# The most advanced work you can truly get and enjoy



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

What is the most advanced, demanding, challenging, hermetic, impenetrable or anything of that sort *work, that you can truly enjoy, and that you feel like you can really get it.*

For me, at this point in time and at this stage of my evolution as a listener, it's probably Grosse Fuge and Beethoven's late string quartets in general. I know they are considered demanding, Grosse Fuge was even deemed crazy by some:



> A review of the performance in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, one of Vienna's leading music periodicals, called the fugue "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel".[11] Composer and violinist Louis Spohr called the fugue, and the other late quartets, "an indecipherable, uncorrected horror."[12]


Yet I truly enjoy this music, I find a lot of beauty in it, and I feel I can truly "get it".


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I've used the Grosse Fugue to *get people into* classical music, who otherwise listened to rock. It seems that the repetitive rhythmic drive of the piece (deemed crazy by classical critics) is the very thing that appeals to these "crazy" listeners.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm not sure why some people dislike it, I honestly like the piece and it contains some of the most memorable melodies of late Beethoven. Agitated in the beginning, gradually gets more serene and optimistic towards the end.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I've seen Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Verdi's Otello and Rossini's Barber of Seville live, on TV and on video and have listened to scores. I can handle about half of Beethoven's Fidelio as long as a lot of the spoken text is left out. I'd say these are the most comprehensive classical music works I know that I have enjoyed over and over and can sit through completely without drifting or getting itchy.

This wouldn't be true for everyone, however, though I first saw Don Giovanni in the theater when I was a young collector in my 20s.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

"Advanced" is a rather unclear term here I find. For myself, I was more thinking like Penderecki's Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A substantial part of enjoying music for me is quite unconscious. There is music I like that I have heard described as complex but I am not sure I notice the complexity. I like what I have heard of Ferneyhough's music and experience it as fairly simple but I am told it is about complexity. Also, I love the Grosse Fugue but again hear it as quite simple - try humming it and you will feel it is simple, too!


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Bach's Art of Fugue
Beethoven's late SQS
Bartoks SQS
Messiaen - anything by him
Schoenberg - Wind Quintet or anything by him


----------



## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

Anything by Bartok. While I can somewhat appreciate other “difficult” 20th century composers (e.g. the Second Viennese School or Messiaen), I don’t generally derive any serious enjoyment from their works. Something about Bartók, however, is different in my mind. In particular, the aforementioned string quartets are strange and difficult works which I enjoy immensely.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The symphonies of Humphrey Searle. Serial, grim, spooky and difficult to get to know - but once you do, you're hooked.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Music of Elliott Carter.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Webern's Symphony.


----------



## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

When you turn music into something that has a prescribed difficulty, there is a large competition to see who can do the most difficult thing in music.


----------



## Alonso (Feb 1, 2019)

Beethoven: Grosse Fuge
Schoenberg and Webern in general
Boulez: Piano sonata 2
Carter: string quartets 2 and 3 
Ferneyhough: string quartets 2, 3, 4 (I really don´t get 5 and 6), Terrain, Allgebrah


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

ZJovicic said:


> What is the most advanced, demanding, challenging, hermetic, impenetrable or anything of that sort *work, that you can truly enjoy, and that you feel like you can really get it.*


The music of J.S. Bach fits those descriptors, I suggest. But so does the music of Xenakis and Boulez.

What strikes us as advanced, challenging, and impenetrable is often contemporary experimental music, but I suppose that "new music" was always a tough listen or tough grip, whatever the era. Which leads me to ponder J.S. Bach once again. His music proves most advanced, challenging, and (when I contemplate "How could the man have thunk this up?") impenetrable. Which says something about why I continue to marvel at Bach.

I used to think Stravinsky's _Rite_ was impenetrable, but after years of listening to it and reading through the score and studying about it, it has become rather tame and sensible in so many ways. And I enjoy it more than ever with my improved understanding. So with Bartok's _Concerto for Orchestra_ and Ives's Second Symphony.

Perhaps the Messiaen _Turangalîla-Symphonie_ still qualifies for me as "advanced, challenging, and impenetrable", but the fault likely lies with me, since I have not taken on this piece of music with any great frequency (I've listened to it complete through maybe a handful of times, and to bits and pieces a few more times, and I've never studied the score) and have never much cared to. I appreciate Messiaen's music, but I don't much like it (with the possible exception of the _End of Time Quartet_).

Maybe someday I'll figure out Bach, and the Schubert Piano Sonatas and String Quartets, and the experimental works I hear from the Donaueschinger Musiktage each year (by way of the recorded documents from Col Legno and Neos). And all the other wonderful and challenging music I hear each week. Yet, I'm not sure I really ever want to. Part of the joy of listening is the mystery behind all those soundings. It's sort of like life. Mystery is the spice of it all. If we knew the answers to everything, if there was no challenge, no mystery, if all was penetrable … how bleakly boring would it get? And how long before the boredom drives one mad?

Which is why I never cared much about going to a place like Heaven where, so some tell me, I will finally have all the answers. If so, I will never have need to meet new people or have new conversations (for I would know them all already and know what they have to say as well), or to read new books (for there would be nothing for them to teach me), or to, God forbid, hear new music (for I would already have a total consciousness of it, note for note). I would, in a few moments, be driven mad, I'm certain.

And the other place, with its lack of information and certain painful punishment, should truly set me mad quickly as well. A paradox for sure.

So, I'm content here and now to be perplexed. And since I love music, there is nothing I would wish to perplex me moreso than it. Keep those "advanced, challenging, and impenetrable" works coming.


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

I like Wyshnegradsky - this one for example is quite popular on youtube 





1/4 tones used in the way he uses them are clashing with the instrument's partials, inharmonic timbres (think gamelan or African pitched percussion) would be more suited than piano. 
He used in 24 ET 13 note scale that shares properties with the diatonic in 12 ET. Actually, this 13 note scale is very close to 13 ET; the complementary scale is 11 notes - very close to 11 ET - just like diatonic (see Dorian mode cent values) is very close to 7 ET and pentatonic (the symmetrical mode) is very close to 5 ET. 
Still, I think that 24 ET is more suited for Oriental/North African type music, if the composer doesn't want to scare his listeners.


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Amen to that, Sonnet CLV! Beautiful posting!

I frankly don't know of any music that couldn't carry me away, besides uninspired, mediocre or plain dull interpretations. Of course I don't know what I don't know, but I sure go out there and search. 

I love the strangest weirdest music, including Webern, Boulez, Zappa, Ligeti, John Zorn. Bartok, Strawinsky and Messiaen are not even in this abstract forerunners group, as they are merely based on folkmusic and sounds of nature. The more abstract Bach (Kunst der Fuge, Musikalisches Opfer) and Beethoven (late string quartets, Grosse Fugue, Piano sonata 32) are cherished. From my familiy and friends, I notice clear barriers with these pieces, also if they really love classical music. So, it mostly boils down to listening while alone. 

To me, the music that I can do without is, frankly, a lot of Mozart (except Zauberflote, Don Giovanni and a few Symfonies and pianoconcertos) and operette and plain indifferent amusement music that doesn't want to capture you, but merely keep you occupied. The kind of elevator music. I know that Mozart is God for many, also here. So, no offense! But I truly can't get it and we live in a free world

I don't know where this comes from. I must say that I started off with Bach organ music and cantatas (Leonhardt/Harnoncourt in the light brown LP boxes) at my parents home and started to find my own way in Mahler, when I was around 15 years old. 

And I agree with Sonnet CLV that I do hope to learn to know a lot more and I do have quite some Ligeti and Kurtag stuff that still has to find its way to my CD player.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> Amen to that, Sonnet CLV! Beautiful posting!
> ...
> 
> To me, the music that I can do without is, frankly, a lot of Mozart ….


Thank you for reading the post.

But, in defense of Mozart ….

I sort of understand where you are coming from with your comment about Mozart's music, and I compliment you for coupling/equating the terms "Mozart" and "elevator music" -- I don't know if that has ever been noted before (and I certainly am not saying I agree!), but I was intrigued by the comparison. But I must suggest that perhaps what you find "unchallenging" with much of Mozart is simply due to the fact of that composer's great skills -- to achieve music by "the rules" at a level never previously attained. For every phrase, every note of Mozart seems "just perfect" in the jigsaw puzzle of his compositions, and maybe it is this extreme and "slick" perfection that can be mistaken for more "human, imperfect" soundings. I'm not sure, but I would think that anyone combing through a box set of early Mozart symphonies, say numbers 1 through 20 or so, might get the feeling that not much variety is present. Yet, close attention to any single work assures us of the gemlike perfection present. Like a diamond is simple in its elegance -- a great diamond needs no fancy setting to sparkle. Yet, a bag full of great diamonds will seem ever so "the same".

I recommend folks examine Mozart through the later piano concerti, say from numbers 9 onward. My own feelings about listening to a Mozart piano concerto is that the one I am listening to at the time is the "best" of the lot. And it remains so until I hear another one. I can never get over the marvel of how Mozart achieved such splendors from one concerto to the next so that each one (no matter what order you play them in) sounds like the best one until you move on to the next one which then assumes first rank.

My favorite piece of Mozart remains the Oboe Quartet in F, a miniature work of pure magic, the essential Mozart. I've listened to it hundreds of times. Following the cue in an old Larry Adler record I've learned to play the oboe part on a Hohner Chromonica. To my sensibilities, had Mozart written only this one work he would still be "Mozart" to me. Here the diamond-like perfection and the magic meet to produce a work which, though classically strict in form, nevertheless provokes the spirit of awe. I wonder, with this Quartet, more than I do with any other single piece of music I know, "how did the man come up with this?!"

So … next time you're in an elevator, or for that matter anywhere else, and you need some music to "keep you occupied", dial up the Mozart Oboe Quartet on your phone's Spotify account (or whatever else you subscribe to) and give it a close listen. You may just find you're riding up and down dozens of floors before you want to step off that lift. But Mozart _can_ spellbind one in such manner. No elevator needed.


----------



## DTut (Jan 2, 2011)

Shostakovich Cello Concerto #2


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

this Mozart idolatry is frankly sickening. Using words such as "diamond-like perfection", "godlike", "superhuman", "perfection". What are you? Some kind of cult?:lol:
Yes, Mozart woks are great, but most of them have a certain shalowness of feeling and the Oboe quartet is a nice example of that. It is exactly the type of music that could play in an elevator or in a mall selling shoes. It sounds like very pleasant, sweet, indeed perfect, entertainment music, but it lacks the seriousness or depth of Bach or of many other composers.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> I've used the Grosse Fugue to *get people into* classical music, who otherwise listened to rock. It seems that the repetitive rhythmic drive of the piece (deemed crazy by classical critics) is the very thing that appeals to these "crazy" listeners.


I'm a "crazy" listener who started with classical, but now like lots of stuff, and I prefer Mayhem to Grosse Fuge :devil: I've decided that I'm not going to like that, but still love all the other late quartets by Beethoven...I'm sorry that I don't have an opinion on the topic or maybe it's just not important to me.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

SONNET CLV said:


> Which is why I never cared much about going to a place like Heaven where, so some tell me, I will finally have all the answers. If so, I will never have need to meet new people or have new conversations (for I would know them all already and know what they have to say as well), or to read new books (for there would be nothing for them to teach me), or to, God forbid, hear new music (for I would already have a total consciousness of it, note for note). I would, in a few moments, be driven mad, I'm certain.


It's strange how the Western concept of Heaven, even in Christianity, has been distorted. The Biblical description of the next world is a renewed earth, with us living there in bodies like we have now but not subject to death or disease, and the basis of that world is love. So it is a place of creativity and connection, with God in the center in communion and delighting in what we come up with.

Look at all that we have created in a world clouded by death, disease, and separation and despite the self-centeredness and power-grabbing of humankind, and imagine what we will be able to create when we are free to be ourselves as we truly are.

Maybe I'll even have enough time to get to understand Ferneyhough.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Nikolai Roslavets might be one of the most advanced composers I listen to. Truly get? Probably not, but I enjoy it somehow. Some of his harmonics are way out there, disorienting, like a fever dream, but it never irritates me, it's not too harshly dissonant or otherwise completely unintelligble.


----------



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

This was suggested in this thread and I gave it a listen. I was pleasantly surprised. Not so difficult, even on first listen. I loved it.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

ZJovicic said:


> This was suggested in this thread and I gave it a listen. I was pleasantly surprised. Not so difficult, even on first listen. I loved it.


I thought it was interesting in the old show _Mozart in the Jungle_, when the symphony played for prisoners, they chose this piece. As you say, it's not so bad if people don't tell you to be afraid of it. Like that line from Dune: "It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult."


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Jacck said:


> this Mozart idolatry is frankly sickening. Using words such as "diamond-like perfection", "godlike", "superhuman", "perfection". What are you? Some kind of cult?:lol:
> Yes, Mozart woks are great, but most of them have a certain shalowness of feeling and the Oboe quartet is a nice example of that. It is exactly the type of music that could play in an elevator or in a mall selling shoes. It sounds like very pleasant, sweet, indeed perfect, entertainment music, but it lacks the seriousness or depth of Bach or of many other composers.


I could have said in threads, Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven? , 
"this Beethoven idolatry is frankly sickening. Using expressions such as "Emotion in music started with Beethoven", "Beethoven is the true Messiah of Music who brought emotion to music." "Beethoven created a whole new language of emotion", "Beethoven actually put emotion and thought into the music he wrote. Whereas his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart did not." What are you? Some kind of cult?:lol:
Yes, Beethoven works are serious, but for every one of these there are works like "Rage over a Lost Penny", "Ruins of Athens". Newspapers in the late 19th century even criticized the finale of the 9th, - which is clearly modelled after something that flows better, Misericordias Domini in D minor K222, 



 a choral fugue Mozart wrote at 19 - 
for having "unspeakable cheapness" and being a "yankee doodle".

http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2008/09/beethovens_ninth_kicks.html 
_"But is not worship paid this Symphony mere fetishism? Is not the famous Scherzo insufferably long-winded? The unspeakable cheapness of the chief tune, 'Freude, Freude!'" -- Musical Record, Boston, 1899 _
There's even a Strauss II waltz named after it. "Seid umschlungen, Millionen." "








hammeredklavier said:


> "I always find Beethoven's C Minor concerto (the Third Piano Concerto) much smaller and weaker than Mozart's. . . . I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant!
> I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. . . . Yes, the Rasumovsky quartets, the later symphonies-these inhabit a significant new world, one already hinted at in his Second Symphony. But what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at _Idomeneo_. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works."
> -JOHANNES BRAHMS
> 
> ...







I have hard time understanding these double standards in people.
Beethoven writes Kreutzer violin sonata -> people regard it as a work of supreme depth and emotion.
Mozart writes Violin Sonata in G K379, 



 (pretty much a precursor to the Beethoven) -> people regard it as nothing but elevator music.

The same can be said of so many other examples, such as Beethoven Waldsten piano sonata/ Mozart Prelude and Fugue in C K394 



, or late Beethoven quartets / Mozart Quintet in G minor K516, 
or Beethoven Cavatina/ 



or

Op.10 No.1: 



K457: 




Op.111: 



K546: 



Op.111: 



K426: 



K546: 




Op.57: 



K475: 



Op.57: 



K475: 




Op.13: 



K457: 




Op.37: 



K388: 




I'm honestly not trying to put down Beethoven in any way, but I'm baffled why people accuse the Mozart fandom for being a cult, but not Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert etc.

Take a look at these threads
What represents the peak of Mozart's works to you?

Music became angsty and dark with/after Beethoven?

Best contemporary composers

I'm still waiting for them to answer;



hammeredklavier said:


> Beethoven is considered to have written angsty, dark music because of a couple symphonies, one piano concerto, (+a couple of slow movements from other ones) some late string quartets, some piano sonatas..
> 
> 
> 
> ...





hammeredklavier said:


> While I don't think Beethoven is overhyped, but people do tend to overhype him about his 'seriousness' pretending as if music became dark and angst forever because of him even though a huge bunch of his output 'parallels' with Haydn and Mozart, as I described in other threads, for example-
> they tend to consider Beethoven's Op.59 No.3 'serious' music just because it was written by Beethoven and Mozart's K465 as 'light-hearted' music even though you wouldn't tell which is 'serious' or 'light-hearted' if you're blind-test on these pieces without knowing who composed them. I even tend to sense certain hypocrisy or wishful-thinking from some of these people making 'biased' judgments. I think if you make biased judgments like that on these pieces you either haven't 'understood' classicism or indulging in the 'wishful thinking' that somehow 'Beethoven is special'.
> 
> And contrary to what some people think (or they wish to believe), Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven? Beethoven wasn't trying to write dark and angst music. Rather it was more like he meant to describe 'human triumph over fate' in the 5th symphony and 'triumph of human brotherhood' in the 9th. (you may not agree, my point is, they aren't any more 'serious' than Mozart and Haydn) He even called Mozart's Requiem 'too wild and terrible'. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/01/wild-terrible-mozart-stephen-klugewicz.html
> ...





hammeredklavier said:


> Generally speaking, Classicists were more concerned with structure, manipulation, exploration of the motifs (in the form of large pieces) than expressing overt personal emotions (in the form of miniature pieces).
> 
> Take Mozart K499 for example, see how much contrast there are in each movement.
> 1st movement:
> ...







Look at this obsessive defense of Schubert
Schubert: Piano Sonata #21 in B-flat, D. 960
A Question of Melodists: Is Schubert really a more talented melodist than Beethoven?


----------



## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Carter's _Double Trio_, written when the composer was 103 years old-surely this is about as "advanced" as a composition can get.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Jacck said:


> Beethoven's late SQS


I know what you're thinking



Jacck said:


> I'd say Schubert was a better melodist of the two. I am an amateur and not an expert on Beethoven or Schubert, but I have been listening to their piano sonatas lately and I must say that I find the late piano sonatas by Schubert (D894, D958, D959, D960) both more melodic and more enjoyable than the Beethoven sonatas. And the same goes for Schumann, ie he was a better melodist than Beethoven. Beethoven's string quartets are not very melodic either compared for example to Schubert.






_" Do you like that melody? You do? So do I, but is it a melody? "_

not that I necessarily agree with you, 
but I do have hard time trying to understand how this






is "more serious" than


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

hammeredklavier, I am not sure this thread is the right place to discuss this, but I do not idolize any composer. I still think that Beethoven was not the greatest melodist and that his music is rough around the edges sometimes and that Mozart's music is much more elegant, but seems to lack on the emotional depth sometimes. I think that both Beethoven and Mozart are the two most overrated composers. I am not speaking about the quality of their music (which is very high), but about their cults, reputations and images. The composers are like different flowers and each has a distinct perfume. But I am not offended by anyone saying anything by any of the composers I enjoy


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

To all involved in the Mozart/Elevator discussion: to me, a composition and a recording or concert needs to have some meaning, a 'raison d être'. If that is not there, why bother. And in most of Mozart, I just can't find that. The crystal-clear-diamond-shining and similar attributions in this thread are just confirming that to me. And I have such a tremendous long list of composers and works where I do find such a meaning. Not only in the personal/ego/suffering you could hear in music of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, Shostakovich but also in the devotion to greater forces you can hear in Bach, Bruckner, Scriabin, Strawinsky, Messiaen and even Wagner (the latter non religious). 

There is also an interesting topic about heaven in this thread. Manxfeeder shares a picture of heaven, where there is no suffering, only love and self-fulfillment. I would like to add to that discussion that most meaningful works of art originated from pain, suffering and possibly out of a longing for Manxfeeders heaven. If we would be all there at last (if ever), I think meaningful art and music will cease to exist. We then also have nothing left to discuss on sites like this. Is that really what we want?


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> To all involved in the Mozart/Elevator discussion: to me, a composition and a recording or concert needs to have some meaning, a 'raison d être'. If that is not there, why bother. And in most of Mozart, I just can't find that. The crystal-clear-diamond-shining and similar attributions in this thread are just confirming that to me. And I have such a tremendous long list of composers and works where I do find such a meaning. Not only in the personal/ego/suffering you could hear in music of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, Shostakovich but also in the devotion to greater forces you can hear in Bach, Bruckner, Scriabin, Strawinsky, Messiaen and even Wagner (the latter non religious).
> 
> There is also an interesting topic about heaven in this thread. Manxfeeder shares a picture of heaven, where there is no suffering, only love and self-fulfillment. I would like to add to that discussion that most meaningful works of art originated from pain, suffering and possibly out of a longing for Manxfeeders heaven. If we would be all there at last (if ever), I think meaningful art and music will cease to exist. We then also have nothing left to discuss on sites like this. Is that really what we want?


There are a couple of pieces where Mozart is really emotional. The sinfonia concertante for violin and viola which was written after the death of his mother, is one of the best examples. The string quintets are another.

The best depiction of heaven in music comes from Liszt


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

NLAdriaan said:


> To all involved in the Mozart/Elevator discussion: to me, a composition and a recording or concert needs to have some meaning, a 'raison d être'. If that is not there, why bother. And in most of Mozart, I just can't find that. The crystal-clear-diamond-shining and similar attributions in this thread are just confirming that to me. And I have such a tremendous long list of composers and works where I do find such a meaning. Not only in the personal/ego/suffering you could hear in music of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, Shostakovich but also in the devotion to greater forces you can hear in Bach, Bruckner, Scriabin, Strawinsky, Messiaen and even Wagner (the latter non religious).
> 
> There is also an interesting topic about heaven in this thread. Manxfeeder shares a picture of heaven, where there is no suffering, only love and self-fulfillment. I would like to add to that discussion that most meaningful works of art originated from pain, suffering and possibly out of a longing for Manxfeeders heaven. If we would be all there at last (if ever), I think meaningful art and music will cease to exist. We then also have nothing left to discuss on sites like this. Is that really what we want?


Sorry but I don't hear deep emotion in composers like Schumann, Schubert, Scriabin, Grieg, etc as some people claim they have. To be honest, stuff like Symphony No.4 in D minor Op.120 or Peer Gynt Suite No.1, Polonaise Op.44 in F sharp minor, that keeps on repeating one sentimental theme with a bunch of voices in unison (with no interesting motivic development or harmonic modulation, contrapuntal devices) that borders on extreme self-indulgence comes off as nothing but shallow in my ears. I know I'm not alone in this. For example, everything eugeneonagain says (yet people deny) about Schubert in Schubert: Piano Sonata #21 in B-flat, D. 960 is so true. Schubert's deficiencies frequently do come in to ruin his moments, and it happens so often in his music (including his grossly overhyped String Quintet What is the greatest string quintet?) that I doubt if there's any real depth in it. I look for intellectualism in terms of contrast, structure, harmony, counterpoint, balance, unity, 'musical logic' in a piece
















than the sort of 'sentimentalism candy' that 'some people' seem to drool over all the time.
As such, Rondo in A minor K511 is the kind of piece where the central focus is not Romantic "minor key candy". And by the way, anybody who denies the connection between the Beethoven piece you mentioned, "Piano Sonata 32" and Adagio and Fugue in C minor K546, praising the former while bashing the latter, seems 'hypocritical' to me. Obviously their attitude on the Mozart would have been different if it was composed by Beethoven, not Mozart. This is what disturbs me about 'some people' who exaggerate Beethoven as some sort kind of 'messiah who brought emotion in music'.






Sometimes I'm curious why some people make such a huge deal about Beethoven. There's no doubt he is one of the greatest in music history, but I just don't find as much 'seriousness' in Beethoven as they claim there is. Do you feel endless depth of human emotion from " Triple Concerto Op.56 ", or " Christus am Ölberge Op. 85 " ? If you do. Then good for you. I don't.
At least Jacck seems to treat both equally in the last post. I can somewhat understand his position. 
And the oboe quartet isn't that bad. It even has a darker slow movement that contrasts with the rest, like Flute Quartet in D K285 and Sinfonia Concertante in E flat K364, which he mentioned, for example.
I just don't get the mindset of those people who admire C major Razumovsky quartet so much and at the same time, discredit Mozart's Dissonance quartet as being shallow.

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_97-01/984_sub_moral_appen_PDFs/chapter-5.PDF





_"I always find Beethoven's C Minor concerto (the Third Piano Concerto) much smaller and weaker than Mozart's. . . . I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant!
I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. . . . Yes, the Rasumovsky quartets, the later symphonies-these inhabit a significant new world, one already hinted at in his Second Symphony. But what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works."_
-JOHANNES BRAHMS

https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA134#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q&f=false



hammeredklavier said:


> "The 24th opens with a truly remarkable theme. It sounds as though it might have been composed 150 years later, with, what was for Mozart's day, an outrageously chromatic melody that uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. So unique is it that in 1953 the German composer Giselher Klebe (1925 - 2009) used it as a tone row in his 12-tone Symphony for Strings.
> https://www.musicprogramnotes.com/mozart-piano-concerto-no-24-in-c-minor-k491/


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> To all involved in the Mozart/Elevator discussion: to me, a composition and a recording or concert needs to have some meaning, a 'raison d être'. If that is not there, why bother. And in most of Mozart, I just can't find that. The crystal-clear-diamond-shining and similar attributions in this thread are just confirming that to me. And I have such a tremendous long list of composers and works where I do find such a meaning. Not only in the personal/ego/suffering you could hear in music of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, Shostakovich but also in the devotion to greater forces you can hear in Bach, Bruckner, Scriabin, Strawinsky, Messiaen and even Wagner (the latter non religious).


You can't get Mozart or this style of music. It has little to do with the romantic interpretation of music from the later period. I suggest checking Robert Gjerdingen - "Music in the galant style", if you want to understand more about period music and why Mozart is great (basically: because he managed to be the best/most complex composer in a light style defined by cliches ).
Music doesn't have to have "a message" or "meaning", or "drama"; I'm sorry, but this is such a romantic cliche.
Bach is similarly great for related reasons, but all the -let's say - Dutch/Italian/etc masters creating music in his styles were forgotten unless you are scholar, because they were not 'the last mohican" of Baroque...


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

hammeredklavier, I value Bach over both and treat Mozart and Beethoven as equals in my mind, though they had very different temperaments and composed in different styles. I believe that Mozart was the greater "raw talent" (Wunderkind) of the two and if he were allowed to fully mature, he would have surpassed Beethoven. His untimely death was one of the great losses in music (along with Pergolesi, Purcell, Schubert, Kaprálová and others).


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I guess it depends on what is meant by the term, "advanced".

And it probably also depends on what is meant by "truly get".

I have very little knowledge of music theory, so if "getting" a piece on that level is what is meant, then I don't "get" almost everything I listen to. 

But, almost all my favorite composers and pieces are from the latter half of the 20th century and contemporary periods, which most people describe as "difficult" music, so almost everything I listen to is "advanced, demanding, challenging" on some levels and by most people's estimate.

I happen not to find them as such.

Carter, Tower, Magnus Lindberg, Berio, Joseph Schwantner, Thea Musgrave, Sofia Gubaidulina, Ligeti, Penderecki, etc, have all been described as "advanced, demanding, challenging".


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Jacck said:


> The best depiction of heaven in music comes from Liszt


To that, I might add a lighter alternative by Faure:angel:
In Paradisum, part of Faure's Requiem


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

BabyGiraffe said:


> Music doesn't have to have "a message" or "meaning", or "drama"; I'm sorry, but this is such a romantic cliche.


I agree, if you limit your statement to program music and music from the romantic era. However, the romantic composers gave us great music. You want to rule this era out of the musical history as a cliche? That is your good right. Nobody should be forced listen to music they don't like. But I obviously didn't make myself clear.

I just think that if one has nothing to say, then don't compose nor play music. Music is a timeless mean of communication. The first elevator that plays der Kunst der Fuge deserves a medal.


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Simon Moon said:


> ... almost all my favorite composers and pieces are from the latter half of the 20th century and contemporary periods...
> 
> Carter, Tower, Magnus Lindberg, Berio, Joseph Schwantner, Thea Musgrave, Sofia Gubaidulina, Ligeti, Penderecki, etc, have all been described as "advanced, demanding, challenging".


Great and refreshing that you mainly listen to these composers! I would love to read a 'most cherished' list from you. Would you be willing to add such a list here?

Thanks already!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

NLAdriaan said:


> I just think that if one has nothing to say, then don't compose nor play music.


Beethoven himself copied out K546, K594, K608 in his notes in full. Certainly he thought Mozart had nothing to say in these pieces. 
https://unheardbeethoven.org/search.php?Identifier=hess37
"Beethoven made his own copy of K608 and procured a copy of K.594."
("Automatic Genius: Mozart and the Mechanical Sublime" by Annette Richards)

Once again I'm convinced there is this tendency in 'certain people' - "If the works were composed by _some guy they adore_, their treatment of the music would have been different." I hate to say it but it's kind of laughable how much 'jealousy' or 'hypocrisy' some people get themselves into. It's like _fighting a war you can never win_ cause the reasoning is based on contradictions. 


















_"Cramer, Cramer! we shall never be able to do anything like that!"_ -LvB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_C_major_(Beethoven)
_"On accepting the prince's commission Beethoven had praised Haydn's masses, calling them "inimitable masterpieces." Beethoven meant it. "
"According to the story, the prince, after hearing the work-and probably noticing its stark difference from the styles of Mass composition he revered in Haydn-said to Beethoven, "But, my dear Beethoven, what is that you have done again?" Whereupon, continues the story, the court chapel master was heard to laugh-this being none other than Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the composer and pianist who had himself written masses for the Esterházy court, including one in the same key, C major, just the previous year. Reacting angrily to the prince's question and furious over Hummel's pompous laughter as well as the inferior guest quarters he had been given in Eisenstadt, Beethoven left in a huff."_

Surely he had _lots of things to say_ in this mass people back then never understood. Truly a misunderstood artist he was.


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Carl Stalling, anyone?

This CD is cherished by me for many years. Also available on Spotify!
Listen to the miraculously crafted compositions, which all are played by acoustic orchestra. Well before the era of sampling, synthesizers. Without the cartoon imagery for which they were composed, you can truly enjoy the music in its own right. To me, this music truly stands out and easily lives by itself.

Just take a concentrated listen, hop on the acoustic roller and enjoy (and if you don't dig it, no problem).


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Raymond Scott, the real master of the genre, who never composed cartoon music per se, but merely defined the style. Great music and actually very difficult to replicate in the same electrifying spirit.


----------



## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I'm very familiar with the music of _advanced_ (if the term fits my examples is anybody's guess...) composers like Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Boulez, Messiaen, Dutilleux, Lutosławski, Ligeti, Carter, Zimmermann, Gubaidulina, Kurtág and Chin - and very much love a lot of their music! I think Carter might be the single thorniest composer I've ever gotten used to, but nowadays I admire and enjoy so many of his wonderful scores. I just listened to the _Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord_ and really found it hard to believe that I used to be very uncomfortable with the piece. Lutosławski's _2nd symphony_ was a tough nut to crack at first but I recently heard it live and it was simply an amazing experience! Boulez used to be an enigmatic composer for me (and in some ways he still is) but these days many of his pieces are some of my absolute favourites, like the orchestral _Notations_ and the late _Sur incises_.

Bartók's first sonata for piano and violin used to baffle me enormously. It literally took like ten listens before I could grasp it's gripping expression. Now I love it to bits!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_"to a modern ear, has a striking resemblance to cheerful boogie-woogie, and the closeness of it to jazz and ragtime, which were still eighty years into the future at the time, has often been pointed out. Jeremy Denk, for example, describes the second movement using terms like "proto-jazz" and "boogie-woogie"._

I'm not sure if this is a compliment or an insult to the piece.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Some "difficult" pieces I love as much as the "easy" ones:

Webern - 6 Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6
Penderecki - St Luke Passion
Berg - Wozzeck 
Boulez - Le Marteau sans Maître
Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge
Schoenberg - Moses und Aron


----------

