January? WOW! (giggle.) Now you're 'all Ligeti all the time.' So, whippersnapper violently caught up by each passionate but passing fancy ya be, then. Don't worry, "it is just a phase."


Say nothing for heavens sake and he might go away!


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## Toddlertoddy

PetrB said:


> oooh, as far back as January? WOW! (giggle.) Now you're 'all Ligeti all the time.' So, whippersnapper violently caught up by each passionate but passing fancy ya be, then. Don't worry, "it is just a phase."


You don't have to be so rude and condescending. Maybe you're not aware of this post.


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## Rapide

What's wrong with praising the same music again and again over time? *That's why these pieces are TRUE CLASSICAL*, and future listeners will do the same with these great pieces.

Time for a beethoven [email protected]


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## Guest

Very Senior Member said:


> But there's one heavyweight member you haven't yet met. I do hope he comes along in due course, if not here possibly in another of these very entertaining threads, in order to put us all straight. You will recognise him by his punctilious attention to correct spelling and grammar, and his formidable skill in giving people a punch on the nose without them even noticing. I hasten to add that I have much respect for this individual's very wide knowledge of music.


VSM sounding like John the Baptist here. Can anyone enlighten me: who am I supposed to be watching out for?


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## moody

MacLeod said:


> VSM sounding like John the Baptist here. Can anyone enlighten me: who am I supposed to be watching out for?


He probably means St.Lukes Guild.


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## Guest

moody said:


> He probably means St.Lukes Guild.


Oh, in that case, I can stop worrying!


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## regnaDkciN

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Of course the insinuation is that by listening to something obscure and/or difficult you are inherently more sophisticated and musical intelligent.


Q: How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Oh, that's a really obscure number..._you_ would probably never have heard of it...


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## RogerWaters

deleted - this thread is like ten years old


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## UniversalTuringMachine

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> All music should be represented as *equal* now. If all music got a fair go at being listened to, the listeners can decide what they like and what they don't like. But since some music is more famous than others, they get more attention and more praise than neglected music which may be even better.


All music are equal, some are more equal than others.


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## millionrainbows

RogerWaters said:


> deleted - this thread is like ten years old


You mean, this thread is like ten years ahead of its time. "All music should be equal now."

Get out of the way, dinosaurs. The great meteor is approaching!


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## Fabulin

Dinosaurs are among us? How scary!


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## Ethereality

We can make a thread called *'Listening to something new today'* where everybody posts their new experiences on works.


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## JAS

RogerWaters said:


> deleted - this thread is like ten years old


Is this thread itself a dinosaur now?


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## Phil loves classical

JAS said:


> Is this thread itself a dinosaur now?


The OP mentioned E. Carter being alive back then. I'd say it is. I can relate to it somewhat, but it's kind of unfair for those still discovering the music of the great Masters. I only recently rediscovered Handel's Water Music and thought WOW!


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## John O

Love ligeti . But agree !


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## Merl

The only reason I looked back at this thread was to remember some of those old TC members who are no longer with us. Some names brought back real memories. This thread is so old that SixFootScowl has changed his name 73 times since it started. :lol:


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## Bulldog

Merl said:


> This thread is so old that SixFootScowl has changed his name 73 times since it started. :lol:


It must be tough to have an identity crisis.


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## consuono

The "why don't you love the avant garde, dang it!" sentiment seems to have been around a while. :lol:


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

The heads on Mt. Rushmore are there for a reason right? Finding obscure composers and giving their work some much needed love is one of my favorite pastimes, but in what way is appreciating the Three B's (for instance) mutually exclusive with listening to lesser appreciated works? Those composers would also find themselves indebted and influenced by the greats as well.


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## hammeredklavier

consuono said:


> The "why don't you love the avant garde, dang it!" sentiment seems to have been around a while. :lol:


Mozart vs. Modernism

I know, this is why I keep saying <classical music enthusiasts> and <avant-garde music enthusiasts> must "part their ways".
This is how a <classical music enthusiast> is supposed to think:



hammeredklavier said:


> I also enjoy non-classical avant-garde music like Cage's, (or rather should I say I "find it emotionally effective") especially when I hear it in the context of documentaries/films of the horror/mystery genre. It really creates a different feeling from ones I would get from general classical music, and I would not consider it objectively inferior to classical music. They are different things, so they must be categorized differently.
> What bothers me the most about the "avant-garde mentality" is, it encourages and promotes the thinking that composers such as Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff were somehow not "important", as if they didn't contribute anything "ingenious" or "fresh" to classical music.
> I'm sorry to say this, I see it as some sort of "parasite" or "cancer" that feeds on today's classical music. And I really think we need to "save" classical music from the "tainted influence". This is why I keep saying there should be separate forums for the two groups, "classical music fans" and "avant-garde music fans". Williams will never be "less classical" than Cage in my book.


and these are how <avant-garde music enthusiasts> are supposed to think:



> "Beethoven is too overplayed these days; today's avant-garde composers need more love."





SanAntone said:


> Most overrated: Wagner
> Most underrated: John Cage





mikeh375 said:


> I too think Mozart is overrated. Imv, he is too easy to listen to with 21stC hindsight and I feel that music these days has more traits worth exploring than immediacy of appeal.





Mandryka said:


> Re Cage I don't entirely agree with you. I think he is probably the greatest composer since Perotin. And I think that 4.33 is the single most important musical work for the past 1000 years. 4.33 opened our eyes to previously unimagined possibilities. But it will have to wait till tomorrow for me to explain why, if it's not obvious.


Neither of the two groups is "wrong" in their opinions. They're just too "different".


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## consuono

hammeredklavier said:


> ...
> Neither of the two groups is "wrong" in their opinions. They're just too "different".


Well there are some things in there that I think are wrong. Wagner may or may not be overrated but there is no universe in which Cage is underrated. Mozart isn't "overrated". 4'33" is not the most important musical work of the last millennium. The "wrongest" thing to me is to consider today's avant garde as lying along the same continuum as the Big Three and other CP composers. They aren't, for the most part. There was a conscious break from tradition and there's really no comparison anymore since they're not following the same rulebook. But yet the demand is there that such stuff is to be considered as being on an equal footing while at the same time saying that CP is outmoded. Not to say that fans of such should be segregated, but most modern music is a different animal.


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## consuono

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> The heads on Mt. Rushmore are there for a reason right? Finding obscure composers and giving their work some much needed love is one of my favorite pastimes, but in what way is appreciating the Three B's (for instance) mutually exclusive with listening to lesser appreciated works? Those composers would also find themselves indebted and influenced by the greats as well.


Because the conviction is that there should be no hierarchy in which anything from the three Bs is elevated above the quintet for prepared piano, retuned string instruments, tape and shakuhachi that premiered a few days ago.


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