# How much should a composer depend on listener support?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who’s sending his kids to college?

My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?

Milton Babbitt has long since weighed in on this, arguing in the affirmative: If such composers (himself in this case) are not supported, “music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live.”

What do you think?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?


Direct grants from the government to Mr Ferneyhough?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Ferneyhough is another composer with academic support, "having taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and the University of California, San Diego, and currently, Stanford University, and is a regular lecturer in the summer courses at Darmstädter Ferienkurse." The man who helped open the door for the controversial and experimental modernists for such academic positions in the US? Arnold Schoenberg starting in the 1930s at USC and UCLA. I believe that without these academic positions, some of the modernists might have starved to death from lack of public support though they may have also advanced the freedom of expression in music and the climate for experimentation and radical change. But I have also questioned the value of much of their work, related to the human condition or otherwise, work which for me I often find more cerebral and intellectual than warm, perhaps deeply neurotic, angry, harsh, strident, melodically disconnected and fragmentary, tense, anxious, emotionally detached, occasionally uplifting, than pleasing and enjoyable. My primary interest in their work is because of its oftentimes great element of surprise, independence and originality, and that it's a significant part of music history... Ferneyhough's string quartet? "Enjoy."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I am probably for some sort of government art support. I am not a Ferneyhough's fan, his music sounds like a lot of dissonant noise, but goverment support gives the artists freedom. This has worked quite well in the Soviet Union and the artists had quite a lot of freedom there. Make also some prizes for the composers, so that they are motivated to win money (the analogue of the Stalin Prize). The weekness in this is of course that it has to be decided somehow which artists to support and which not and how to ensure that they stay productive.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Larkenfield said:


> Ferneyhough is another composer with academic support, "having taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and the University of California, San Diego, and currently, Stanford University, and is a regular lecturer in the summer courses at Darmstädter Ferienkurse." "Enjoy." The man who originally opened the door for such academic positions in the US? Arnold Schoenberg during the 1930s at USC and UCLA. I believe that without some of these academic connections, some of these composers would've probably starved to death from lack of public support though many of these composers greatly advanced the freedom of expression in music and the climate for experimentation and openness. But I also question the value of their work, which for me I find interesting but not enjoyable, and I mainly appreciated it on that level.


Must confess I find this music unlistenable. The basic idea of music is to provide people with an enjoyable and uplifting experience. hence a composer is dependent on listener support. Now we know that in the past composers were sponsored by royalty and the church - something generally not available now. But they were supported because their music was believed in. People who whinge on complaining a lack of support should start writing music people can relate to instead of the simply awful noise some of these guys make in the name of 'progress'. These guys saying they have some sort of 'right' to write the sort of music they like when supported by the government is simply a get-out to excuse their own lack of talent. Even composers as great as Beethoven and Mozart wrote some music people wanted to hear to earn themselves money. So I'd advise Mr Ferneyhough to invest in a few tunes instead of the awful racket his so-called music makes


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

KenOC said:


> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?


No, no and no. The only exception would be private universities.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

That Ferneyhough second quartet immediately reminded me of Stockhausen's _Gruppen_.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


You are suggesting that he has been given a university post for a reason other than the 'normal' one?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> Milton Babbitt has long since weighed in on this, arguing in the affirmative: If such composers (himself in this case) are not supported, "music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live."
> 
> What do you think?


Charles Ives I believe did not get support for his music so continued his secular work and composed in his spare time. I don't have a lot of sympathy for these guys who moan about the lack of support for their music when no-one appears to want to hear it. I'd just tell them to do what the rest of us have done - get a job.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Charles Ives I believe did not get support for his music so continued his secular work and composed in his spare time. I don't have a lot of sympathy for these guys who moan about the lack of support for their music when no-one appears to want to hear it. I'd just tell them to do what the rest of us have done - get a job.


on the other hand if you leave these things to the pop culture only, it will lead to degeneration of arts. It is the same with news and TVs etc. Most states have some state-sponsored broadcasting companies (BBC etc) who are financially secure and can produce good quality things that would not be possible without the state support (think of BBC documentaries). Most commercial TV channels are pure trash and are completely unwatchable, full of idiotic reality shows etc.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jacck said:


> on the other hand if you leave these things to the pop culture only, it will lead to degeneration of arts. It is the same with news and TVs etc. Most states have some state-sponsored broadcasting companies (BBC etc) who are financially secure and can produce good quality things that would not be possible without the state support (think of BBC documentaries). Most commercial TV channels are pure trash and are completely unwatchable, full of idiotic reality shows etc.


I'm all for sponsoring composers who write music people want to hear. I hardly think being without Mr Ferneyhough's jangling, tuneless stuff would be classed as a degeneration of the arts.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

A composer with any kind of following will find his way to academia. I know composers, unknown people, who say their future is in university music schools. They say they either have to "hit" with a composition or build a strong enough body of work to draw enough attention to their art. Then a university will hire them. For years universities encouraged faculty members to publish works; then it was to create research grants. So, in music, it would be parallel to make compositions. A "name" composer will draw students to a school like William Bolcom when at University of Michigan.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Through history most Composers have depended upon Patronage. Mozart was considered a radical when he bucked the Patronage and tried to support himself by appealing to a very musically literate growing Middle Class—most of his Piano Concertos were written for a series of subscription concerts and some were arranged for small group performances—and he made a go of it for a while, but when the economy tanked he and his family starved. Beethoven did turn out some lighter stuff for the same Public but he also depended upon the various dignitaries that some of his works are named after (Walstein, Archduke Rudolph, etc). Maynard Solomon biography of LvB states the reason that he didn’t run off with his “Immortal Beloved” was because she was the wife of one his Patrons, and that doing so would have been career suicide. Tchaikovsky, whose music is certainly accessible to the general public, had Nadzhia Von Meck,and was financially strapped when her family cut him off the dole. Wagner had King Ludwig. Brahms consistently complained that he didn’t have a Patron and spent a great deal of his life sucking up to Aristocrats in search of one.
The phenomenon of Composers surviving purely by the Marketplace is a relatively recent one. One early exception was Teleman, who perfected the art of subscription publishing of his music (Bach and Handel were two regular customers) but he also had a regular gig with the City of Hamburg.
Since Hereditary Aristocrats are thin on the ground these days, Universities have taken their place. Without Academic Support new music will be endangered. Now, whom they choose to support is a different issue...


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Triplets said:


> Through history most Composers have depended upon Patronage. . . . The phenomenon of Composers surviving purely by the Marketplace is a relatively recent one.


Patronage is a marketplace.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

JAS said:


> Patronage is a marketplace.


I think you're right...it's private money.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Surely composers who get hired by universities, public or private, are getting paid to teach? Seems straightforward to me.

Someone like Ferneyhough may not attract a large number of listeners, but he will attract a relatively large number of music students, who pay tuition (edit: or teach for low pay). So this is just the market working normally, no?


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Charles Ives I believe did not get support for his music so continued his secular work and composed in his spare time. I don't have a lot of sympathy for these guys who moan about the lack of support for their music when no-one appears to want to hear it. I'd just tell them to do what the rest of us have done - get a job.


That's right. Ives made a shed-load of money in the insurance business yet still managed to take music into new areas, and Borodin was an eminent Professor of Chemistry. I'm a bit dubious about nations supporting artists for art's sake alone, but a well-funded arts sector is an essential asset to any halfway civilised society, and should provide funding/employment opportunities for creatives of all kinds who can adapt to fit society's current needs without over-compromising their creativity.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DavidA said:


> I'm all for sponsoring composers who write music people want to hear. I hardly think being without Mr Ferneyhough's jangling, tuneless stuff would be classed as a degeneration of the arts.


He doesn't need sponsoring he works and has worked as a bona fide university teacher and teaching _all_ music, not just furthering his own interests. Anyone working in that capacity is not being 'sponsored' any more than any other university teacher is being sponsored. There are plenty of novelists whose works people don't like and who also hold university jobs, that isn't 'being sponsored' either.

Conversely the governments of the world do quite a lot of 'sponsoring' of so-called private companies with public money, which more-often-than-not has deleterious effects for the public.

I know what I would choose. At least I can switch-off Ferneyhough;s music if I don't like it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

eugeneonagain said:


> He doesn't need sponsoring he works and has worked as a bona fide university teacher and teaching _all_ music, not just furthering his own interests. Anyone working in that capacity is not being 'sponsored' any more than any other university teacher is being sponsored. There are plenty of novelists whose works people don't like and who also hold university jobs, that isn't 'being sponsored' either.
> 
> Conversely the governments of the world do quite a lot of 'sponsoring' of so-called private companies with public money, which more-often-than-not has deleterious effects for the public.
> 
> I know what I would choose. At least I can switch-off Ferneyhough;s music if I don't like it.


I've no problem with him working in a university. Just hope his students write more listenable music than he does!


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I expect some do or will do for the people who don't like Ferneyhough's music. No-one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to listen.

What's 'listenable' though? I wonder how people in this thread actually did listen through the string quartet posted on page one? So many people probably wouldn't know.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

eugeneonagain said:


> I expect some do or will do for the people who don't like Ferneyhough's music. No-one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to listen.
> 
> What's 'listenable' though? I wonder how people in this thread actually did listen through the string quartet posted on page one? So many people probably wouldn't know.


I think the only way I would ever listen to that stuff is if someone held a gun to my head!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Over the centuries, 90% of all great art was supported/subsidized by government/Royalty, the Church, rich people (primarily the aristocracy which was largely state-supported quasi-royalty). Publishers provided some (although sheet music was principally bought by people of means). Box Office support was a relatively recent invention, and even so, most performances needed wealthy backers. The arts in general provide really tenuous livings to artists, and given the ratio of great art to mediocre or bad art (roughly 1:20 or worse) it's amazing we have what we do. But it's what, in part, civilization requires. I agree with Triplets.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

MarkW said:


> Over the centuries, 90% of all great art was supported/subsidized by government/Royalty, the Church, rich people (primarily the aristocracy which was largely state-supported quasi-royalty). Publishers provided some (although sheet music was principally bought by people of means). Box Office support was a relatively recent invention, and even so, most performances needed wealthy backers. The arts in general provide really tenuous livings to artists, and given the ratio of great art to mediocre or bad art (roughly 1:20 or worse) it's amazing we have what we do. But it's what, in part, civilization requires. I agree with Triplets.


But that arrangement generally did not permit the artist to follow his or her own whims as to what to produce. Instead, it tended to have clearly defined limits and relatively instant feedback (which could be quite serious).


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

JAS said:


> But that arrangement generally did not permit the artist to follow his or her own whims as to what to produce. Instead, it tended to have clearly defined limits and relatively instant feedback (which could be quite serious).


Is that a good thing? An artist told what to produce by the patron? The patron may reject what is produced, but that is different.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> Is that a good thing? An artist told what to produce by the patron? The patron my reject what is produced, but that is different.


It isn't necessarily a good thing. I just don't want people thinking that it was some ideal condition in which the artist was unencumbered by the demands of a fickle audience. Financial support pretty much always comes with strings (or chains).


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

JAS said:


> Patronage is a marketplace.


There is a difference between being supported by a small number of wealthy individuals versus having to attract a smaller level of support from a much broader base


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Triplets said:


> There is a difference between being supported by a small number of wealthy individuals versus having to attract a smaller level of support from a much broader base


There is a difference in the market, but they are both markets. As I have already suggested, the patronage system may be even more restrictive. I am not sure what you are really arguing or advocating (maybe nothing in particular).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Just a note that may (or may not) be relevant. Beethoven and a small host of other composers made their livings in Vienna not just from patronage but from concertizing, sales of sheet music, and so forth. At that time the population of Vienna was about 250,000, though there were consumers of that music in England and elsewhere as well.

By contrast, today's composers can reach most of the world's seven billion people. It might seem that if they can't make ends meet with that audience, perhaps some other line of work would suit them better.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Just a note that may (or may not) be relevant. Beethoven and a small host of other composers made their livings in Vienna not just from patronage but from concertizing, sales of sheet music, and so forth. At that time the population of Vienna was about 250,000, though there were consumers of that music in England and elsewhere as well.
> 
> By contrast, today's composers can reach most of the world's seven billion people. It might seem that if they can't make ends meet with that audience, perhaps some other line of work would suit them better.


Again - if they have academic posts, they're making a living teaching. They're able to do this because the only customer base that matters - potential students - like their music. Straightforward market stuff, not sure why it confuses you.

Whether this dynamic is socially healthy or tends to produce great art is a separate question.


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## Logos (Nov 3, 2012)

If everyone can potentially reach an audience of 7 billion, then that means that you're competing with _everyone_ for attention. The audience has grown, but the competition has grown at the same rate.


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## Aloevera (Oct 1, 2017)

Hm whenever I say something of this nature, it seems as if I’m anti-listener. It is not so, the entire process, especially today more than ever of trying to “make it in the music industry” ( I don’t know what that means anymore to be honest) just seems to be very contradictory to the spirit of music. The process that you have to go through for self promotion. Even if a company said they would offer to promote it, I would turn it down because like I said just the notion of seems restricting.

What are some things that are heavily funded? Scientific papers, and there are a lot which even funded don’t yield results , and they still continue to fund anyways. Why? To keep the continuation of science, and if there Is 1 research for every 50 to create a breakthrough then the whole thing is worth it. And it is not like the other 49 are a waste of resources for they stimulate intellectual activity and create a close knit community with one another. How often do you hear the statement, “failed scientist” none that I can recall. And still you can spend ten years on a project only to then realize it is a false conclusion. When you say you are researching in biochemistry, there are no more follow up questions. No, “is there a place where I can read your research, how do you plan on making money etc” it just ends there.

The world needs pop music, and pop music is very much acts in the same way but is dishonest about it. Pop music is heavily funded, but it needs to play it off that the people selected them. Why not just be honest and say, we’re putting this pop artist on the radio because we decided to put her on? The world needs music, it is just a matter of of who determines what kind music to put on. Is it the musicians? Bach was only known in a close knit of musicians. But we are also endanger of the music falling into excess professionalism and virtuosity so disconnected with the public like excessive atonalism. I’m not saying ban atonalism, but their is also a problem if within the professionalism they develop a group think mentality and turn top dogmatic. So I’m not sure. I just don’t think popular appeal should determine it, not because popularity has bad taste, but the steps needed to take it is just an obstacle that musicians shouldn’t need to deal with it. And that only leads to the overall state of music worse.

Ouch this post was longer than I thought


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


Whether his compositions make money is a red herring. I guess the university is employing him for his teaching and research.

University historians, philosophers, mathematicians etc don't have a big market for their output.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think I've said this before -- but most art is bad. Yet without the 98% that isn't great, we wouldn't get the 2% that is. And somehow -- except for Aunt Betty painting begonias as a hobby, or the legions of Bob Ross/New Joy of Painting followers -- it all has to be paid for, good or bad. (Actually, although it's not millions, Bob Ross probably makes a comfortable living.)


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## Logos (Nov 3, 2012)

MarkW said:


> I think I've said this before -- but most art is bad. Yet without the 98% that isn't great, we wouldn't get the 2% that is. And somehow -- except for Aunt Betty painting begonias as a hobby, or the legions of Bob Ross/New Joy of Painting followers -- it all has to be paid for, good or bad. (Actually, although it's not millions, Bob Ross probably makes a comfortable living.)


Actually Bob Ross is comfortably dead. Has been for about 25 years.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

A composer can thrive if he pleases a large audience base, like Yanni, and Hans Zimmer. But I wouldn't I want them to teach at my university if I was the Music Faculty Dean, since they have next to no theoretical knowledge, and my school would become a joke. I also wouldn't hire Ferneyhough to teach 18th century tonal music, without knowing how solid his education is in that field. If I wanted my school to have a reputation in cutting edge contemporary music, then I would hire somebody who is well-regarded regardless of what I think his real talent level is. It is all business.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Logos said:


> Actually Bob Ross is comfortably dead. Has been for about 25 years.


It might certainly be said that he wants for nothing.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> I believe that without these academic positions, some of the modernists might have starved to death from lack of public support though they may have also advanced the freedom of expression in music and the climate for experimentation and radical change. *But I have also questioned the value of much of their work, related to the human condition or otherwise, work which for me I often find more cerebral and intellectual than warm, perhaps deeply neurotic, angry, harsh, strident, melodically disconnected and fragmentary, tense, anxious, emotionally detached, occasionally uplifting, than pleasing and enjoyable. *


I really do not want to respond to much that has been posted in this thread as it seems to be another Groundhog Day thread to promote the bonding of people who hate the very new. But this post has some interesting and seemingly open thoughts. The support from academic salaries issue has been discussed a lot. Whatever you make of his music, Ferneyhough knows a lot about music and would always be able to fill his stomach from this. But the next part is interesting. I am not sure that music does have to be about the human condition or that much music ever was. But I am a little at a loss about the suggestion that his music is too intellectual and insufficiently emotional being followed by a list of essentially emotional adjectives! It is the emotional response that I get first (but it is in me rather than the music, I think) when I listen to new music and it is that which pulls me in. I don't object to many of the emotions I experience at first being uncomfortable ones. That seems appropriate for our present world. I do also like music that uplifts me or is warm or happy or comfortable .... but I also think that writing such music now might be a little dishonest or blind or privileged.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I really do not want to respond to much that has been posted in this thread as it seems to be another Groundhog Day thread to promote the bonding of people who hate the very new.


I don't think anyone is hating music for being very new. Everything I listen to was entirely new to me at some point.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> I really do not want to respond to much that has been posted in this thread as it seems to be another Groundhog Day thread to promote the bonding of people who hate the very new.


This is a response similar to a regie-theatre director when people dislike his awful production.

Just get this clear: I don't hate it because it's new - just because to me it sounds awful.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

JAS said:


> I don't think anyone is hating music for being very new. Everything I listen to was entirely new to me at some point.


OK. Fair enough. Whatever the reason! I just didn't (and don't) want to get into one of those it's-ugly/no-it's-not arguments again. And now there are two people trying to draw me into one! Those arguments on this forum go nowhere and I find them tiresome. That was my point. It still is. I responded to Larkenfield because he seeks to disciminate between the good and not so good even within a fairly specialised genre ... which is an interesting subject to me. Please pretend I never came to post in this thread!


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Please pretend I never came to post in this thread!


While I would like to do so, unfortunately the damage has been done. It will literally take months for me to scrub the following statement from the collective unconscious:

"I am not sure that music does have to be about the human condition or that much music ever was."


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> I don't object to many of the emotions I experience at first being uncomfortable ones. That seems appropriate for our present world. I do also like music that uplifts me or is warm or happy or comfortable .... but I also think that writing such music now might be a little dishonest or blind or privileged.


What makes new uplifting music "a little dishonest or blind or privileged"? Living standards and life expectancy are massively better today than in the worlds of the canonical composers. In 18th century Europe, life expectancy was about 30 years. Which facets of modern life depress you more than the assaults of famine, plague and warfare suffered by our forebears? And might the restorative, elevating side of music be valued more keenly in straitened times?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Euler said:


> What makes new uplifting music "a little dishonest or blind or privileged"? Living standards and life expectancy are massively better today than in the worlds of the canonical composers. In 18th century Europe, life expectancy was about 30 years. Which facets of modern life depress you more than the assaults of famine, plague and warfare suffered by our forebears? And might the restorative, elevating side of music be valued more keenly in straitened times?


I don't know about the C18, but over the past 50 years economic inequality has increased despite increased wealth in the West, too much of that wealth is held by a very few. That's terribly depressing, terribly unfair. Granted this, it's hard for me to imagine that happy music can be an authentic expression of the contemporary.

How can it be that there are still people who are hungry, people who can't get cataract ops, people who have their life ruined or even die of curable diseases, people who live and work in insalubrious unsafe conditions, when there has been so much economic growth in the west?

How could anyone possibly write happy music if they're aware of this? Unless it's to cheer us up, make us forget. But that's not noble humaine art - that's cheap dehumanising entertainment.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know about the C18, but over the past 50 years economic inequality has increased despite increased wealth. That's terribly depressing, terribly unfair. It's hard to imagine that happy music can be an authentic expression of the contemporary.


Contemporary music cannot avoid what you think it should take account of and express without losing authenticity? That is obviously false. Perhaps I have misunderstood you?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Room2201974 said:


> While I would like to do so, unfortunately the damage has been done. It will literally take months for me to scrub the following statement from the collective unconscious:
> 
> "I am not sure that music does have to be about the human condition or that much music ever was."


Oh, you'll get over it. It can't be the first time you heard someone saying that most music is essentially abstract!


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Oh, you'll get over it. It can't be the first time you heard someone saying that most music is essentially abstract!


Oh yes, and they were wrong then too!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know about the C18, but over the past 50 years economic inequality has increased despite increased wealth in the West, too much that wealth is held by a very few. That's terribly depressing, terribly unfair. Granted this, it's hard for me to imagine that happy music can be an authentic expression of the contemporary.
> 
> How can it be that there are still people who are hungry, people who can't get cataract ops, people who have their life ruined or even die of curable diseases, people who live and work in insalubrious unsafe conditions, when there has been so much economic growth in the west?
> 
> How could anyone possibly write happy music if they're aware of this? Unless it's to cheer us up, make us forget. But that's not noble humaine art - that's cheap dehumanising entertainment.


Exactly! And we can go on. The world is being destroyed at an alarming speed by economic and institutional processes that we have little power over.

I grew up while it was still possible to celebrate our social progress and to recognise that many had died fighting for it (it wasn't granted to us by a benevolent elite). But now all that is being reversed and we are drifting towards a sort of global feudalism that seemingly cannot be resisted.

It is true that we have made progress in addressing all sorts of illnesses and that overall - even in very poor countries - life expectancy is longer than it was 100 years ago. But even these gains can be lost. We live now in a time when the never-ending battle between good and evil is going badly. That most of us, in our comfort, don't even realise this suggests that we may be unworthy of the gains we have inherited! Our children will not be so lucky.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know about the C18, but over the past 50 years economic inequality has increased despite increased wealth in the West, too much that wealth is held by a very few. That's terribly depressing, terribly unfair. Granted this, it's hard for me to imagine that happy music can be an authentic expression of the contemporary.
> 
> How can it be that there are still people who are hungry, people who can't get cataract ops, people who have their life ruined or even die of curable diseases, people who live and work in insalubrious unsafe conditions, when there has been so much economic growth in the west?
> 
> How could anyone possibly write happy music if they're aware of this? Unless it's to cheer us up, make us forget. But that's not noble humaine art - that's cheap dehumanising entertainment.


Oh c'mon now! A higher proportion of people than ever before have access to good health care, yes, even paupers. Ditto for safe working conditions. And ditto for longer lives, children more likely to survive, better sanitation, drinkable water just about everywhere, and meat on the table every day. And ditto again for worldwide communicators in their pockets, for the ability to turn a key and drive anywhere, and even for the likelihood of getting through the forest to the next town without being murdered for their purses (historically more often the case than not!)

This all seems pretty beneficial if the only price I have to pay is that somebody is even richer than me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> This all seems pretty beneficial if the only price I have to pay is that somebody is even richer than me.


I don't understand this bit (I understood the bit I snipped) Are you sayiing that it wouldn't be a good thing to even things out a bit more?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> I don't understand this bit (I understood the bit I snipped) Are you sayiing that it wouldn't be a good thing to even things out a bit more?


Well, on reflection... take from the Evil Rich and give to the Virtuous Poor -- people much like myself in fact. I can convince myself that it's a truly moral thing to do!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Well, on reflection... take from the Evil Rich and give to the Virtuous Poor -- people much like myself in fact. I can convince myself that it's a truly moral thing to do!


I'm offended by your cynicism.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lots of people getting offended these days, maybe something going around.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Lots of people getting offended these days, maybe something going around.


Perhaps it is something in the water (or maybe more like the plot in the first Kingsman movie, where something transmitted on our cellphones drives us all to try to kill each other). Whatever it is it must be fairly powerful. It even has people imagining that they are being cleverly drawn into conversations they don't want to have.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Well, on reflection... take from the Evil Rich and give to the Virtuous Poor -- *people much like myself in fact*. I can convince myself that it's a truly moral thing to do!


Which one are you? The evil rich or the virtuous poor? Or vice-versa? Or a mixture of the two?

Are you drawing your fat pension from the boom years and also drawing up the ladder?


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

The university is an institution dedicated to research. Why not music, which includes composition? I don't understand the problem here.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> Which one are you? The evil rich or the virtuous poor? Or vice-versa? Or a mixture of the two?
> 
> Are you drawing your fat pension from the boom years and also drawing up the ladder?


You assume I have a pension? And a fat one at that? Not everybody works for the gummint.


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> It is true that we have made progress in addressing all sorts of illnesses and that overall - even in very poor countries - life expectancy is longer than it was 100 years ago. But even these gains can be lost. We live now in a time when the never-ending battle between good and evil is going badly. That most of us, in our comfort, don't even realise this suggests that we may be unworthy of the gains we have inherited! Our children will not be so lucky.


In fact life expectancy in the poorest country today is longer than in the richest country in Beethoven's day. Quite remarkable.

I suspect the children of Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan will have it far worse than our own. And yes, my country is complicit in a lot of that.

It's nonetheless true that today's composers enjoy comfort and privilege unthinkable to the average westerner 200 or 300 years ago, when life was truly wretched.

Therefore, it's ahistorical to reject joy in modern music whilst accepting it in works from the common practice period. How did Haydn have the temerity to write uplifting music when the world was teeming with suffering, cruelty and inequity? Is all buoyant music a sham?

Of course not. Music is not a newspaper. Art should be free to range over all emotional terrain, and a composer's carefully massaged misery won't help those trammelled by hardship.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Gallus said:


> The university is an institution dedicated to research. Why not music, which includes composition? I don't understand the problem here.


Some people are anxious because the ROI for state investment in acadamic music research is so intangible.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> You assume I have a pension? And a fat one at that? Not everybody works for the gummint.


Those public-sector ones have all been slashed and hollowed out. Okay, so you're either a corporate pension recipient (fat pension) or self-employed, or the virtuous poor.

Save your cash and only attend the concerts where you know what you're getting. I recommend Mozart.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> I... I do also like music that uplifts me or is warm or happy or comfortable .... *but I also think that writing such music now might be a little dishonest or blind or privileged.*





Mandryka said:


> ...How could anyone possibly write happy music if they're aware of this? *Unless it's to cheer us up, make us forget. But that's not noble humaine art - that's cheap dehumanising entertainment.*


I am dismayed. Personally, although like most people, there have been major bumps in the road in my own life and there is always the awareness of those who are worse off, I feel blessed with life and the role that classical music has played in both acting as a solace and salve to uplift my spirits and as something that surprises me almost everyday with unexpected melody and majesty as I discover 'new' music from the 19th century.

It is counter to the benefit of the human condition to live a life in depression as some sort of acknowledgement of the unfair situation or sadness in the lives of others. It doesn't help us and it doesn't help them. And it is counter to the best of what art can offer us to suggest that art which is uplifting is dishonest and dehumanizing.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> I am dismayed. Personally, although like most people, there have been major bumps in the road in my own life and there is always the awareness of those who are worse off, I feel blessed with life and the role that classical music has played in both acting as a solace and salve to uplift my spirits and as something that surprises me almost everyday with unexpected melody and majesty as I discover 'new' music from the 19th century.
> 
> It is counter to the benefit of the human condition to live a life in depression as some sort of acknowledgement of the unfair situation or sadness in the lives of others. It doesn't help us and it doesn't help others. And it is counter to the best of what art can offer us to suggest that art which is uplifting is dishonest and dehumanizing.


You make music sound like a sort of opium.

IMO it's more noble for art to open our eyes than to close them


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> ...Okay, so you're either a corporate pension recipient (fat pension) or self-employed, or the virtuous poor.


I'd guess you've been away from private sector employment for a good long time. Quote: "That cost-cutting measure explains to some degree why pension plans have fallen out of favor. A Towers Watson study found that from 1998 to 2013, the number of Fortune 500 companies offering traditional defined benefit plans dropped 86 percent, from 251 to 34."


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Aha, that must be why so many people are clamouring to work for them. Anyway who needs a pension when you can rake it n another way. However, I assume you were employed before 1998?

I don't work in the public sector, I am self employed (= next-to-no pension after the baby boomers and early gen-X crashed the economy).

Music is all I have and I want it dissonant.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> You make music sound like a sort of opium.
> 
> IMO it's more noble for art to open our eyes than to close them


Personally I don't need art to open my eyes. My line of work has exposed me to the pain, sadness and unfairness in the world almost everyday. Besides, nowhere have I read or ever heard that art has the duty that you are assigning to it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


Composers have always taken on roles in teaching music, but in a formal sense it began in the 19th century with the establishment of academies. The one in Liepzig founded by Mendelssohn would be among the first, and its staff included him as well as Schumann (basically a co-founder) and Reger. Students over its history included famous names like Grieg, Delius and Janacek.

I think its clear that governments around the world will continue to fund music schools, and of course where the money comes from is an issue. Private funding through donations are always welcome. I think the issue isn't about whether they should exist but about other issues, for example in the numbers of students which should be allowed to graduate every year.

As regards the American system, if you read Blair Tindall's memoir Mozart in the Jungle, you get an idea about how during the 1960's and '70's there was an oversupply of students graduating from music courses. This had an inflationary effect on music degrees, and by the time she started her career in the more financially restricted 1980's, jobs where scarce.

Its not the same in every country but I think there's an argument to be made for restricting numbers to retain the value of the degree. One hopes that the same mistake isn't being made in China, where music is booming. This applies to other professions, but not the least to creative areas where career opportunities have always been restricted to the best of the best.

Many composers have juggled a life in academia with composing. Like conducting or being a soloist (both rare for composers to do nowadays) it can provide a stable income alongside any money coming in from composing. Academics have to deliver the course content, research and publish work related to their specialization and also carry out other ancillary duties like administration. Its not easy work, and put it this way, I've come across a few retired academics and they are very glad to have reached that point.

It seems that many composers who become successful and can live off their earnings from composition still retain links with the academic world. It can be informally through friendships or giving lectures as a guest, or through honorary positions. Despite the challenges, universities can continue to be stimulating places even if just for the reason of mixing with young people who are able, talented and have a passion for music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The discussion of music and the human condition reminds me of an anecdote related by Milhaud in his autobiography. He was of course one of the 20th century's most noted academics. In the 1960's he was asked to give a lecture about his career in an American university. He talked about his life, and concluded that it was one of happiness and joy, especially in terms of his relationships with friends and family. Some students came to him after the lecture and asked him how he could be a composer and say those things, art should be about suffering. Milhaud simply replied that he had managed to arrange things differently.

What this tells me is that its about attitude. Milhaud was no stranger to difficulty. His health condition made him confined to a wheelchair for his last few decades, and being a Jew together with his family he had to leave Europe with nothing but a suitcase. I think that optimism got him through those difficult times and its not a problem if music conveys that - along with all the other elements of the human experience.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> IMO it's more noble for art to open our eyes than to close them


I do not need music, or any art, to show me the ugliness of the world. I have the world itself for that. I need art to assure me that there can be something greater than suffering and despair.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


The implication of the OP is that we should not hire a composer if we do not approve of his music even though he may be a great teacher.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> The implication of the OP is that we should not hire a composer if we do not approve of his music even though he may be a great teacher.


That may be YOUR READING of the OP, but it is NOT the implication of the OP. The OP isn't a statement anyway, but merely a series of questions.


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

Sid James said:


> The discussion of music and the human condition reminds me of an anecdote related by Milhaud in his autobiography. He was of course one of the 20th century's most noted academics. In the 1960's he was asked to give a lecture about his career in an American university. He talked about his life, and concluded that it was one of happiness and joy, especially in terms of his relationships with friends and family. Some students came to him after the lecture and asked him how he could be a composer and say those things, art should be about suffering. Milhaud simply replied that he had managed to arrange things differently.
> 
> What this tells me is that its about attitude. Milhaud was no stranger to difficulty. His health condition made him confined to a wheelchair for his last few decades, and being a Jew together with his family he had to leave Europe with nothing but a suitcase. I think that optimism got him through those difficult times and its not a problem if music conveys that - along with all the other elements of the human experience.


Ah World War II, the good old days. Your post made me remember that of J.S. Bach's twenty children, ten died before adulthood. I can't imagine losing one child, but ten? Yet he continued to create beautiful, edifying music.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know about the C18, but over the past 50 years economic inequality has increased despite increased wealth in the West, too much of that wealth is held by a very few. That's terribly depressing, terribly unfair. Granted this, it's hard for me to imagine that happy music can be an authentic expression of the contemporary.
> 
> How can it be that there are still people who are hungry, people who can't get cataract ops, people who have their life ruined or even die of curable diseases, people who live and work in insalubrious unsafe conditions, when there has been so much economic growth in the west?
> 
> How could anyone possibly write happy music if they're aware of this? Unless it's to cheer us up, make us forget. But that's not noble humaine art - that's cheap dehumanising entertainment.


I don't agree with the above. That kind of thinking could lead to censorship.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think I'm not the first to observe that people who think the world is a wretched, horrible place are often those who watch too much TV. Better to look at statistics: per capita rates of crime, hunger, poverty, and deaths from war and disease over the past couple of hundred years. That gives a somewhat different picture.

The whole subject is dealt with in mind-numbing detail in Stephen Pinker's _The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined_.

Bill Gates commented on this book, "If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this-the most inspiring book I've ever read."

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angel...37665954&sr=1-1&keywords=pinker+better+angels

More recently, in the US violent crime peaked at 758.2 incidents per 100,000 population in 1991. It has been in decline since then, down to 386.3 in 2016, a decline of 49 percent. Things you'd never know by hanging out on the 'net or reading newspapers!


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> I think I'm not the first to observe that people who think the world is a wretched, horrible place are often those who watch too much TV. Better to look at statistics: per capita rates of crime, hunger, poverty, and deaths from war and disease over the past couple of hundred years. That gives a somewhat different picture.
> 
> The whole subject is dealt with in mind-numbing detail in Stephen Pinker's _The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined_.
> 
> ...


Ah - you beat me to citing Pinker.

It's still ninety deaths *per day* due to gun crime and suicides in the US - that's tantamount to a civil war I'd say.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Ah - you beat me to citing Pinker.
> 
> It's still ninety deaths *per day* due to gun crime and suicides in the US - that's tantamount to a civil war I'd say.


Indeed -- the gun death rate is 10.6 per 100,000 per year. But about 2/3 of those deaths are suicides. Whether the remainder is equivalent to civil war is a matter of definition -- but those numbers appear to be far reduced from what they were not long ago.

Wiki sez, "The homicide rate has been estimated to be over 30 per 100,000 people in 1700, dropping to under 20 by 1800, and to under 10 by 1900." It is currently 5.3 per 100,000. Gun homicides (currently 3-4 per 100,000) would be included in this.

That said, the US is a violent country by European standards, and has been so for a long time.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Indeed -- the gun death rate is 10.6 per 100,000 per year. Note, however, that about 2/3 of those deaths are suicides.


Yes - it is two thirds - and I wonder if that easy availability of guns facilitates that 60 head count.
Please note - I am not singling out the US as necessarily any worse (holistically speaking) than other countries.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

eugeneonagain said:


> Aha, that must be why so many people are clamouring to work for them. Anyway who needs a pension when you can rake it n another way. However, I assume you were employed before 1998?
> 
> I don't work in the public sector, I am self employed (= next-to-no pension after the baby boomers and early gen-X crashed the economy).
> 
> *Music is all I have and I want it dissonant.*


*
*

You can your music as dissonant as you like but please don't expect other people to


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Yes - it is two thirds - and I wonder if that easy availability of guns facilitates that 60 head count.
> Please note - I am not singling out the US as necessarily any worse (holistically speaking) than other country.


It's a fair bet that if people didn't have guns, they wouldn't be shooting each other or themselves.

That said, legally obtaining and carrying a handgun (the most common weapon used in criminal events) is by no means easy in most places. But crimes don't generally involve legal or registered firearms, nor do the criminals have have licenses to carry. So proposals to tighten up regulations seem somewhat useless (as I'm sure their proponents realize).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I think I'm not the first to observe that people who think the world is a wretched, horrible place are often those who watch too much TV


Who else made the observation,

More generally, you don't seem to want to address economic inequality.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> I don't agree with the above. That kind of thinking could lead to censorship.


Well it's a big leap from what I said to censorship.

On the other hand I am saying that some modern music is not contemporary. Modern art is art produced around now. Contemporary art is art which has something to say about our condition now.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Who else made the observation,
> 
> More generally, you don't seem to want to address economic inequality.


What's to address? Perhaps you believe that everybody should have exactly the same degree of wealth. If so, I certainly won't argue with your belief. It's looking like you may have some candidates to vote for.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Well it's a big leap from what I said to censorship.
> 
> On the other hand I am saying that some modern music is not contemporary. Modern art is art produced around now. Contemporary art is art which has something to say about our condition now.


Contemporary - 'belonging to or occurring in the present'.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Perhaps you believe that everybody should have exactly the same degree of wealth. .


No, that would be a silly idea.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> No, that would be a silly idea.


Then you have economic inequality. I'm afraid you will need to be a bit more specific.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

janxharris said:


> Contemporary - 'belonging to or occurring in the present'.


The distinction I'm making comes from fine art, and it's very common there. Even on Wikipedia you read



> Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.


And elsewhere, in a brochure for the Baltic Gateshead



> Contemporary art is the term used for art of the present day. Usually the artists are alive and still making work.
> Contemporary art is often about ideas and concerns, rather than solely the aesthetic (the look of the work).
> Artists try different ways of experimenting with ideas and materials.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Then you have economic inequality. I'm afraid you will need to be a bit more specific.


The question is whether too much wealth is heald by too few.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> The question is whether too much wealth is heald by too few.


I'll check the "Unsure" box. How about you? If too much, how much is about right? How to measure that? How to achieve it?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I'll check the "Unsure" box. How about you? If too much, how much is about right? How to measure that? How to achieve it?


I think I should give more of what I own away to the poor, much more.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> The distinction I'm making comes from fine art, and it's very common there. Even on Wikipedia you read
> 
> And elsewhere, in a brochure for the Baltic Gateshead


I don't see an explicit statement that equates to 'something to say about our condition now'.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> The question is whether too much wealth is heald by too few.


That's a very difficult question to answer which leads to other questions:

1. How much wealth is too much?
2. How did the people with too much wealth get so much wealth?
3. What right does Government have to lower the wealth of those with too much of it?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm sorry, I just don't have time to get involved in the conversation even though I started it. All I can say is that I think many people would give more, happily give more, if they knew their money was helping a specific suffering person to live much better. This seems a sort of moral evidence to me - if I know that giving $1000 will save _that _person's sight or life, then sure, I should give and indeed I _will _give.

The problem is that when it comes to redistribution by taxation the effect is spread across millions of _unknown _individuals, and the the difference any one of us makes is not dramatic.

However I would argue that neither of these facts detracts from the moral good of giving, the moral good of stronger redistributive taxation in the UK at least, given that there are many people who have much more than they need to live well. That's to say, just because each one of us is only doing a small good to the life of any individual sufferer when we are taxed more, together we're doing a great good to many individuals, and hence we should give.

Small goods, even imperceptible goods, are still good, and they add up.

Just a quick point on the right of governments to lower the private wealth of those who have too much, I want to say that just because you have wealth -- earned or inherited -- you do not thereby have a moral justification to keep it for yourself or indeed for your family.

(If this isn't clear, I'm sorry -- these aren't easy ideas to just type like this!)


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

KenOC said:


> This all seems pretty beneficial if the only price I have to pay is that somebody is even richer than me.


1% have more than 99% - more money and more power over our futures. This is not about envy. It is about our futures. Rights are not given they are struggled for. And 100 years of struggle is being undone. I'll be alright. But I wouldn't like to be my children. And it is we who are failing them by now guarding the treasures our fathers and grandfathers had won for us.

To get back to music - there are plenty of reasons for composers to write uncomfortable music and it is surely hard to see comfortable music as anything other than escapist.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> 1% have more than 99% - more money and more power over our futures. This is not about envy. It is about our futures. Rights are not given they are struggled for. And 100 years of struggle is being undone. I'll be alright. But I wouldn't like to be my children. And it is we who are failing them by now guarding the treasures our fathers and grandfathers had won for us.
> 
> To get back to music - there are plenty of reasons for composers to write uncomfortable music and it is surely hard to see comfortable music as anything other than escapist.


We do know about Bill Gates giving generously; is it as bad as you suggest?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DavidA said:


> [/B]
> 
> You can [have] your music as dissonant as you like but please don't expect other people to


Did I express that expectation?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

janxharris said:


> We do know about Bill Gates giving generously; is it as bad as you suggest?


Philanthropists choose their causes. I don't think need can wait for the nod from his majesty to favour their cause. This is no better than hoping to be favoured by a mediaeval monarch.

It brings us full circle to patronage and how the patron calls the shots.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

janxharris said:


> We do know about Bill Gates giving generously; is it as bad as you suggest?


So the 1percenters buff their image by throwing a few crumbs to the rest of us plebs. Solos and Bezos and their ilk engage in anti competitive behavior, media control and resource domination while the rest of us think they are such great guys. The disparity in wealth has never been greater, and no one seems to give a damn


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Triplets said:


> So the 1percenters buff their image by throwing a few crumbs to the rest of us plebs. Solos and Bezos and their ilk engage in anti competitive behavior, media control and resource domination while the rest of us think they are such great guys. The disparity in wealth has never been greater, and no one seems to give a damn


You know with certainty enough to judge someone you don't know? 
Are you a better person than Bezos Triplets?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> We do know about Bill Gates giving generously; is it as bad as you suggest?


Yes, Gates is a visionary. An exception that proves the rule. Are things as bad as I say? I hope not but I think we are going backwards fast as far as social justice and democracy are concerned. And the planet also seems doomed. I therefore do not think that these are times when a composer can produce optimistic music.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

eugeneonagain said:


> Philanthropists choose their causes. I don't think need can wait for the nod from his majesty to favour their cause. This is no better than hoping to be favoured by a mediaeval monarch.
> 
> It brings us full circle to patronage and how the patron calls the shots.


That Gates donates was my point; you are making a different point.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Yes, Gates is a visionary. An exception that proves the rule. Are things as bad as I say? I hope not but I think we are going backwards fast as far as social justice and democracy are concerned. And the planet also seems doomed. I therefore do not think that these are times when a composer can produce optimistic music.


But their composition does not have to be about what you decide it should be about.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

KenOC said:


> It's a fair bet that if people didn't have guns, they wouldn't be shooting each other or themselves.
> 
> That said, legally obtaining and carrying a handgun (the most common weapon used in criminal events) is by no means easy in most places. But crimes don't generally involve legal or registered firearms, nor do the criminals have have licenses to carry. So proposals to tighten up regulations seem somewhat useless (as I'm sure their proponents realize).


Posters interested in questions such as the prevalence of guns in American society or in the (mal)distribution of wealth are reminded that these topics can be found downstairs in Groups.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> Yes, Gates is a visionary.


And I believe that it was his wife who pushed him initially to begin charitable projects.



Enthusiast said:


> Are things as bad as I say? I hope not but I think we are going backwards fast as far as social justice and democracy are concerned. And the planet also seems doomed. I therefore do not think that these are times when a composer can produce optimistic music.


And I think that these times demand optimistic music more than ever. Changes (specifically improvements) happen because we demand them. We do not demand them without hope. Hope requires optimism.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

janxharris said:


> You know with certainty enough to judge someone you don't know?
> Are you a better person than Bezos Triplets?


That's a low bar. Yes, I am better than Jeff Bezos. I haven't crushed the dreams of any small businessman in the last 5 seconds, nor told any one what to think with my newspaper.
You wouldn't happen to be a Corporate Lawyer, Janx?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

janxharris said:


> That Gates donates was my point; you are making a different point.


No, I am making the more relevant point.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Triplets said:


> You wouldn't happen to be a Corporate Lawyer, Janx?


No
---------------------------


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> But their composition does not have to be about what you decide it should be about.


Meaning? I'm not deciding anything and am not sure why you think I am. But it is a fact that we can often see links between music and what was happening at the time it was composed.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Triplets said:


> That's a low bar. Yes, I am better than Jeff Bezos. I haven't crushed the dreams of any small businessman in the last 5 seconds, nor told any one what to think with my newspaper.
> You wouldn't happen to be a Corporate Lawyer, Janx?


Possibly the lowest bar ever offered on this forum! I'm better than Bezos too. We all are I expect.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I therefore do not think that these are times when a composer can produce optimistic music.


Well they can and they do. I am baffled as to why you would suggest otherwise.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ I guess you are going to suggest an example or two?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I guess you are going to suggest an example or two?


Lou Harrison's Third Symphony


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

John Adams 'Grand Pianola Music'.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

John Williams 'Star Wars'.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Dance Suite - Bernstein


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

janxharris said:


> John Williams 'Star Wars'.


Duh! It's commercial music. And very cheesy at that.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Milton Babbitt has long since weighed in on this, arguing in the affirmative: If such composers (himself in this case) are not supported, "music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live."


Jeez, Mr Babbit is a bit dramatic, isn't he? Music will always evolve. Many artists don't scrape a living from music but still create engaging and innovative music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> John Adams 'Grand Pianola Music'.


I was optimistic in 1982! I don't think I actually _like _any of the examples that you give but are any of them actually recent?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Merl said:


> Jeez, Mr Babbit is a bit dramatic, isn't he? Music will always evolve. Many artists don't scrape a living from music but still create engaging and innovative music.


Seems as if artists are creating "engaging and innovative" music, listener support would follow. No? Who is creating all of this engaging music today while working 9-5? And if it's so engaging why can't they earn a living from music? Well, we know why, it's called YouTube.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I was optimistic in 1982! I don't think I actually _like _any of the examples that you give but are any of them actually recent?


Liking them is relevant?

You didn't say they had to be ultra modern. Is any of this important?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Duh! It's commercial music. And very cheesy at that.


Why is that relevant?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

janxharris said:


> Why is that relevant?


Because listener support is irrelevant concerning John Williams's Star Wars. He was paid by a film producer.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Because listener support is irrelevant concerning John Williams's Star Wars. He was paid by a film producer.


I think this issue had digressed from the OP.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The new craze is hologram tours by dead artists. Records aren't selling, nobody supports new music, so now Glenn Gould will be going on tour as a hologram.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> Liking them is relevant?
> 
> You didn't say they had to be ultra modern. Is any of this important?


I didn't say it was relevant for me to like it (although some of your examples are really musical escapism) but, given that it was what I said about the present situation in the world that started this, it is obvious that I was talking of current music.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

So, thus far, it appears that listener support is bad because it potentially forces the composer to make compromises for the sake of popularity. Patronage is bad because it potentially forces the composer to make compromises for the sake of an oligarch with a lot of money. Government support, another form of patronage, is bad because too few want tax dollars going to the arts and because the composer might be compelled to make compromises for things like patriotism or nationalism at the behest of the government that is paying the money. (And now, apparently, commercial avenues are bad because they, well, because they are commercial.) The only viable alternative seems to be that composers have to supplement their income by teaching, which, of course, takes quite a bit of time and attention away from composing. What is the composer without independent means to do?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> Why is that relevant?


I think you need to go back to the start of this side discussion. I was talking of serious concerns about the world I, we, live in and saying that composers (obviously serious classical composers) would be influenced by it and you would hear it in their music. So, giving an example that is neither serious nor classical seems to miss (or even to agree with) my point.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> I think this issue had digressed from the OP.


Not at all. Who's paying whom to write music, and why, is very relevant to this thread. As for John Williams, certainly the film companies pay him to write music. It's no different from music publishers paying Beethoven for the same services. Both buyers expct the music to make more money for them than they paid the composer.

It doesn't matter that John Williams may be seen as closer to Lehar than to some ponderous, profound Teutonic artist-philosopher. They all have to pay for their groceries.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I think you need to go back to the start of this side discussion. I was talking of serious concerns about the world I, we, live in and saying that composers (obviously serious classical composers) would be influenced by it and you would hear it in their music. So, giving an example that is neither serious nor classical seems to miss (or even to agree with) my point.


I'm fine with you not accepting my examples. I don't really want to get into a semantic debate regarding 'serious' and 'classical'.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Not at all. Who's paying whom to write music, and why, is very relevant to this thread. As for John Williams, certainly the film companies pay him to write music. It's no different from music publishers paying Beethoven for the same services. Both buyers expct the music to make more money for them than they paid the composer.
> 
> It doesn't matter that John Williams may be seen as closer to Lehar than to some ponderous, profound Teutonic artist-philosopher. They all have to pay for their groceries.


I guess all composers have the option to write music that might bring in an income and music that _probably_ wont. I tend to think that many don't realise how difficult it is to write successful music.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> I guess all composers have the option to write music that might bring in an income and music that _probably_ wont. I tend to think that many don't realise how difficult it is to write successful music.


That was a reply to KenOC, but if I may jump in here . . . I think the bigger issue is that creating art is inherently a compromise between the artist's vision and the audience for which it is created. In this thread, and elsewhere, such a compromise has been suggested as being an inherently bad thing when I think it is simply an acknowledgement of the nature of creating something for other people to receive or perceive (or whatever might be the broadest definition of the role of the audience). Any artist who cannot accept this compromise must be willing to suffer and starve for the privilege of expressing his vision with utter purity even though it may never reach an audience of any significance.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

starthrower said:


> ...Records aren't selling, nobody supports new music...


People mostly want music that makes them feel better about their world, their futures, or themselves. Some might even call it "escapist" music. If new music lacks support, perhaps there's a message there.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

JAS said:


> That was a reply to KenOC, but if I may jump in here . . . I think the bigger issue is that creating art is inherently a compromise between the artist's vision and the audience for which it is created. In this thread, and elsewhere, such a compromise has been suggested as being an inherently bad thing when I think it is simply an acknowledgement of the nature of creating something for other people to receive or perceive (or whatever might be the broadest definition of the role of the audience). Any artist who cannot accept this compromise must be willing to suffer and starve for the privilege of expressing his vision with utter purity even though it may never reach an audience of any significance.


But isn't it a truism that most composers release work _they_ think is great? And if it isn't well received, they don't quite understand why.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> But isn't it a truism that most composers release work _they_ think is great? And if it isn't well received, they don't quite understand why.


Babbitt knew why: "The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible..."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

KenOC said:


> People mostly want music that makes them feel better about their world, their futures, or themselves. Some might even call it "escapist" music. If new music lacks support, perhaps there's a message there.


I do not see why music should be about suffering if there is suffering in the world, as someone suggested above. This is not true and has never been true. People like Mozart or the baroque composers wrote beautiful music in the times of wars and bloody revolutions. I see here a tendency of some people to overvalue music as an art form. Music is primarily escapist. If I want some social commentary about injustice in the world, I much prefer a book or a documentary to music. True, there are some moving anti-war pieces such as Brittens requiem or Gorecki symphony, but even those works employ text and nothing in music comes close to reading a book such as this one
https://www.amazon.com/I-Escaped-Auschwitz-Rudolph-Vrba/dp/1569802327


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

KenOC said:


> If new music lacks support, perhaps there's a message there.


Yeah, it's new. And it rarely gets programmed for anyone to hear. And unfortunately in the classical world a good deal of music 50-100 years old is still viewed this way. It's too bad a genius like Bartok had to scuffle to the end of his life, but lucky for us he created brilliant, beautiful, and challenging music. I'm not saying all new music is in this league, and we'll never know because we'll be dead before the test of time.

I find it frustrating that the Emerson Quartet is coming to town next month and guess what they'll be playing? You got it! Mozart and Beethoven. There's so much other music that could be programmed between those titans of the past and Ferneyhough. But no, we get the warhorses continuously, so I'm saving my money.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> Yes, Gates is a visionary. An exception that proves the rule. Are things as bad as I say? I hope not but I think we are going backwards fast as far as social justice and democracy are concerned. And the planet also seems doomed. I therefore do not think that these are times when a composer can produce optimistic music.


It's an interesting suggestion, though sometimes composers greet general or personal hardship with determinedly optimistic compositions (the reverse seems true as well). And sometimes a personal change can trump global circumstances. In recent years I've heard highly optimistic music from John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Ades, Jorg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Andrew Norman, and others. It may depend from what angle any individual views the current soundscape as to how positive or negative in mood it seems.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> But isn't it a truism that most composers release work _they_ think is great? And if it isn't well received, they don't quite understand why.


I don't know if it is a truism, but it seems to me that the usual course is for the composer to release work he or she thinks is great, and if it isn't well received, to blame the audience as being unworthy, lazy or stupid.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

JAS said:


> I don't know if it is a truism, but it seems to me that the usual course is for the composer to release work he or she thinks is great, and if it isn't well received, to blame the audience as being unworthy, lazy or stupid.


Blaming the audience is a long and honorable tradition. As a famous composer once said, "Cattle! Asses! The fugue, only the fugue should have been encored!"


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Blaming the audience is a long and honorable tradition. As a famous composer once said, "Cattle! Asses! The fugue, only the fugue should have been encored!"


If it was good enough for Ludwig . . .


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Babbitt knew why: "The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible..."


The onus is on such composers to prove such a point.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Blaming the audience is a long and honorable tradition. As a famous composer once said, "Cattle! Asses! The fugue, only the fugue should have been encored!"


Was this about the great fugue?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Was this about the great fugue?


Yes indeed. Beethoven didn't attend the premier of the Op. 130 but passed the time in a nearby alehouse. Karl Holz, the 2nd violinist, came in afterwards and told Beethoven that the _Cavatina _had been encored. Beethoven wasn't happy about that.

At the time, of course, the _Grosse Fuge _was still the closing movement of the quartet.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Yes indeed. Beethoven didn't attend the premier of the Op. 130 but passed the time in a nearby alehouse. Karl Holz, the 2nd violinist, came in afterwards and told Beethoven that the _Cavatina _had been encored. Beethoven wasn't happy about that.
> 
> At the time, of course, the _Grosse Fuge _was still the closing movement of the quartet.


The Grosse Fugue being a good example of no compromise. Good job he also wrote Fur Elise etc.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Yes indeed. Beethoven didn't attend the premier of the Op. 130 but passed the time in a nearby alehouse. Karl Holz, the 2nd violinist, came in afterwards and told Beethoven that the _Cavatina _had been encored. Beethoven wasn't happy about that.
> 
> At the time, of course, the _Grosse Fuge _was still the closing movement of the quartet.


Perhaps Beethoven anticipated the backlash....


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> Perhaps Beethoven anticipated the backlash....


Mind you, he also claims that a lot of people had asked for a piano transcription for 4 hands, which he duly provided (after someone else botched the job).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> Mind you, he also claims that a lot of people had asked for a piano transcription for 4 hands, which he duly provided (after someone else botched the job).


I hope that if I had been around then that I would have been amongst those that did so.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> I hope that if I had been around then that I would have been amongst those that did so.


As an aside, I'm surprised that the piano transcription isn't played more.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I believe the publisher offered to have the 4-hand version prepared at their expense, with a payment to Beethoven as well, because of what they said was a demand for "study scores." Those seem to have been in demand in those days and may well have formed a good part of the publishers' market for the late quartets in general.

As Blancrocher notes, Beethoven didn't care for the arrangement done by the publisher's arranger and redid it entirely, charging only a small additional amount to recognize the payment already made to the other guy. Of course Beethoven also got paid for the new finale.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)




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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Interesting that the Fugue is used at the start of Copying Beethoven.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Some of this sounds quite optimistic.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

And this:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The plot to remove the Grosse Fuge from Op. 130 involved a behind-the-scenes conspiracy. Still, somebody had to enter the lion's cage. Here is the recollection of that somebody, Karl Holz.

"Artaria [the Op. 130's publisher] charged me with the terrible and difficult task of convincing Beethoven to compose a new finale, which would be more accessible to the listeners as well as the instrumentalists, to substitute for the fugue which was so difficult to understand. I maintained to Beethoven that this fugue, which departed from the ordinary and surpassed even the last quartets in originality, should be published as a separate work and that it merited a designation as a separate opus. I communicated to him that Artaria was disposed to pay him a supplementary honorarium for the new finale. Beethoven told me he would reflect on it, but already on the next day I received a letter giving his agreement."


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I am unaware of any correlation between the level of support an artist receives from any source whatsoever, and their ability and history of creating art, "great" or otherwise. As long as an artist (or most any sort of creative person sufficiently motivated) has enough sustenance to be alive and has sufficient materials to create the art, it will be created. Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and William Blake quickly suggest themselves as examples, and trigger thoughts of many, many more. The survival of art from earlier eras into the current era is much more dependent upon the active intervention of powerful individuals than is its creation.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> I am unaware of any correlation between the level of support an artist receives from any source whatsoever, and their ability and history of creating art, "great" or otherwise. As long as an artist (or most any sort of creative person sufficiently motivated) has enough sustenance to be alive and has sufficient materials to create the art, it will be created. Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and William Blake quickly suggest themselves as examples, and trigger thoughts of many, many more. The survival of art from earlier eras into the current era is much more dependent upon the active intervention of powerful individuals than is its creation.


This thread has morphed into a Beethoven quartet discussion, so your comments are irrelevant.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> The plot to remove the Grosse Fuge from Op. 130 involved a behind-the-scenes conspiracy. Still, somebody had to enter the lion's cage. Here is the recollection of that somebody, Karl Holz.
> 
> "Artaria [the Op. 130's publisher] charged me with the terrible and difficult task of convincing Beethoven to compose a new finale, which would be more accessible to the listeners..."


Imagine that! Concern for accessibility to listeners back then and the fact that Beethoven acknowledged it and eventually acquiesced to the request. It would be nice if accessibility was given more consideration these days.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

^ Accessibility to contemporary music is still possible; no-one is preventing you from listening to Justin Bieber.

What you are complaining about (endlessly) is the increased effort required for changing (or expanding) your listening apparatus to include things outside your listening purview. Why is this? 

If I want to learn something new related to an area I'm already familiar with, say a new programming language, I can't merely rely on what I already know. It will help, but there are other things to learn. Things require effort. The same goes for new books, new plays, new films...etc...

You are placing the onus for failure on the music and the composers, whereas other people report getting satisfaction from it. How could that be?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> What you are complaining about (endlessly) is the increased effort required for changing (or expanding) your listening apparatus to include things outside your listening purview. Why is this?
> 
> If I want to learn something new related to an area I'm already familiar with, say a new programming language, I can't merely rely on what I already know. It will help, but there are other things to learn. Things require effort. The same goes for new books, new plays, new films...etc...


Oh right! The same old premise that audiences or recording listeners need to figuratively break out the study books in order to understand and appreciate the music.



> You are placing the onus for failure on the music and the composers, whereas other people report getting satisfaction from it. How could that be?


If music is so obscure that it requires a major effort to understand and enjoy then the size of the audience is likely to be very limited which doesn't mean there is no audience. Btw, blaming the audience seems like an exercise in futility.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

starthrower said:


> This thread has morphed into a Beethoven quartet discussion, so your comments are irrelevant.


The relevance of my remarks usually becomes clear much later, often in a blinding flash of revelation..


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Oh right! The same old premise that audiences or recording listeners need to figuratively break out the study books in order to understand and appreciate the music.


No 'study books' required, just an approach where you're not already sharpening an axe before you even start listening. In any case are you saying you didn't have to learn anything before/whilst listening to the music you listen to? Nothing about form or styles or what a cadenza is (or whether it's any good) or about orchestral blending? Nothing at all? And all the complexity of classical music just fell into place because the aesthetic was 'correct'?

I don't think so.



DaveM said:


> If music is so obscure that it requires a major effort to understand and enjoy then the size of the audience is likely to be very limited which doesn't mean there is no audience. Btw, blaming the audience seems like an exercise in futility.


So you keep saying. We know the audiences are smaller, but that could just as easily support the supposition that only a few are willing to bother making an effort.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> No 'study books' required, just an approach where you're not already sharpening an axe before you even start listening. In any case are you saying you didn't have to learn anything before/whilst listening to the music you listen to? Nothing about form or styles or what a cadenza is (or whether it's any good) or about orchestral blending? Nothing at all? And all the complexity of classical music just fell into place because the aesthetic was 'correct'?
> 
> I don't think so.


I can say unequivocally, that when it came to Baroque all the way to virtually all the music of the Romantic period, music from almost 3 centuries, I never had to do any learning. Something in the music always resonated with me on first listening enough to continue listening. And I never found any of it the least bit revolting which I can't say about some contemporary music and virtually all experimental 'music'.



> So you keep saying. We know the audiences are smaller, but that could just as easily support the supposition that only a few are willing to bother making an effort.


So _you_ keep saying.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I suppose you're just incorrigible then.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> ...We know the audiences are smaller, but that could just as easily support the supposition that only a few are willing to bother making an effort.


Blaming the audience is a chump's game. The audience always wins.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Blaming the audience is a chump's game. The audience always wins.


Do they though? What's a 'win'?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think entertainers/artists have to give and take a bit if they are trying to earn a living from Art. What they have to give depends on what their values are and what the labels/audience expect of them.

I do like the idea of Government grants, allowing the Artist to be more pure in their composition/performance since they have a fixed income. But even then, the government won't grant them money to compose if they aren't successful.

It's a tricky game.

What types of things do you think Classical Musicians/Composers have to give up in order to earn money, if anything?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

If they can they end up teaching to fund a composing career, where they're less likely to have to explain themselves to cultural conservatives.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I do like the idea of Government grants, allowing the Artist to be more pure in their composition/performance since they have a fixed income. But even then, the government won't grant them money to compose if they aren't successful.


What does "successful" mean? Are there any objective criteria? Who decides who gets funds and who doesn't? This sounds to me like a recipe for some really juicy corruption schemes. I remember reading of one arts grants program (not the NEA) where funds were awarded to those giving sexual favors to members of the grants committees...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

KenOC said:


> What does "successful" mean? Are there any objective criteria? Who decides who gets funds and who doesn't? This sounds to me like a recipe for some really juicy corruption schemes. I remember reading of one arts grants program (not the NEA) where funds were awarded to those giving sexual favors to members of the grants committees...


Gaining a profit? Isn't that how research grants work, the scientists in question must be finding useful results to continue to receive fundings.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Gaining a profit? Isn't that how research grants work, the scientists in question must be finding useful results to continue to receive fundings.


I think you blindsided me! Are you suggesting that a composer "gain a profit" to receive government grants?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

KenOC said:


> I think you blindsided me! Are you suggesting that a composer "gain a profit" to receive government grants?


Maybe the label he/she is on and everyone else involved.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Gaining a profit? Isn't that how research grants work, the scientists in question must be finding useful results to continue to receive fundings.


not quite. Just like in music, most research is junk and gets published solely because of the pressure to produce quantity. The quality of your research is not that important, the important thing are the publications. Because you are judged and evaluated not by what you research and how useful it is, but by how many papers you publish. The current system produces quantity over quality. 
https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/funding-debate-over-paper-quality-vs-quantity

and don't forget about networking and fame etc in deciding who gets grants and who doesn't. Some people are naturally good at self-promotion and can attract attention and money, even if their actual contribution to science in very little. For example there is this Human Connectom Project.
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/
sounds very scientific and useful, right? Except it isn't. Someone with good marketing skills inveted the buzzword "connectome" to sound very sophisticated. But when you understand what they are actually doing, you know that the output of this research will be almost useless and certainly not worth the billions $$$ that it is going to suck up.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> not quite. Just like in music, most research is junk and gets published solely because of the pressure to produce quantity. The quality of your research is not that important, the important thing are the publications. Because you are judged and evaluated not by what you research and how useful it is, but by how many papers you publish. The current system produces quantity over quality.
> https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/funding-debate-over-paper-quality-vs-quantity
> 
> and don't forget about networking and fame etc in deciding who gets grants and who doesn't. Some people are naturally good at self-promotion and can attract attention and money, even if their actual contribution to science in very little. For example there is this Human Connectom Project.
> ...


That's curious.

Jacck - is your view backed by others in the field?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

janxharris said:


> That's curious.
> 
> Jacck - is your view backed by others in the field?


I claim that 90% of published papers in my field (neuroscience) is worthless junk and I suspect it will be the same in most other fields, and the softer the science the worst it will be
https://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12189784/fmri-studies-explained
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A comment I read somewhere, from memory: “If you apply for a grant to study the mating habits of the purple-throated warbler, you’ll probably be turned down. But it your grant is to study the impact of global warming on the mating habits of the purple-throated warbler, you’ll likely do pretty well.”


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Jacck said:


> not quite. Just like in music, most research is junk and gets published solely because of the pressure to produce quantity. The quality of your research is not that important, the important thing are the publications. Because you are judged and evaluated not by what you research and how useful it is, but by how many papers you publish. The current system produces quantity over quality.
> https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/funding-debate-over-paper-quality-vs-quantity
> 
> and don't forget about networking and fame etc in deciding who gets grants and who doesn't. Some people are naturally good at self-promotion and can attract attention and money, even if their actual contribution to science in very little. For example there is this Human Connectom Project.
> ...


Thanks for your insight.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> I claim that 90% of published papers in my field (neuroscience) is worthless junk and I suspect it will be the same in most other fields, and the softer the science the worst it will be
> https://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12189784/fmri-studies-explained
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/


Fascinating. Thanks.

"Brain activity in a dead salmon.................."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> A comment I read somewhere, from memory: "If you apply for a grant to study the mating habits of the purple-throated warbler, you'll probably be turned down. But it your grant is to study the impact of global warming on the mating habits of the purple-throated warbler, you'll likely do pretty well."


This is rubbish isn't it? I mean, is there any evidence?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Fascinating. Thanks.
> 
> "Brain activity in a dead salmon.................."


it was about 10 years ago, when they placed a dead salmon into the scanner and found brain activity
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Jacck said:


> it was about 10 years ago, when they placed a dead salmon into the scanner and found brain activity
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/


What kind of music did it compose, or was it decomposing?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

JAS said:


> What kind of music did it compose, or was it decomposing?


probably something like this


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

DaveM said:


> I am dismayed. Personally, although like most people, there have been major bumps in the road in my own life and there is always the awareness of those who are worse off, I feel blessed with life and the role that classical music has played in both acting as a solace and salve to uplift my spirits and as something that surprises me almost everyday with unexpected melody and majesty as I discover 'new' music from the 19th century.
> 
> It is counter to the benefit of the human condition to live a life in depression as some sort of acknowledgement of the unfair situation or sadness in the lives of others. It doesn't help us and it doesn't help them. And it is counter to the best of what art can offer us to suggest that art which is uplifting is dishonest and dehumanizing.


Well said. One has to have eyes wide open, not closed, to live this way and be of possible benefit to those less fortunate. Just because one has decided not to live in a state of depression because the world appears to be in a mess does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others and unwilling to help. Whatever help one gives can sometimes return tenfold and sometimes from an unexpected source.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> Well said. One has to have eyes wide open, not closed, to live this way and be of possible benefit to those less fortunate. Just because one has decided not to live in a state of depression because the world appears to be in a mess does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others and unwilling to help. Whatever help one gives out can return tenfold even if it comes from an unexpected source.


There is music for all moods and all moods are legitimate to the human condition. Listening to music other than _Uplifting Sonata in C _isn't 'living in a state of depression'.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Well said. One has to have eyes wide open, not closed, to live this way and be of possible benefit to those less fortunate. Just because one has decided not to live in a state of depression because the world appears to be in a mess does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others and unwilling to help. Whatever help one gives can sometimes return tenfold and sometimes from an unexpected source.


I disagree and am not at all happy to see my position dismissed on the grounds that I must be depressed. I enjoy life greatly ... but I do know it is my duty to know what is going on and where we are going and to do what is in my power to do to see the world get fairer ... and to get better for my children and their children. I do not expect that those who lack the mental apparatus or inclination to observe and understand current trends should join me.

I do believe that so many recent (last 10-15 years especially) developments seem to mean that much of the social progress that I inherited - and that helps to make _my _life a happy and fulfilled one - is being lost. It is OK if you can't see it. Or if facing it makes you depressed. But I would suggest that those positions are fearful and therefore have more in common with depression.

Feeling angry about injustices and doing what you can against them (and ideally I mean more than dispensing patronage) - and I have spent most of my life doing so - involves seeing a world that is becoming ugly and the emergence of processes that will impoverish our children. This is not a cause for depression. Quite the opposite: it is a call to do what you can.

I am not asking that composers become political in their music. But if they see the world they live in then it will influence serious music in a variety of ways. This is not to rubbish good or great music that is of a lighter or happier vein - of course, there is a place for that and always has been (I love so much music of that type) - but to acknowledge that the great pieces of our age (the Eroicas rather than the Schubert 5s, if you will) are likely to be disturbing and disturbed!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If you want music, write music. If you want to eat, open a grocery store.

Music, and musical thought, must move forward. 

Today in most universities, the way theory is taught, it has moved backwards into a kind of Schenkerian, diatonic, backward way of thinking. Schenker's method of relating everything to an underlying tonic was based originally on Nazi racial theory. Even nineteenth-century composers and theorists were advanced beyond this. We've slid backwards in to a diatonic way of thinking. 

Ferneyhough is not one of them. The OP represents a retro, backwards-looking, old-fashioned way of thinking diatonically. Even Wagner, Brahms, and Liszt had progressed beyond this.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Ferneyhough is not one of them. The OP represents a retro, backwards-looking, old-fashioned way of thinking diatonically. Even Wagner, Brahms, and Liszt had progressed beyond this.


I'd be very surprised if Ken thinks diatonically. I always got the impression he just knows what he likes.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> I'd be very surprised if Ken thinks diatonically. I always got the impression he just knows what he likes.


Really? That makes him sound like an individual maverick. I've always heard him trying to espouse the status quo opinion, and this thread is that same premise. In this case, though, he seems to be throwing out Wagner, Brahms, Liszt, and even late Beethoven with the "retro-bathwater" of diatonic, linear thinking. All the composers I've mentioned had already escaped from the diatonic box, and in this sense were precursors of modern musical thinking.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> I disagree and am not at all happy to see my position dismissed on the grounds that I must be depressed. I enjoy life greatly ... but I do know it is my duty to know what is going on and where we are going and to do what is in my power to do to see the world get fairer ... and to get better for my children and their children. I do not expect that those who lack the mental apparatus or inclination to observe and understand current trends should join me.
> 
> I do believe that so many recent (last 10-15 years especially) developments seem to mean that much of the social progress that I inherited - and that helps to make _my _life a happy and fulfilled one - is being lost. It is OK if you can't see it. Or if facing it makes you depressed. But I would suggest that those positions are fearful and therefore have more in common with depression.
> 
> ...


Enthusiast, I was not referring to you, in all honesty. I had not read your post and I was responding indirectly to what someone else said. My use of the word "depression" was not a reference to you. But I will say that I've seen people so emotionally weighed down with the injustices of the world that they are unable to take full advantage of the opportunities that life presents and make a difference in the world that they would like. I feel it's important to stay centered and positive at one's core, and that living with a sense of happiness and well-being does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others. My life has been one devoted to service, and people in need look to others for strength, caring, and wisdom. One person can make a difference. Best wishes. -Lark


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Really? That makes him sound like an individual maverick. I've always heard him trying to espouse the status quo opinion, and this thread is that same premise. In this case, though, he seems to be throwing out Wagner, Brahms, Liszt, and even late Beethoven with the "retro-bathwater" of diatonic, linear thinking. All the composers I've mentioned had already escaped from the diatonic box, and in this sense were precursors of modern musical thinking.


Ah yes, you may be right.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> Enthusiast, I was not referring to you, in all honesty. I had not read your post and I was responding indirectly to what someone else said. My use of the word "depression" was not a reference to you. But I will say that I've seen people so emotionally weighed down with the injustices of the world that they are unable to take full advantage of the opportunities that life presents and make a difference in the world that they would like. I feel it's important to stay centered and positive at one's core, and that living with a sense of happiness and well-being does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others. My life has been one devoted to service, and people in need look to others for strength, caring, and wisdom. One person can make a difference. In any event, best wishes. -Lark


The thing is the post you replied to perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality. I strongly disagree. Paul Griffiths of _New York Times_ opined that since what had happened [in reference to the horrors of Nazism and war and the persecutions in the USSR] was inexpressible, the only appropriate course sometimes was to express _nothing_, which was what many composers did in violent and sometimes abstract works. The more repugnant the world, the more abstract the art.

I'd disagree with the idea that it was 'nothing' even if it felt like nothing at the time. Music like all art is a conduit for expression, no matter what people say about disassociations between the composer and the works. Also it is a legitimate art; I don't believe that music is meant to simply soothe people's existential pains by rocking them to sleep. I recall someone remarking (here? Youtube? another forum?) that Erwin Schulhoff's symphonies from no3 onward were just blustery noise, but they tell you about the nature of the times and the state of mind of the artist.

There is another middle path though. I think of a composer like Mieczysław Weinberg who is neither entirely producing numbness nor just soothing music. He moves between the two, blends them, juxtaposes them, pits them against one another. You get it all. I think it better reflects the position of what it means to be resilient and equanimous, rather than just 'positive' as it is so often sold to us - namely as a way to block out the unpalatable realities of the world.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


From the way you've posed the question, it sounds like you are in favor of the death penalty for Ferneyhough and his ilk. Why waste food on them? He should be chemically castrated, too, because he doesn't deserve offspring if he can't feed them. Oh, I'm sorry, I have a problem with people who don't like the music I like, and make all sorts of subtle suggestions about things.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> From the way you've posed the question, it sounds like you are in favor of the death penalty for Ferneyhough and his ilk. Why waste food on them? He should be chemically castrated, too...


Your perceptive post gives me a most excellent idea! Each year, an expert panel will select ten or so preeminent composers of serious music. Their works will be performed throughout the year on national TV. At the end of the year, the audience will vote for their favorites. The top third will receive glamorous prizes, ticker-tape parades in major cities, and universal adulation. The bottom third will be executed, again on TV, in various painful and horrific ways - slow strangulation, impalement, being thrown into volcanoes, and so forth.

Can you imagine the ratings? And the whole country will be introduced to a lot of contemporary music. In fact, you could run the shows on a pay cable channel and people would happily pay to tune in.

It may well be the lack of your kind of creative thinking that has led our music to the state it's in today. 

BTW, "chemically"? This is TV. We need spectacle! Close your eyes and imagine the surgeon, still in his mask and blood-spattered gown, one hand holding the knife and the other thrust above his head, clutching like a triumphal prize the…

Much more effective than Stalin's method of persuading composers to write music with mass appeal.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

For a whole year?! There's no way I'm listening to the likes of Ferneyhough for an entire year.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> For a whole year?! There's no way I'm listening to the likes of Ferneyhough for an entire year.


You might if you have some major money riding on the other fellow in the Composer's Lottery, and Ferneyhough is madly pumping out new works to avoid his likely fate. If he succeeds, your guy may slip into the bottom third!

You wouldn't like that. And most likely, neither would he.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> For a whole year?! There's no way I'm listening to the likes of Ferneyhough for an entire year.


Don't worry. After a couple of hours, a kind of numbness will settle in and you will hardly notice the rest of the year.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> The thing is the post you replied to perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality..


Since it was my post that was the one Larkenfield was responding to, I know the above to be an absolute misrepresentation of it and sadly, I think you do too. But it apparently served your purpose to perpetrate the inaccuracy, hoping that no one would notice.

My post was #60 for anyone who wants to see what a cheap shot the above is and please note the bolded part of the posts I was responding to because that is what I was addressing which had nothing to do with a music genre.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Enthusiast, I was not referring to you, in all honesty. I had not read your post and I was responding indirectly to what someone else said. My use of the word "depression" was not a reference to you. But I will say that I've seen people so emotionally weighed down with the injustices of the world that they are unable to take full advantage of the opportunities that life presents and make a difference in the world that they would like. *I feel it's important to stay centered and positive at one's core, and that living with a sense of happiness and well-being does not mean that one is indifferent to the suffering of others*. My life has been one devoted to service, and people in need look to others for strength, caring, and wisdom. One person can make a difference. Best wishes. -Lark


No worries, Larkenfield. I wasn't sure or not whether you referred directly to me and had also not noticed that the post you were agreeing with was partially an answer to me. It was the suggestion that caring (and therefore worrying) about recent directions we (the whole world) are taking is depressing that I felt was wrong. And I also wanted to disagree with the implication that we are better off enjoying our privileged life regardless (which seemed to be the position you were agreeing with). I do indeed know some people who have become _obsessed _ with how awful everything is and agree that is unhealthy and often limits or negates their capacity to act. But I feel that ignoring all the terrible trends of our day (or feeling that they don't matter) despite having the mental apparatus to see them is a more common psychopathology - and a more regrettable one. I think that anyone who watches the world they live in has to find their accommodation with what is happening and that must surely involve concern. I strongly agree with the sentence of yours that I have highlighted. Thanks for taking the trouble to explain.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> If you want music, write music. If you want to eat, open a grocery store.
> 
> Music, and musical thought, must move forward.
> 
> ...


There is nothing necessarily backward in writing music that has tonal centres.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Somebody brought up Brian Ferneyhough in another thread, and how he had been honing his technique for a lifetime. But where does the food that fills his belly come from? Who's sending his kids to college?
> 
> My question is: Should a composer that finds no direct economic support from his listening audience continue to thrive? Should universities put him on the payroll and make his life free and easy? Should the government take an interest and support him with grants?
> 
> ...


What are suggesting - that such composers are employed at a university just because someone on the board likes their music?


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> There is nothing necessarily backward in writing music that has tonal centres.


Your comment is absolutely correct. The statement "Music, and musical thought, must move forward" is nothing more than an old rhetorical trick. In this context "move forward" is not an actual, literal description of anything, but simply a misleading metaphor. It implies a sense of progress and improvement, neither of which are necessarily actually present. It is a trick commonly used in politics, and most often when there is nothing more substantive to be said. (Politicians may be somewhat forgiven since they are trying to reach voters with attention spans of gnats, and trying to do so in a 30 second ad that allows only for empty slogans of this sort.)


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Here is a simple hypothetical. What if, tomorrow, no one was allowed to play any of the traditional styles of classical music. Maybe it could still be discussed in an historical context, but it could not longer be played at concerts, or over the radio and no more recordings could be made or sold. Only more "modern" music would be permitted. Would it be able to sustain itself? Now imagine the opposite.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

JAS said:


> Your comment is absolutely correct. The statement "Music, and musical thought, must move forward" is nothing more than an old rhetorical trick. In this context "move forward" is not an actual, literal description of anything, but simply a misleading metaphor. It implies a sense of progress and improvement, neither of which are necessarily actually present. It is a trick commonly used in politics, and most often when there is nothing more substantive to be said. (Politicians may be somewhat forgiven since they are trying to reach voters with attention spans of gnats, and trying to do so in a 30 second ad that allows only for empty slogans of this sort.)


Do you accept though that attempting to be original is a worthy goal which is something most composers, I am sure, wish to achieve? Tonal music can sound unoriginal if one isn't careful.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Since it was my post that was the one Larkenfield was responding to, I know the above to be an absolute misrepresentation of it and sadly, I think you do too. But it apparently served your purpose to perpetrate the inaccuracy, hoping that no one would notice.
> 
> My post was #60 for anyone who wants to see what a cheap shot the above is and please note the bolded part of the posts I was responding to because that is what I was addressing which had nothing to do with a music genre.


It's not at all a misrepresentation of your general view. I replied to the idea of what can be considered a (musical) response to harsh realities. Also countering the view that music has a duty to be a sort of lullaby. Are you going to deny that it isn't the music you particularly prefer fulfilling this role? Rather than the music you often dismiss as harsh, unlistenable, etc?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Do you accept though that attempting to be original is a worthy goal which is something most composers, I am sure, wish to achieve? Tonal music can sound unoriginal if one isn't careful.


Ferneyhough seems unoriginal to me. This kind of monotonous sounding disonant noise has been produced since the 1950's. There is nothing of interest in this kind of music, there is no development, no beauty, no idea. It communicates nothing to me. I prefer the sound of silence over it.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> Do you accept though that attempting to be original is a worthy goal which is something most composers, I am sure, wish to achieve? Tonal music can sound unoriginal if one isn't careful.


It is perfectly understandable that an artist, in any medium, wants his or her work to bear some idiosyncratic finger-prints of his or her own, a reflection of the fact that it was the work of this one person and came into existence through that one person's efforts, skills and ideas. But the valuing of absolute originality (or newness) over other considerations merely results in a pile of increasingly bizarre nonsense that gets created simply because no one ever thought it was worth creating before, and no one who is not obsessed with the idea of being wholly original would likely think worthy of creating at all. How many entirely new ideas are there? And how many actually produce something worthwhile? (Yes, the latter judgement is subjective.)


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> Ferneyhough seems unoriginal to me. This kind of monotonous sounding disonant noise has been produced since the 1950's. There is nothing of interest in this kind of music, there is no development, no beauty, no idea. It communicates nothing to me. I prefer the sound of silence over it.


I know very little Ferneyhough myself.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

JAS said:


> It is perfectly understandable that an artist, in any medium, wants his or her work to bear some idiosyncratic finger-prints of his or her own, a reflection of the fact that it was the work of this one person and came into existence through that one person's efforts, skills and ideas. But the valuing of absolute originality (or newness) over other considerations merely results in a pile of increasingly bizarre nonsense that gets created simply because no one ever thought it was worth creating before, and no one who is not obsessed with the idea of being wholly original would likely think worthy of creating at all. How many entirely new ideas are there? And how many actually produce something worthwhile? (Yes, the latter judgement is subjective.)


Granted - such as you describe is a very real problem.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

janxharris said:


> I know very little Ferneyhough myself.


May your blessings continue.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

janxharris said:


> Granted - such as you describe is a very real problem.


But is it? The description seemed fair enough - and who could not agree with it? - but that it is a problem that actually occurs is very debatable. I am not sure at all that today's composers of note go out of their way to be novel and I am sure doing so is not a major driving force in their creativity. I accept that some people hearing some music can _feel _that the composer was merely trying to be new but that doesn't make it an accurate view of the creative motives and thinking processes of the composers.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Jacck said:


> Ferneyhough seems unoriginal to me. This kind of monotonous sounding disonant noise has been produced since the 1950's. There is nothing of interest in this kind of music, there is no development, no beauty, no idea. It communicates nothing to me. I prefer the sound of silence over it.


This is one of the reasons I have problems with discussions like this. I am also not a fan of Ferneyhough. So what? There are many here who enjoy his music. So what if they are a minority?

It appears to me that many of the criticism of Ferneyhough show a high level of disrespect to those who like his music.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

arpeggio said:


> It appears to me that many of the criticism of Ferneyhough show a high level of disrespect to those who like his music.


And to Ferneyhough himself.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

arpeggio said:


> It appears to me that many of the criticism of Ferneyhough show a high level of disrespect to those who like his music.


Why should anyone feel offended by anyone's negative remarks about their favorite composer's music? I certainly do not feel that way. You can critize all the composers I enjoy and like and I will not feel offended. You don't like their music? Well, it is your loss. It might possibly be my loss for not being able to appreciate Ferneyhough, but it is OK. 
And concerning Ferneyhough himself. I don't know him. He might be a great man. All I am saying is that his music does not speak to me. I might have used stronger language to describe his music (monotonous dissonat noise), but it is a pretty concise description of how his music affects me. It would be interesting to speak to Ferneyhough and hear what he has to say about his music. For whom does he write the music? Does he have anything to communicate with his music? Should his music evoke some emotions? 
What do you get out of a piece like this?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Even the wikipedia article about the New Complexity completely fails to explain to me what this new movement is about. We get vacuous statements such as "composers seeking a complex, multi-layered interplay of evolutionary processes occurring simultaneously within every dimension of the musical material" and "_hough often atonal, highly abstract, and dissonant in sound, New Complexity music is most readily characterized by the use of techniques which require complex musical notation. This includes extended techniques, complex and often unstable textures, microtonality, highly disjunct melodic contour, complex layered rhythms, abrupt changes in texture, and so on. It is also characterized, in contradistinction to the music of the immediate post-World War II serialists, by the frequent reliance of its composers on poetic conceptions, very often implied in the titles of individual works and work-cycles._ "

the only thing that I do get out of the wikipedia article is that it is some highly abstract academic music that is written because of the abstract notation, that is music completely detached from reality and the listening public. I have no issue with the fact that music such as this one is produced at the universities, unless it becomes the dominant kind of music that would see itself as the new future of music (as happened with Schoenberg whose revolution hijacked the academia for decades)


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

If people are determined to be offended, it is not possible to say that Ferneyhough's music is equivalent in some way or somehow embodies some kind of progress over all of the music that came before his innovations without disrespecting them, or the people who prefer those older forms. There is no perfect world here in which no one is safe from the opinions of others.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Jacck said:


> And concerning Ferneyhough himself. I don't know him. He might be a great man. All I am saying is that his music does not speak to me. I might have used stronger language to describe his music (monotonous dissonat noise), but it is a pretty concise description of how his music affects me.


That's not all you're saying though is it? There is a subtext which is an aesthetic judgement stating: 'this _music_ is no good.'
That's different from merely stating that it doesn't speak to you. The quote below shows it to be the opposite of just saying it doesn't 'speak' to you.



Jacck said:


> This kind of monotonous sounding disonant noise has been produced since the 1950's. There is nothing of interest in this kind of music, there is no development, no beauty, no idea. It communicates nothing to me. I prefer the sound of silence over it.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Jacck said:


> Why should anyone feel offended by anyone's negative remarks about their favorite composer's music?


I understand how they can be offended. That is why I avoid doing it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Do you accept though that attempting to be original is a worthy goal which is something most composers, I am sure, wish to achieve? Tonal music can sound unoriginal if one isn't careful.


The relationship between merit and originality is a bit tricky. Here's Samuel Johnson upon reading, as a favor, a work submitted to him. "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Johnson was indeed a great wit, but do you mean (by way of Johnson) to say that those composers attempting to be original end up in that quandary? Or perhaps that a certain type of composer attempting originality via a certain type of music ends up in that quandary?

Or what?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> It's not at all a misrepresentation of your general view. I replied to the idea of what can be considered a (musical) response to harsh realities. Also countering the view that music has a duty to be a sort of lullaby. Are you going to deny that it isn't the music you particularly prefer fulfilling this role? Rather than the music you often dismiss as harsh, unlistenable, etc?


_*
"The thing is the post you replied to *[DaveM post #60] *perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality."*_

Your post above has nothing to do with any general view of mine. It is a totally untrue statement about my #60 post. You know it and anybody who reads my post knows it. Furthermore, the premise that_ 'only tonally diatonic music is the sane response to a grim reality_' is a ridiculous statement contrived by you and you alone and is nowhere to be found in my post or any post of mine.

It's surprising to me that someone has a chance to correct the record, but instead doubles down on the error at the expense of their credibility.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

In what way have I erroneously stated your general view? Is it not true (and plainly evident by perusing this forum) that you think serial music/modernist music (call it what we will) is empty music devoid of value or pleasure?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> Johnson was indeed a great wit, but do you mean (by way of Johnson) to say that those composers attempting to be original end up in that quandary? Or perhaps that a certain type of composer attempting originality via a certain type of music ends up in that quandary?
> 
> Or what?


I was responding to the statement, "Tonal music can sound unoriginal if one isn't careful." Well, it will certainly sound unoriginal if it _is_ unoriginal. And even if it's original, it may be quite bad. These are things often forgotten by members of the "gotta move forward, old is bad and new is good, originality at all costs" school. You know, the people who are routinely outraged when somebody likes the music of Alma Deutscher.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> You know, the people who are routinely outraged when somebody likes the music of Alma Deutscher.


Luckily that isn't me; I started a thread in this section about how good she is (it didn't go down well I admit).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> In what way have I erroneously stated your general view? Is it not true (and plainly evident by perusing this forum) that you think serial music/modernist music (call it what we will) is empty music devoid of value or pleasure?


Why are you avoiding the fact that you misrepresented my post? It's there in black and white. Where in my post #60 post did I express any view of serial/modernist music? And why are you trying to change the subject to what my view of serial/modernist music is when it had nothing to do with the post that Larkenfield responded to?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Why are you avoiding the fact that you misrepresented my post? It's there in black and white. Where in my post #60 post did I express any view of serial/modernist music? And why are you trying to change the subject to what my view of serial/modernist music is when it had nothing to do with the post that Larkenfield responded to?


Don't feel bad. MR and others have been claiming that my OP suggests that Ferneyhough be starved and/or castrated! In fact, it merely suggests that he's probably unable to support himself purely through his music, and it makes no value judgments at all. In fact, the same is true of _all _classical composers in the US except maybe one or two -- I've seen John Adams named as the only American classical composer supported entirely by his music.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Why are you avoiding the fact that you misrepresented my post? It's there in black and white. Where in my post #60 post did I express any view of serial/modernist music? And why are you trying to change the subject to what my view of serial/modernist music is when it had nothing to do with the post that Larkenfield responded to?


I'm not changing anything. In your post #60 there is a view about using music as a soothing medicine for life's ills, that is what I addressed. Alongside it I was highlighting the view of those people - which includes yourself as self-identified - who think music beyond standard tonality can't offer such possibilities. I addressed Larkenfield's post in general and your own which he quoted because I think your view highlights this.

Why are you feeling hard-done-by? Have I or have I not correctly represented your view?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Don't feel bad. MR and others have been claiming that my OP suggests that Ferneyhough be starved and/or castrated! In fact, it merely suggests that he's probably unable to support himself purely through his music, and it makes no value judgments at all. In fact, the same is true of _all _classical composers in the US except maybe one or two -- I've seen John Adams named as the only American classical composer supported entirely by his music.


I have never had the experience of someone so flagrantly distorting a post of mine and then, even though the distortion is so obvious, instead of correcting it, trying to change the subject.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> I have never had the experience of someone so flagrantly distorting a post of mine and then, even though the distortion is so obvious, instead of correcting it, trying to change the subject.


That's not what has happened. Why don't you answer my reply to you directly? If I had misrepresented your actual view I would retract it immediately, but I don't believe I have.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm not changing anything. In your post #60 there is a view about using music as a soothing medicine for life's ills, that is what I addressed. Alongside it I was highlighting the view of those people - which includes yourself as self-identified - who think music beyond standard tonality can't offer such possibilities. I addressed Larkenfield's post in general and your own which he quoted because I think your view highlights this.
> 
> Why are you feeling hard-done-by? Have I or have I not correctly represented your view?


You can keep trying to change the subject. Your statement does not represent my post or my view. To say so is dishonest. It's a ridiculous statement and it's rather sad that you would stoop that low.

*"The thing is the post you replied to *_[DaveM post #60] *perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality."*_


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Well if you have now changed your view about music outside of romantic, tonal music I'll gladly retract it. Somehow I don't think you have.
I did end up letting the two ideas - your general view and the issue of music as an escape from turmoil in the world - run together, but I don't see that as falsifying your views.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> Well if you have now changed your view about music outside of romantic, tonal music I'll gladly retract it. Somehow I don't think you have.
> I did end up letting the two ideas - your general view and the issue of music as an escape from turmoil in the world - run together, but I don't see that as falsifying your views.


*"The thing is the post you replied to *_[DaveM post #60] *perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality."*_

Is that what my post #60 says? Yes or no. If you say yes, show me and everyone where.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> *"The thing is the post you replied to *_[DaveM post #60] *perpetrates the idea that only tonally diatonic music, of the conventionally 'uplifting' kind, is the sane response to a grim reality."*_
> 
> Is that what my post #60 says? Yes or no. If you say yes, show me and everyone where.


Well, I read back through the thread to try and see if I had gone wrong somewhere. I don't want to deliberately misrepresent you. There was a discussion about art opening our eyes rather than it being 'some sort of opium'. And your reply was:



DaveM said:


> Personally I don't need art to open my eyes. My line of work has exposed me to the pain, sadness and unfairness in the world almost everyday. Besides, nowhere have I read or ever heard that art has the duty that you are assigning to it.


All well and good. But then you go on to say this further on in the now infamous post no.60:



DaveM said:


> I feel blessed with life and the role that classical music has played in both acting as a solace and salve to uplift my spirits and as something that surprises me almost everyday with unexpected melody and majesty as I discover 'new' music from the 19th century.
> 
> It is counter to the benefit of the human condition to live a life in depression as some sort of acknowledgement of the unfair situation or sadness in the lives of others. It doesn't help us and it doesn't help them. And it is counter to the best of what art can offer us to suggest that art which is uplifting is dishonest and dehumanizing.


Which sort of contradicts the first quote when you said there that you had neither read nor ever heard that art has the duty that you say Mandryka was assigning to it. It also fairly clearly indicates that the music from the 19th century "with unexpected melody and majesty" fulfils that role of uplifting the spirits, whereas the music you consider (in every thread about it) unpleasant probably doesn't.

Am I wrong? Is it really about the principle that you didn't explicitly state it in the post Larkenfield quoted and I responded to generally? In what way have I contradicted your actual position?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> Which sort of contradicts the first quote when you said there that you had neither read nor ever heard that art has the duty that you say Mandryka was assigning to it. *It also fairly clearly indicates that the music from the 19th century "with unexpected melody and majesty" fulfils that role of uplifting the spirits, whereas the music you consider (in every thread about it) unpleasant probably doesn't.*
> 
> Am I wrong? Is it really about the principle that you didn't explicitly state it in the post Larkenfield quoted and I responded to generally? In what way have I contradicted your actual position?


You continue to try to change this into another subject, about my previous posts or my views about serial/modernist music. It is about the subject of my post and how you misrepresented it. Not only did you not answer my question, but you compounded the deceit by insinuating a meaning that isn't there. The subject of my post was a response to the premise that music shouldn't be uplifting in times of world unrest/distress and had nothing to do with serial/modernist music.

Let everyone compare my original full sentence below to what you have created in bold above. It is another total distortion and dishonest representation of the meaning of my post.

*I feel blessed with life and the role that classical music has played in both acting as a solace and salve to uplift my spirits and as something that surprises me almost everyday with unexpected melody and majesty as I discover 'new' music from the 19th century.*


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Now you are misrepresenting it by comparing two completely different aspects of the discussion. I hope people read the preceding explanation first so they can see how I reached the conclusion I reached. 

You contradicted yourself and then fixated on the idea that you didn't explicitly, word-for-word, write a certain thing in a certain post. I already acknowledged that, but you want blood out of a stone. I still maintain that I have not misrepresented you one iota.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> Now you are misrepresenting it by comparing two completely different aspects of the discussion. I hope people read the preceding explanation first so they can see how I reached the conclusion I reached.
> 
> You contradicted yourself and then fixated on the idea that you didn't explicitly, word-for-word, write a certain thing in a certain post. I already acknowledged that, but you want blood out of a stone. I still maintain that I have not misrepresented you one iota.


Yes, people will read what's there in black and white and re-evaluate the credibility of someone who so obviously misrepresented a post to further an agenda.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

This thread might have gone in a different direction but I've always wondered this.

About 10 years ago I bought a CD by Ferneyhough on Amazon. It was very much top-dollar "price wise". Why would he put out a CD he knows that hardly anyone would like, and then price it so high on top of that????


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

JAS said:


> If people are determined to be offended, it is not possible to say that Ferneyhough's music is equivalent in some way or somehow embodies some kind of progress over all of the music that came before his innovations without disrespecting them, or the people who prefer those older forms. There is no perfect world here in which no one is safe from the opinions of others.


Overly hasty typing. That should be "no perfect world here in which no one has to deal with the opinions of others" or "no perfect world here in which everyone is safe from the opinions of others."


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

haydnguy said:


> About 10 years ago I bought a CD by Ferneyhough on Amazon. It was very much top-dollar "price wise". Why would he put out a CD he knows that hardly anyone would like, and then price it so high on top of that????


A better question might be why did you buy it? (From a purely financial consideration, products with small markets always tend to charge more per unit since the fixed costs of production, incurred without regard to the volume produced, cannot be spread across a larger number of units.)


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

KenOC said:


> You know, the people who are routinely outraged when somebody likes the music of Alma Deutscher.


I apologize for going off topic.

Who was outraged?

I was not. I have no problem with anyone who likes the music of Ms. Deutscher. I was never critical of her music or talent. I and others were critical of those who like ArtMusic were were carrying on as if she was the greatest musical prodigy since Mozart and how she was going to save classical music.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Just for a laugh, here are some titles of papers concerned with the 'New Complexity School' of music, with which Brian Ferneyhough is associated. I wonder how many would pass the Sokal test?

_"Performative Physicality and Choreography as Morphological Determinants"_

_"Re-Complexifying the Function(s) of Notation in the Music of Brian Ferneyhough and the 'New Complexity"_

And this winner:

_"Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure"._

Right...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> _"Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure"._
> Right...


"_The author posits that a dynamic of sadomasochistic pleasure is at work in contempo-rary music. The rise both of compositions that equal a set of technical instructions and of perhaps impossible requirements upon performers can be seen to make the act of taking pleasure in their execution a form of masochism. The audiences of increasingly intellectualized musical styles could be said to enjoy a similar relationship to performance. And in the more physical "noise music," the intended effect is often not auditory pleasure but suffering. The author recounts a number of sources in his discussion, from Freud to Nietzsche, Adorno, Schumann and Stockhausen_."
:lol:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Jacck said:


> "_The author posits that a dynamic of sadomasochistic pleasure is at work in contempo-rary music. The rise both of compositions that equal a set of technical instructions and of perhaps impossible requirements upon performers can be seen to make the act of taking pleasure in their execution a form of masochism. The audiences of increasingly intellectualized musical styles could be said to enjoy a similar relationship to performance. And in the more physical "noise music," the intended effect is often not auditory pleasure but suffering. The author recounts a number of sources in his discussion, from Freud to Nietzsche, Adorno, Schumann and Stockhausen_."
> :lol:


This fits right in with Captainnumber36's thread on the role of values in one's appreciation of music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Euler said:


> Ah World War II, the good old days. Your post made me remember that of J.S. Bach's twenty children, ten died before adulthood. I can't imagine losing one child, but ten? Yet he continued to create beautiful, edifying music.


Bach did have challenges to face in his life, including what you say. His own childhood wasn't easy either, the death of his first wife (from which time we get the tragic Chaconne) and he was passed over for an important job in favour of Telemann and another composer who I can't remember (one who has slid into obscurity).

The anecdote about Milhaud wasn't to discount or trivialise the impact World War II made on him and countless others - even if we look at key events such as the Holocaust and the dropping of atom bombs over Japan. These where undoubtedly among the most important events of the century. My point is just that however composers face challenges in life, it boils down to the fact that they're people just like us. Is the glass half empty or half full?

I must say that Brian Ferneyhough is a bit of an icon, which is a rare thing for a composer within his own lifetime. One exalted by those of more radical ideological persuasions, and degraded by those with more conservative views. His music has proved baffling to colleagues, which reminds me of how Liszt balked when seeing a score by his contemporary Alkan.

I think its unfair to judge someone who is not inclined towards enjoyment of contemporary classical music because they don't like Ferneyhough. Its like saying you may as well not climb a mountain because you can't climb Everest. At the same time its useless to degrade him, because of what I've read he has a solid reputation as a teacher and in an interview he stated that he teaches in a way which is accepting of diversity of approaches to music. Like the best teachers, Ferneyhough said he doesn't want to impose his ideas on his students. He mentioned his own teacher, Lennox Berkeley as being a model in this regard. No doubt he has the qualifications and experience to teach in university, which as I mentioned before isn't an easy job.

The obscurity of his music need not be an issue either, he stated that his decision to follow a restrictive post-serial path is not for everybody, composers can be as simple or complex as they wish. Its a good attitude and I remember my own favourite teachers to be like that.

Over its long history, Western music has had countless examples of composers drawing income from teaching and also church and court positions, and later performance in either freelance or appointed by orchestras, choirs or other groups. Their own music often takes a back seat to all this, yet it can endure. Time is the ultimate test of that.


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