# How Right Was Saint-Saëns about Debussy?



## Mahlerian

People rightly complained about the modernist bias of my last poll, and, duly chastened, I have taken a sharp turn in the other direction.



Camille Saint-Saëns said:


> The Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style, he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense.


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## Guest

First!!!

Do I get a prize?


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## PetrB

The existence of this poll is, itself, pretty damned funny.

I don't give a f-f-f-f-flying f-f-f-f-fig about what Saint-Saëns said about Debussy, what Debussy declared about form after reading through Ravel's _Oiseaux Triste,_ what Grechaninov said about Gurdjieff, what Boulez said about Shostakovich, what Shostakovich said about Stalin, what Creationists say about Science, what.... oh, never mind.

Once again, Poll averse in general, I did not vote. Thanks for the laugh, though.


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## PetrB

Icarus said:


> First!!!
> 
> Do I get a prize?


An all-expenses paid "as long as it takes" guest pass to one of the most effective and most luxuriously appointed rehab centers specializing in internet fora addiction.


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## Dim7

Where's the option "Absolutely maybe. Schoenberg sucks!!" ?


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## Fagotterdammerung

Debussy is one of my favorite composers, but I think it's quite clear what he wrote was in fact macramé.


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## isorhythm

Of course he did - "pleasure is the law"! Who has time for style, logic, and common sense?


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## Guest

Tee hee, good one, Mahlerian.

And going for most entertaining poll of 2015 in January is pretty enterprising. Or reckless.

We'll see.:tiphat:


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## QuietGuy

"Originally Posted by Camille Saint-Saëns
The Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style, he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense."

The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun may resemble a painter's palette, but all those swirls of paint produce some pretty nice designs, abstract though they may be. Debussy was trying to create new form, new colors, new sounds, new melodies, i.e. NEW MUSIC that just wasn't in Saint Saens to accept. He missed Debussy's genius.


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## brotagonist

Those are well thought out choices, Mahlerian  One cannot, truthfully, pick any of them.


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## Dim7

Next poll could be:

What do you think about Schoenberg's statement that Mahler was a saint?

1. As a intelligent & attractive person I have to agree.

2. I disagree. I'm stupid, my mama's fat and I stink.


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## Fagotterdammerung

3. Of course he's a saint. The double bass solo in Mahler 1 cured my fistula!


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## ArtMusic

Beautiful tonal piece by Debussy. It s immediately accessible and conveys the mood prevailing at the time, which is timeless. All the hallmarks of a great piece.


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## Dim7

Dim7 said:


> Next poll could be:
> 
> What do you think about Schoenberg's statement that Mahler was a saint?
> 
> 1. As a intelligent & attractive person I have to agree.
> 
> 2. I disagree. I'm stupid, my mama's fat and I stink.


On second thought the second option should be

2. I disagree because I'm an anti-semite and a nazi.


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## dgee

Why is no one taking this seriously? Saint Saens statements are clearly indicative of the sort of conservative ideology that has done so much damage to music etc etc


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## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> I don't give a f-f-f-f-flying f-f-f-f-fig about what Saint-Saëns said about Debussy, what Debussy declared about form after reading through Ravel's _Oiseaux Triste,_ what Grechaninov said about Gurdjieff, what Boulez said about Shostakovich, what Shostakovich said about Stalin, what Creationists say about Science, what.... oh, never mind.


I'm afraid I can't help myself...what _did_ Grechaninov say about Gurdjieff?


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## Richannes Wrahms

Sounds a bit like a negative hippopotamus.


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## Blancrocher

dgee said:


> Why is no one taking this seriously? Saint Saens statements are clearly indicative of the sort of conservative ideology that has done so much damage to music etc etc


Good point. Careful, Mahlerian--if you're going to make a parody thread, you'd better make sure that none of us think it raises interesting questions. I should tell you that the editorial board of the "Stupid Thread Ideas" thread has already scheduled a meeting to vote on your possible suspension.


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## EdwardBast

dgee said:


> Why is no one taking this seriously? Saint Saens statements are clearly indicative of the sort of conservative ideology that has done so much damage to music etc etc


If past experience with similar parody polls is any indication, that will begin when someone who highly respects Saint Saens' opinion and who also despises the music of Debussy uses the poll as an occasion to spew ill-informed criticism about the latter's music. It will subsequently heat up when equally ill-informed people who feel they currently have a stake in the stylistic differences between the two composers use that affront as a call to defend their cherished beliefs about the direction music should have developed but didn't - or did, depending on how confused they are. I'm sure it will happen any minute … no really … soon. Yep. Chaos will ensue … a melee of epic proportions. All it takes is a few Debussy haters. Surely someone out there must despise Debussy? This is your chance to dish on him. Don't miss it! And with the backing of a certified genius like Saint Saens', your opinion will have instant credibility.


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## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> I'm afraid I can't help myself...what _did_ Grechaninov say about Gurdjieff?


I apologize, Blancrocher. :tiphat:

That one pairing was a complete flight of phantasy based on the prosody of the two names, and imagining that Grechaninov had anything _to_ say about Gurdjeiff.


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## PetrB

EdwardBast said:


> If past experience with similar parody polls is any indication, that will begin when someone who highly respects Saint Saens' opinion and who also despises the music of Debussy uses the poll as an occasion to spew ill-informed criticism about the latter's music. It will subsequently heat up when equally ill-informed people who feel they currently have a stake in the stylistic differences between the two composers use that affront as a call to defend their cherished beliefs about the direction music should have developed but didn't - or did, depending on how confused they are. I'm sure it will happen any minute … no really … soon. Yep. Chaos will ensue … a melee of epic proportions. All it takes is a few Debussy haters. Surely someone out there must despise Debussy? This is your chance to dish on him. Don't miss it! And with the backing of a certified genius like Saint Saens', your opinion will have instant credibility.


That only heightens the parody, and keeps those kind of posters busy and contained while the other members go about their business on the board less encumbered. Kinda brilliant, really.

...But whaddya think about that poor Camille Saint-Saëns, huh? I mean, two for two: Debussy's _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_, then Stravinsky's _Le Sacre du Printemps_...


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## EdwardBast

PetrB said:


> That only heightens the parody, and keeps those kind of posters busy and contained while the other members go about their business on the board less encumbered. Kinda brilliant, really.
> 
> ...But whaddya think about that poor Camille Saint-Saëns, huh? I mean, two for two: Debussy's _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_, then Stravinsky's _Le Sacre du Printemps_...


I think his critical genius is as yet unappreciated, but very soon those not distracted by fads and the tricks of flash-in-the-pan adventurers will bow before his wisdom.


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## Blancrocher

EdwardBast said:


> I think his critical genius is as yet unappreciated, but very soon those not distracted by fads and the tricks of flash-in-the-pan adventurers will bow before his wisdom.


I agree--the critical observations of Saint-Saëns will endure in all our memories and be studied with reverence by students and scholars long after both Debussy and Stravinsky have been utterly forgotten. Though not till then, perhaps.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

Saint-Saens did not have nearly the sensitivity that Debussy did, even if his technical facility was great. He can say whatever he wants but his stature is well-below Debussy and anyone else with a similarly powerful sensibility, and I wouldn't heed his judgement in evaluating a faculty (the ability to sense the value or potency of musical ideas) that he didn't have to the same extent as some others.


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## Marschallin Blair

Fagotterdammerung said:


> Debussy is one of my favorite composers, but I think it's quite clear what he wrote was in fact macramé.


As opposed to, say, a cut of bolt cloth.


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## EdwardBast

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> Saint-Saens did not have nearly the sensitivity that Debussy did, even if his technical facility was great. He can say whatever he wants but his stature is well-below Debussy and anyone else with a similarly powerful sensibility, and I wouldn't heed his judgement in evaluating a faculty (the ability to sense the value or potency of musical ideas) that he didn't have to the same extent as some others.


Now that's what I'm talking about! That is the way to turn up the heat! Come on you pusillanimous pretend friends of Saint-Saens, you aren't going to take that lying down are you? Have at 'em!


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## Orfeo

The thing about Debussy's "Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune" is that he may have learned a thing or two from Glazunov's "Poeme Lyrique", written just a few years earlier. Compare the two as far as development is concerned, and you may hear the connection between them. Glazunov, a known obstinate traditionalist (with tricks up his sleeves no less), is perhaps more symmetric, but quite as picturesque. And Debussy's masterpiece is not a muddled mess if that's what Saint-Saens was implying.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

EdwardBast said:


> Now that's what I'm talking about! That is the way to turn up the heat! Come on you pusillanimous pretend friends of Saint-Saens, you aren't going to take that lying down are you? Have at 'em!


I do what I can  We're only as good as the composers whose minions we are.


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> Beautiful tonal piece by Debussy. It s immediately accessible and conveys the mood prevailing at the time, which is timeless. All the hallmarks of a great piece.


It certainly wasn't accessible to this Boston audience or critic:



> Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un faune was a strong example of modern ugliness. The faun must have had a terrible afternoon, for the poor beast brayed on muted horns and whinnied on flutes, and avoided all trace of soothing melody, until the audience began to share his sorrows. The work gives as much dissonance as any of the most modern art works in music. All these erratic and erotic spasms but indicate that our music is going through a transition state. When will the melodist of the future arrive?


With such august company, I think I have to myself admit that I've been wrong all these years and Debussy's music really _is_ ugly and tuneless.


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## starthrower

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift

Enter, Claude Debussy!


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## PetrB

dholling said:


> The thing about Debussy's "Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune" is that he may have learned a thing or two from Glazunov's "Poeme Lyrique", written just a few years earlier. Compare the two as far as development is concerned, and you may hear the connection between them. Glazunov, a known obstinate traditionalist (with tricks up his sleeves no less), is perhaps more symmetric, but quite as picturesque. And Debussy's masterpiece is not a muddled mess if that's what Saint-Saens was implying.


There is an earlier precursor: Wagner's _Siegfried Idyll._


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## EdwardBast

starthrower said:


> When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
> 
> Jonathan Swift
> 
> Enter, Claude Debussy!


Thank you. What a brilliant quotation!


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## PetrB

ArtMusic said:


> Beautiful tonal piece by Debussy.* It is immediately accessible and conveys the mood prevailing at the time,* which is timeless. All the hallmarks of a great piece.


*Bzzzt, Wrong!* Yet again... it was completely alien to the musicians who performed it and its audience in 1894. 





To modern ears, it is hard to hear what all the fuss was about; *the same sort of fuss made then over Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is an exact parallel to the kind of fuss so many now make about today's contemporary music* -- _Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose._

I wouldn't be surprised if this critique from the Boston Critic below is from, say, the 1920's or later!


Mahlerian said:


> It certainly wasn't accessible to this Boston audience or critic:
> 
> "Debussy's _L'Après-midi d'un faune_ was a strong example of modern ugliness. The faun must have had a terrible afternoon, for the poor beast brayed on muted horns and whinnied on flutes, and avoided all trace of soothing melody, until the audience began to share his sorrows. The work gives as much dissonance as any of the most modern art works in music. All these erratic and erotic spasms but indicate that our music is going through a transition state. When will the melodist of the future arrive?"
> 
> With such august company, I think I have to myself admit that I've been wrong all these years and Debussy's music really _is_ ugly and tuneless.


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## Marschallin Blair

_Of course_ Saint-Saens was wrong about the caressing elegances of Debussy's music.

If one can intelligently break the established rules of composition in order to make something exotic and beautiful, what permission does one need to do so?

Even so lofty an eminence as Saint-Saens, who had and IQ so high that it could not be measured by the standards of the day, is entitled to be dead wrong on occasion.

Why?-- because as Tchaikovsky so decently put it: "Saint-Saens combines the grace and charm of the French School with the depth and earnestness of the great German master."

Beauty and profundity are their own excuses.

I'm a fan of beauty. I could care less about _ex cathedra_ pronouncements, whether of 'traditionalist' Saint-Saens or of 'Brave New Ears' Boulez.


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## aajj

Saint-Saens' statement says more about himself and the tastes of the time than it does about Debussy's music. An artist creates works that are outside the mainstream and, as it turned out, far ahead of its time, and there is inevitably a bewildered reaction. I regard Camille's comment as a tribute to the other-worldliness of Debussy's art.


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## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if this critique from the Boston Critic below is from, say, the 1920's or later!


1904, but the Saint-Saens quote is from 1920 (and is thus a posthumous reaction to Debussy, not a spur-of-the-moment remark).


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## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> *Bzzzt, Wrong!* Yet again... it was completely alien to the musicians who performed it and its audience in 1894.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To modern ears, it is hard to hear what all the fuss was about; *the same sort of fuss made then over Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is an exact parallel to the kind of fuss so many now make about today's contemporary music* -- _Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose._
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised if this critique from the Boston Critic below is from, say, the 1920's or later!


Well, not exactly.

The _Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune_ subsequently won over generations of people because of its beauty. Can the same honestly be said of Stockhausen?

True both composers were initially put in the docket.

Equally true is that we're talking about apples and screwdrivers.


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## aajj

Mahlerian said:


> 1904, but *the Saint-Saens quote is from 1920* (and is thus a posthumous reaction to Debussy, not a spur-of-the-moment remark).


Knowing this only makes his statement appear all the more reactionary. Another case of an old dog versus new tricks.


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## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Well, not exactly.
> 
> The _Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune_ subsequently won over generations of people because of its beauty. Can the same honestly be said of Stockhausen?
> 
> True both composers were initially put in the docket.
> 
> Equally true is that we're talking about apples and screwdrivers.


Stockhausen has plenty of fans, on this forum and elsewhere, and performances of his music regularly sell out. It's been said that he shot himself in the foot by limiting the distribution of his work so much and preventing new recordings from appearing.

I'm not big on most Stockhausen myself, but this is a matter of easily verifiable fact.

And it's also true that some today still find some of Debussy's music random or ugly-sounding (though these reviews refer to piano works rather than the Prelude).
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MHVWWSPK2QJ2/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00742LLKU
http://www.amazon.com/review/R15FUQWU01TP9P/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005VZN1HI


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## Marschallin Blair

aajj said:


> Saint-Saens' statement says more about himself and the tastes of the time than it does about Debussy's music. An artist creates works that are outside the mainstream and, as it turned out, far ahead of its time, and there is inevitably a bewildered reaction. I regard Camille's comment as a tribute to the other-worldliness of Debussy's art.


True. . . but at the same time I think Saint-Saens intuitively extrapolated what was coming down the road with the breaking up of traditional tonality as well.

One can make sublimely beautiful music by breaking the rules, but one can also create monstrosities.


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## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> Well, not exactly.
> 
> The _Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune_ subsequently won over generations of people because of its beauty. Can the same honestly be said of Stockhausen?
> 
> True both composers were initially put in the docket.
> 
> Equally true is that we're talking about apples and screwdrivers.


I'm not interested in a popularity contest as much as the repetitive slinging about of "Beauty-Beautiful / Truth / Noble / Uplifting / Deeply expressive of human emotions," and all the other buzz words and phrases regularly hauled out to label what music which to you embodies those particular qualities -- the buzzword list most often showing up on display when you wish to make a point that other later music is not those things, lol.

The fact they are as generally meaningless as many a political campaigner's catchword buzzes; "Mom / Apple-pie / Family Values / America, f***, yeah! is both funny, once or twice, and then loses any and all real meaning.

"Beauty, f***, yeah!" -- like that is enough to rack up points in favor of your personal taste of 'what is beautiful.'

Sure it is not popular, but Stockhausen's _Gesang der Jünglinge_ is thought by some to be as much "Beauty-Beautiful / Truth / Noble / Uplifting / Deeply expressive of human emotions" as the rep which you think has those same qualities, even though I'm sure the Stockhausen is well (clearly) way far along past _your_ cut-off line as to what is beautiful, that does not make it more or less legitimately "Beautiful, etc."

The fact is, the older stuff you much prefer and favor needs no defense, yet it can not be held up to have some basic aesthetic of beauty exclusive to it, at least not in argument that some other work is 'ugly' instead of 'beautiful.' There is truly that much more beauty in different forms and shapes that maybe no one could have a preference for them all -- so the stream of Buzzwords as implicit 'the other thing is not at all worthy or beautiful,' is a complete fail if there is a point you're actually trying to make.


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## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Stockhausen has plenty of fans, on this forum and elsewhere, and performances of his music regularly sell out. It's been said that he shot himself in the foot by limiting the distribution of his work so much and preventing new recordings from appearing.
> 
> I'm not big on most Stockhausen myself, but this is a matter of easily verifiable fact.
> 
> And it's also true that some today still find some of Debussy's music random or ugly-sounding (though these reviews refer to piano works rather than the Prelude).
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MHVWWSPK2QJ2/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00742LLKU
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R15FUQWU01TP9P/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005VZN1HI


I have no doubt that Stockhausen has his fans and admirers. But the world of classical music and opera is a very small fish in the much larger pond of music that is popular in the world around us-- and Stockhausen's fans are a even a smaller group within that rarified group.

In in _my _experiential realm, and from my record sales experience in my late teens as a classical buyer for Tower Records, I've never been witness to Mass Stockausen Syndrome. No one ever made special requests to order his music. His cd's rarely sold. And if he came up in the subject of conversation among the myriad customers who would come into the classical listening room, it was always in a humorous if not disparaging context.

True, San Diego isn't a coffee house in Belgium-- but this is what I witnessed first hand.

As far as the exceptions to the rule who find Debussy's music "ugly," I can only say that there are people who would find Paulina Porizkova "ugly" as well-- and I afford their aesthetic views the same dismissive weight and consideration.


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## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> I have no doubt that Stockhausen has his fans and admirers. But the world of classical music and opera is a very small fish in the much larger pond of music that is popular in the world around us-- and Stockhausen's fans are a even a smaller group within that rarified group.
> 
> In in _my _experiential realm, and from my record sales experience in my late teens as a classical buyer for Tower Records, I've never been witness to Mass Stockausen Syndrome. No one ever made special requests to order his music. His cd's rarely sold. And if he came up in the subject of conversation among the myriad customers who would come into the classical listening room, it was always in a humorous if not disparaging context.
> 
> True, San Diego isn't a coffee house in Belgium-- but this is what I witnessed first hand.
> 
> As far as the exceptions to the rule who find Debussy's music "ugly," I can only say that there are people who would find Paulina Porizkova "ugly" as well-- and I afford their aesthetic views the same dismissive weight and consideration.


Given the rather low popularity of classical music as a whole, I think we can say those who dislike the music of Debussy are in the vast majority.

Why, then, make any argument from popularity as representing some kind of qualitative distinction in other cases?

The point remains that Stockhausen _has_ gained a following. If you want to dismiss that following, you'll have to do so directly, rather than simply trying to explain it out of existence.


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## Blancrocher

Mahlerian said:


> And it's also true that some today still find some of Debussy's music random or ugly-sounding (though these reviews refer to piano works rather than the Prelude).
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MHVWWSPK2QJ2/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00742LLKU
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R15FUQWU01TP9P/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005VZN1HI


I'm surprised that not a single person found either of these reviews helpful.


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## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Given the rather low popularity of classical music as a whole, I think we can say those who dislike the music of Debussy are in the vast majority.
> 
> Why, then, make any argument from popularity as representing some kind of qualitative distinction in other cases?
> 
> The point remains that Stockhausen _has_ gained a following. If you want to dismiss that following, you'll have to do so directly, rather than simply trying to explain it out of existence.


Well, I don't have to do _anything _actually-- especially when expressly _told to_. _;D_

All the same, I think its a major assumption to make when one claims that 'most people don't like Debussy's music,' when in fact it'd be more accurate to say that 'most people haven't even_ heard of _Debussy let alone any of his music.'

I think if most people listened to _La Mer_ and then listened to _Stimmung_, and voted on what was more beautiful, that the Stockhausen would have about as much a chance as winning as Abby Lee Miller from _Dance Moms_ would have as winning against vintage Sophia Loren.


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## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Well, I don't have to do _anything _actually-- especially when expressly _told to_. _;D_


I'm not telling you to do anything. If you don't wish to prove your point, you do not have to offer evidence.

If you wish to prove a point, you do have to argue for it. That's not a command, that's just a prerequisite.


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## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> I'm not telling you to do anything. If you don't wish to prove your point, you do not have to offer evidence.
> 
> If you wish to prove a point, you do have to argue for it. That's not a command, that's just a prerequisite.


Of course it isn't-- especially when one tries to re-route the narrative away from the original talking point.

Irrelevant objections are never relevant.


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## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Of course it isn't-- especially when one tries to re-route the narrative away from the original talking point.
> 
> Irrelevant objections are never relevant.


Your original argument was that Debussy has won over generations of fans because of beauty, and that this differentiates him from Stockhausen who supposedly has not.

I countered that Stockhausen has won over many fans, assuming that this was because they enjoyed the sound of his music and found it beautiful and, furthermore, that a taste for Debussy remains today far from universal.

You dismissed the audience for Stockhausen because of its size relative to the classical audience as a whole, many more of whom appreciate Debussy.

I countered that claiming the size of a given audience is relevant in determining the quality (or beauty) of something while ignoring similar arguments about the size of the classical music audience as a whole is a claim that requires particular justification, or else it is special pleading.

I did not re-route anything. This is simply the course of the argument.


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## Bulldog

Mahlerian said:


> Stockhausen has plenty of fans, on this forum and elsewhere, and performances of his music regularly sell out. It's been said that he shot himself in the foot by limiting the distribution of his work so much and preventing new recordings from appearing.
> 
> I'm not big on most Stockhausen myself, but this is a matter of easily verifiable fact.
> 
> And it's also true that some today still find some of Debussy's music random or ugly-sounding (though these reviews refer to piano works rather than the Prelude).
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MHVWWSPK2QJ2/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00742LLKU
> http://www.amazon.com/review/R15FUQWU01TP9P/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005VZN1HI


I don't disagree with your comments, but those two Amazon linked comments are totally lame - ignorant statements from consumers of music.


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## Marschallin Blair

Bulldog said:


> I don't disagree with your comments, but those two Amazon linked comments are totally lame - ignorant statements from consumers of music.


Yeah, the exception is never the rule.


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## PetrB

Bulldog said:


> I don't disagree with your comments, but those two Amazon linked comments are totally lame - ignorant statements from consumers of music.


Like there aren't hosts of quite the same on TC from some of its members?


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## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> I'm not interested in a popularity contest as much as the repetitive slinging about of "Beauty-Beautiful / Truth / Noble / Uplifting / Deeply expressive of human emotions," and all the other buzz words and phrases regularly hauled out to label what music which to you embodies those particular qualities -- the buzzword list most often showing up on display when you wish to make a point that other later music is not those things, lol.
> 
> The fact they are as generally meaningless as many a political campaigner's catchword buzzes; "Mom / Apple-pie / Family Values / America, f***, yeah! is both funny, once or twice, and then loses any and all real meaning.
> 
> "Beauty, f***, yeah!" -- like that is enough to rack up the favor of your personal taste of 'what is beautiful.'
> 
> Sure it is not popular, but Stockhausen's _Gesang der Jünglinge_ is thought by some to be as much "Beauty-Beautiful / Truth / Noble / Uplifting / Deeply expressive of human emotions" as the rep which you think has those same qualities, even though I'm sure the Stockhausen is well (clearly) way far along past _your_ cut-off line as to what is beautiful, that does not make it more or less legitimately "Beautiful, etc."
> 
> The fact is, the older stuff you much prefer and favor needs no defense, yet it can not be held up to have some basic aesthetic of beauty exclusive to it, at least not in argument that some other work is 'ugly' instead of 'beautiful.' There is truly that much more beauty in different forms and shapes that maybe no one could have a preference for them all -- so the stream of Buzzwords as implicit 'the other thing is not at all worthy or beautiful,' is a complete fail if there is a point you're actually trying to make.


In a highly-qualified sense I agree with you: _De gustibus non est disputandum_. "There's no disputing taste." Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Certainly.

But at the same time, I submit that more people would find _La Mer_ more beautiful than _Stimmung_ in the analogous way that most people would find Paulina Porizkova more beautiful than a woman who had a cubed face and a nose on the side of her head.

To argue otherwise is so counterintuitive as to be a laugh riot.

If what I'm saying is horsefeathers, then women who look like bad Cubist paintings would be winning beauty contests instead of the faces on _Harper's __Baazar_.


----------



## Woodduck

It's something of a cliche to say, when people express negative feelings about new music, that they don't "understand" it. In the case of Saint-Saens' comment, the music in question was no longer new, and I would not be too quick to say just what he did or didn't understand. Saint-Saens was after all born in 1835 and was 85 when he made his remark about _L'Apres-midi_. It would be presumptuous for us to say that a man of great intellect and prodigious talent and skill, who had spent his life composing brilliantly crafted works and keeping company with the greatest musicians of his time, and who had lived to see all the developments in music from Schumann and Chopin through Wagner to Stravinsky and Schoenberg, did not understand _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_. I think it would be both presumptuous and condescending. My opinion is that he understood it perfectly well, but that he simply did not like it.

Saint-Saens remark was: "The _Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune_ has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style, he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense."

The rhetoric is intemperate - curmudgeonly, I'm inclined to say - but not undignified. These are the words of an old man who, like many old men, does not much like the way things are going in the world, in this case his own particular world of music which he had inhabited since he was found to have perfect pitch at the age of two. Saint-Saens was, like Brahms, a classicist whose relationship to the "progressive" elements in 19th-century music was always cautious and ambivalent. He knew Wagner (he had at first supported him) and he understood what Wagner was doing without fully approving of it. Debussy he disliked entirely, and it isn't difficult to see why, given the latter's extreme departure from classical conceptions of form and expression. By 1920 Saint-Saens was acquainted with Debussy's entire output (Debussy died in 1918), and his comment on _L'Apres-midi_ can be taken to express his larger judgment upon Debussy's work. There could not have been anything in the fairly simple harmonies and motivic materials of that particular piece that baffled Saint-Saens as a musician. But for him, devoted to the end of his life and composing career to classical notions of structure and development, _L'Apres-midi_'s leisurely, languorous unfolding, its lack of melodic elaboration, its static indulgence in sheer atmosphere and mood, its disinclination to go anywhere, clearly seemed insubstantial and amorphous and, if not pointless, then having a point scarcely worth making.

We don't have to agree that Debussy's point was not worth making in order to understand why Saint-Saens would have felt as he did, or to see that his description, minus its value judgments (a large minus, certainly!), actually is translatable into a perception of what makes the music distinctive and, in fact, extraordinary. It really brings home vividly the originality of Debussy - but, for me at least, does not diminish respect for either Saint-Saens' musical intelligence or the superb craftsmanship of his own work.


----------



## hpowders

It's easy for us to criticize Saint-Saens' opinions of Debussy's music today, given our concentrated exposure to modern music. Debussy's music is rather mild to our ears.

But place yourselves back in Saint-Saens day. That was tough stuff to listen to back in his time.


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> In a highly-qualified sense I agree with you: _De gustibus non est disputandum_. "There's no disputing taste." Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
> 
> Certainly.
> 
> But at the same time, I submit that more people would find _La Mer_ more beautiful than _Stimmung_ in the analogous way that most people would find Paulina Porizkova more beautiful than a woman who had a cubed face and a nose on the side of her head.
> 
> To argue otherwise is so counterintuitive as to be a laugh riot.
> 
> If what I'm saying is horsefeathers, then women who look like bad Cubist paintings would be winning beauty contests instead of the faces on _Harper's __Baazar_.


Popularity, what is more popular, has never fixed a value on what is beautiful, just what is more popular. The photo of the woman you posted, to me, is of a face I would consider 'pretty,' or a general standard of what is thought of as 'beautiful' while it is only remarkably pretty. Even there is the non-disputing differences in taste.

But I have to go back to your general fly-swatter with "beauty, etc." stenciled on the mesh, and what seems to be a very weak non-argument of waving it about swatting all that which seems to be outside the parameters of what you deem 'beautiful.'

If indeed, these things are a matter for each individual, then any one person's parameters of what is beautiful are only theirs, with some overlapping of many opinions making that most general pool of popular agreement. If what is beautiful can be argued at all, there is no one standard after all. You posted that photo of the pretty woman, I say (heartfelt,) "She is only pretty: pretty is not beautiful."

Whether any conclusion could be reached on the beauty debate, flailing that beauty fly-swatter around is just so much vague air swishing about the room. Trying to use it as a powerful tool which readily dismisses all which you personally find not beautiful is really worthy of an MGM cartoon scenario.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Popularity, what is more popular, has never fixed a value on what is beautiful, just what is more popular. The photo of the woman you posted, to me, is of a face I would consider 'pretty,' or a general standard of what is thought of as 'beautiful' while it is only remarkably pretty. Even there is the non-disputing differences in taste.
> 
> But I have to go back to your general fly-swatter with "beauty, etc." stenciled on the mesh, and what seems to be a very weak non-argument of waving it about swatting all that which seems to be outside the parameters of what you deem 'beautiful.'
> 
> If indeed, these things are a matter for each individual, then any one person's parameters of what is beautiful are only theirs, with some overlapping of many opinions making that most general pool of popular agreement. If what is beautiful can be argued at all, there is no one standard after all. You posted that photo of the pretty woman, I say (heartfelt,) "She is only pretty: pretty is not beautiful."
> 
> Whether any conclusion could be reached on the beauty debate, flailing that beauty fly-swatter around is just so much vague air swishing about the room. Trying to use it as a powerful tool which readily dismisses all which you personally find not beautiful is really worthy of an MGM cartoon scenario.


I'll leave the bulbous-headed Warner Brothers cartoon characters for you to contemplate in your aesthetic agnosticism while luxuriating in the sonic arcana of Stockhausen--- and 'millionairess-because-of-her-exquisite-beauty' Paulina Porizkova and I can go to the Four Seasons, while listening to the _Four Seasons_.

Win-win.

Its a done deal.

_'Non disputandum.'_

_;D_


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> It's something of a cliche to say, when people express negative feelings about new music, that they don't "understand" it. In the case of Saint-Saens' comment, the music in question was no longer new, and I would not be too quick to say just what he did or didn't understand. Saint-Saens was after all born in 1835 and was 85 when he made his remark about _L'Apres-midi_. It would be presumptuous for us to say that a man of great intellect and prodigious talent and skill, who had spent his life composing brilliantly crafted works and keeping company with the greatest musicians of his time, and who had lived to see all the developments in music from Schumann and Chopin through Wagner to Stravinsky and Schoenberg, did not understand _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_. I think it would be both presumptuous and condescending. My opinion is that he understood it perfectly well, but that he simply did not like it.


Exactly my point. Saint-Saens was not an uncultured rube (nor unintelligent by any stretch of the imagination), he simply disliked the direction music had gone and refused to grant Debussy legitimacy on the basis of his observations that it was different.

But I think you underestimate, based on the familiarity of the piece today, how bizarre it must have sounded to Saint-Saens. Not because the materials themselves are different (though they certainly are!) or hard to grasp in themselves, but simply because the methods by which they are employed is in fact contrary to everything he believed in. This in itself can make something otherwise easy for the ear to grasp seem arcane and impossible to understand.

I find that composers are often criticized for the things they do best, simply because the way they approach those things is quite different from what was previously acceptable.


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## ArtMusic

PetrB said:


> *Bzzzt, Wrong!* Yet again... it was completely alien to the musicians who performed it and its audience in 1894.


In accurate in my opinion.


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> In accurate in my opinion.


Fortunately or unfortunately, reality does not depend on or pay any attention whatsoever to the opinions of individuals.


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## isorhythm

Marschallin Blair said:


> I think if most people listened to _La Mer_ and then listened to _Stimmung_, and voted on what was more beautiful, that the Stockhausen would have about as much a chance as winning as Abby Lee Miller from _Dance Moms_ would have as winning against vintage Sophia Loren.




_Stimmung _is an odd choice for this comparison. It's one of Stockhausen's most conventionally "beautiful" works.


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## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Your original argument was that Debussy has won over generations of fans because of beauty, and that this differentiates him from Stockhausen who supposedly has not.
> 
> I countered that Stockhausen has won over many fans, assuming that this was because they enjoyed the sound of his music and found it beautiful and, furthermore, that a taste for Debussy remains today far from universal.
> 
> You dismissed the audience for Stockhausen because of its size relative to the classical audience as a whole, many more of whom appreciate Debussy.
> 
> I countered that claiming the size of a given audience is relevant in determining the quality (or beauty) of something while ignoring similar arguments about the size of the classical music audience as a whole is a claim that requires particular justification, or else it is special pleading.
> I did not re-route anything. This is simply the course of the argument.


Smooth sailing on the above summary of the dialectic between us. . . that is to say until you run aground on the shoal in the part highlighted in blue.

That summary of what you allegedly said earlier in the thread is inaccurate. What you 'in fact' wrote in an earlier post, Post #43, was that:



> Given the rather low popularity of classical music as a whole, I think we can say those who dislike the music of Debussy are in the vast majority.


So in your last post you say one thing; but in the backlog of earlier posts, you in fact say another.

If the vast majority of people on the planet 'dislike' Debussy's music, as you claim that they in fact do at Post #43, then the burden of proof is on you to prove it.

I would say that the vast majority of the six-billion-plus people on the planet don't even know who Debussy is, so how could they possibly form an aesthetic judgment on his music?


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## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> _Stimmung _is an odd choice for this comparison. It's one of Stockhausen's most conventionally "beautiful" works.


Well, you'd know better than I would, isorhythm.

I am after all, a _Harper's-Bazaar_-conditioned, capitalist casualty.

_;D_


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## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Smooth sailing on the above summary of the dialectic between us. . . that is to say until you run aground on the shoal in the part highlighted in blue.
> 
> That summary of what you allegedly said earlier in the thread is inaccurate. What you 'in fact' wrote in an earlier post, Post #43, was that:
> 
> 
> 
> So in your last post you say one thing; but in the backlog of earlier posts, you in fact say another.
> 
> If the vast majority of people on the planet 'dislike' Debussy's music, as you claim that they in fact do at Post #43, then the burden of proof is on you to prove it.
> 
> I would say that the vast majority of the six-billion-plus people on the planet don't even know who Debussy is, so how could they possibly form an aesthetic judgment on his music?




Okay then, I could revise my earlier statement to be that the vast majority of people on this planet do not consider Debussy's music worthy of the least bit of interest, regardless of whether or not they have heard anything outside of Clair de Lune (or even that). The majority of them who have heard the name or the music dislike it or at least find it mostly uninteresting. The point remains that the audience for Debussy is small compared to the population worldwide, and this was at all times the point of my statement.

I suppose that your argument is that the potential audience for Debussy is and will always be larger than that for Stockhausen, but this runs into the same kind of irrelevancy, and once more says nothing about the quality of either composer's work.

As for your last line, could the same not easily be said for any composer, including Stockhausen?


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## isorhythm

Marschallin Blair said:


> Well, you'd know better than I would, isorhythm.
> 
> I am after all, a _Harper's-Bazaar_-conditioned, capitalist casualty.
> 
> _;D_




You might try listening to it....


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## PetrB

ArtMusic said:


> In accurate in my opinion.


Lol, that famous quote I first saw on TC, then:

"Your Opinion Is Wrong!"


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## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Okay then, I could revise my earlier statement to be that the vast majority of people on this planet do not consider Debussy's music worthy of the least bit of interest, regardless of whether or not they have heard anything outside of Clair de Lune (or even that). The point remains that the audience for Debussy is small compared to the population worldwide, and this was at all times the point of my statement.
> 
> I suppose that your argument is that the potential audience for Debussy is and will always be larger than that for Stockhausen, but this runs into the same kind of irrelevancy, and once more says nothing about the quality of either composer's work.
> 
> As for your last line, could the same not easily be said for any composer, including Stockhausen?


I think you're missing my point: How can anyone make a_ positive claim _about what the majority of the people on the planet_ actually think _about Debussy's music, whether worthy or un- , when in fact these people don't even know who Debussy_ is _or any of the music he _wrote_ to begin with? . . .

Beauty is one of many qualities. Aristotle taught us that. So is 'complexity.' I just put a higher premium on beauty than most people do.

I can readily admit that the _Toccatta and Fugue in D-minor_ is a more_ complex_ work than _The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_-- but that, fascinating as it is to me on an intellectual plane, it is nonetheless nowhere as arrestingly beautiful as Debussy at his captivating best.

So fair shooting there, Mahlerian. How 'beautiful' a work is may not attest to its 'quality'-- but certainly the converse of that statement is true as well.

-- Cacophonists take notes.


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## Blake

Saint-Saens or Debussy? Oh, that'a _real_ tuffy.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Woodduck said:


> It's something of a cliche to say, when people express negative feelings about new music, that they don't "understand" it. In the case of Saint-Saens' comment, the music in question was no longer new, and I would not be too quick to say just what he did or didn't understand. Saint-Saens was after all born in 1835 and was 85 when he made his remark about _L'Apres-midi_. It would be presumptuous for us to say that a man of great intellect and prodigious talent and skill, who had spent his life composing brilliantly crafted works and keeping company with the greatest musicians of his time, and who had lived to see all the developments in music from Schumann and Chopin through Wagner to Stravinsky and Schoenberg, did not understand _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_. I think it would be both presumptuous and condescending. My opinion is that he understood it perfectly well, but that he simply did not like it.
> 
> Saint-Saens remark was: "The _Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune_ has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style, he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense."
> 
> The rhetoric is intemperate - curmudgeonly, I'm inclined to say - but not undignified. These are the words of an old man who, like many old men, does not much like the way things are going in the world, in this case his own particular world of music which he had inhabited since he was found to have perfect pitch at the age of two. Saint-Saens was, like Brahms, a classicist whose relationship to the "progressive" elements in 19th-century music was always cautious and ambivalent. He knew Wagner (he had at first supported him) and he understood what Wagner was doing without fully approving of it. Debussy he disliked entirely, and it isn't difficult to see why, given the latter's extreme departure from classical conceptions of form and expression. By 1920 Saint-Saens was acquainted with Debussy's entire output (Debussy died in 1918), and his comment on _L'Apres-midi_ can be taken to express his larger judgment upon Debussy's work. There could not have been anything in the fairly simple harmonies and motivic materials of that particular piece that baffled Saint-Saens as a musician. But for him, devoted to the end of his life and composing career to classical notions of structure and development, *L'Apres-midi's leisurely, languorous unfolding, its lack of melodic elaboration, its static indulgence in sheer atmosphere and mood, its disinclination to go anywhere, clearly seemed insubstantial and amorphous* and, if not pointless, then having a point scarcely worth making.
> 
> We don't have to agree that Debussy's point was not worth making in order to understand why Saint-Saens would have felt as he did, or to see that his description, minus its value judgments (a large minus, certainly!), actually is translatable into a perception of what makes the music distinctive and, in fact, extraordinary. It really brings home vividly the originality of Debussy - but, for me at least, does not diminish respect for either Saint-Saens' musical intelligence or the superb craftsmanship of his own work.


Allow me the quick aside. I'm not replying to you, Woodduck. Rather, I'm just using your usual eloquence as a springboard for my thoughts. The section in bold, to be precise. 

This description sums up why I love Debussy's music so much (who I've only recently discovered in depth). His music is like nothing I've ever heard, it has a deceptive "sheen" that belies its innovative and radical nature. It's music just to be music, its disinclination to "go anywhere" when one expects music to go "somewhere" can be a bit jarring at first. It throws you off. I know it did for me at first. Listening to Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, or Schubert, I expect the crescendos and the soft-to-loud moments and all the other structural tricks of the classical trade. With Debussy, there absolutely is the innovation in tonality and harmony, but the most revolutionary aspect to these ears is its ability to be music for the sake of being music. What could be more substantial? It goes "somewhere" but just not _where _ or _how _ one would expect.

By the way, I voted the 4th option because it was the most amusing.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> I think you're missing my point: How can anyone make a_ positive claim _about what the majority of the people on the planet_ actually think _about Debussy's music, whether worthy or un- , when in fact these people don't even know who Debussy_ is _or any of the music he _wrote_ to begin with? . . .


You can make a positive claim that they do not care about Debussy's music based on the fact that they reject it along with the rest of classical music as boring, dull, elitist, or any number of other things.



> Beauty is one of many qualities. Aristotle taught us that. So is 'complexity.' I just put a higher premium on beauty than most people do.


You have support for this claim?

Beauty, for me, is one of the highest aspirations of music, if not the highest.



> I can readily admit that the _Toccatta and Fugue in D-minor_ is a more_ complex_ work than _The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_-- but that, fascinating as it is to me on an intellectual plane, it is nonetheless nowhere as arrestingly beautiful as Debussy at his captivating best.


I think that Faune is certainly a better work, and much more beautiful. There is much other Bach that I would put on its level, but not that.



> So fair shooting there, Mahlerian. How 'beautiful' a work is may not attest to its 'quality'-- but certainly the converse of that statement is true as well.
> 
> -- Cacophonists take notes.


If I meet someone who prefers cacophony, I'll be sure to tell them.


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## isorhythm

That D minor fugue isn't even complex. There's no real counterpoint in it. That's why some people don't think it's by Bach, as that other thread reminds us.

But even if we were talking about Bach at his most sophisticated I'm not sure I would agree that it's more complex than Debussy. Debussy's music is quite complex.


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## hpowders

Is anyone here who loves Debussy's music so insecure that they would be willing to relinquish their love for his music based on anything Saint-Saëns said?

Love the music you love. The only opinion that truly matters is one's own!!!


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## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> You might try listening to it....


But I have.

Why would you assume otherwise?


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## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> That D minor fugue isn't even complex. There's no real counterpoint in it. That's why some people don't think it's by Bach, as that other thread reminds us.
> 
> But even if we were talking about Bach at his most sophisticated I'm not sure I would agree that it's more complex than Debussy. Debussy's music is quite complex.


I was referring to a piece of music by Debussy, not Debussy _en toto_: _The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_.


----------



## isorhythm

Marschallin Blair said:


> But I have.
> 
> Why would you assume otherwise?


In that case I'm surprised by your assumption that a random sampling of non-classical music aficionados would say La Mer is more beautiful. La Mer could actually sound quite weird and dissonant to someone who's not familiar with the classical tradition at all. I'm not nearly as convinced as you are that La Mer would win that contest.

If you'd chosen almost any other Stockhausen piece I'd agree with you.

Edit to add: I haven't listened to Afternoon of a Faun in a while but as I recall it's plenty complex.


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> But I have.
> 
> Why would you assume otherwise?


And Saint-Saëns had listened to Debussy's _Le après midi d'un faune,_ and we've seen how well that worked out.

(The answer to your question is already there in a part of isorhythm's post that you elided. Just btw.)


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> You can make a positive claim that they do not care about Debussy's music based on the fact that they reject it along with the rest of classical music as boring, dull, elitist, or any number of other things.


You can 'assert' all you want. I only ask that proof be furnished-- since I tailor my belief in proportion to the evidence.



> You have support for this claim?


That I put a higher premium on beauty than most people do?-- absolutely. Read my posts. I obsess over it. Infinitely and endlessly. . . and with posted pictures too.



> Beauty, for me, is one of the highest aspirations of music, if not the highest.


Amen.



> If I meet someone who prefers cacophony, I'll be sure to tell them.


It doesn't help, I've tried.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

some guy said:


> And Saint-Saëns had listened to Debussy's _Le après midi d'un faune,_ and we've seen how well that worked out.
> 
> (The answer to your question is already there in a part of isorhythm's post that you elided. Just btw.)


Interesting non-sequitur, as _I _love Debussy's music and Saint-Saens _didn't_.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> In that case I'm surprised by your assumption that a random sampling of non-classical music aficionados would say La Mer is more beautiful. La Mer could actually sound quite weird and dissonant to someone who's not familiar with the classical tradition at all. I'm not nearly as convinced as you are that La Mer would win that contest.
> 
> If you'd chosen almost any other Stockhausen piece I'd agree with you.
> 
> Edit to add: I haven't listened to Afternoon of a Faun in a while but as I recall it's plenty complex.


I submit, my assumption _is_ hypothetical; much in the same way that I believe that most red-blooded, heterosexual males would prefer a woman the stamp of Paulina Porizkova to a woman that looks like a Cubist abstraction.


----------



## tdc

I think Saint-Saëns is an interesting example of an individual that shows that things like IQ and perfect pitch don't necessarily have much to do with musical genius. Not to suggest he was a bad composer, I just wouldn't agree that he was a musical genius like Debussy or Stravinsky.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

tdc said:


> I think Saint-Saëns is an interesting example of an individual that shows that things like IQ and perfect pitch don't necessarily have much to do with musical genius. Not to suggest he was a bad composer, I just wouldn't agree that he was a musical genius like Debussy or Stravinsky.


I think Saint-Saens was a genius-- though admittedly a _conservative_ musical genius, not unlike Brahms or Mozart.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Exactly my point. Saint-Saens was not an uncultured rube (nor unintelligent by any stretch of the imagination), he simply disliked the direction music had gone and refused to grant Debussy legitimacy on the basis of his observations that it was different.
> 
> But *I think you underestimate, based on the familiarity of the piece today, how bizarre it must have sounded to Saint-Saens. [/B]Not because the materials themselves are different (though they certainly are!) or hard to grasp in themselves, but simply because the methods by which they are employed is in fact contrary to everything he believed in. This in itself can make something otherwise easy for the ear to grasp seem arcane and impossible to understand.
> 
> I find that composers are often criticized for the things they do best, simply because the way they approach those things is quite different from what was previously acceptable.*


*

Neither of us will ever know exactly how strange the piece sounded to Saint-Saens. I only want to recall that this was 1920, and that he was by then familiar with, and/or had access to, an enormous range of music which employed methods "contrary to everything he believed in." I'm really not so sure that L'Apres-midi is any more contrary to classical conceptions of form and substance than extended passages in Wagner's Tristan (1859) or his orgiastic "Venusberg" music, premiered in Paris in 1861. Saint-Saens was certainly ambivalent about Wagner, but had plenty of time to get used to him and his influence on subsequent music, including all of Debussy's, much of Ravel's, and even Schoenberg's up to Pierrot Lunaire . I can't imagine Saint-Saens not making an effort to comprehend modern trends, even while he maintained his own creative ideals in his late chamber works. I suppose the debate, if there is one, is only over what it means to "understand" new music. I can say that there's a lot of late 20th century music which I do not find the least bit incomprehensible even though it gives me little pleasure, and if I were an 85-year-old grouch who felt that the world had passed me by I might have some some pretty curmudgeonly things to say too.

Just give me twenty years.*


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## Mahlerian

Can't we assume that Saint-Saens was here stating his actual views and perceptions on the matter? For him, Debussy wasn't bad music or aesthetically deficient music, but not music at all.

As for whether or not Debussy's music is more radical than Wagner, it should be obvious that in terms of distance from tonality, it is. The reaction against it at the time was quite severe from some quarters, just as it was enthusiastic from others.

"The music of M. Debussy which professes to dismiss all elements of melody, appears strangely futile, vacuous, and non-existent. *Let no one object that the same criticism was once directed against Wagner, for the Wagnerian melody eluded his adversaries, whereas the music of M. Debussy, according to his own admission, contains no trace of melody.*"


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> I think Saint-Saëns was a genius-- though admittedly a _conservative_ musical genius, not unlike Brahms or Mozart.


Genius, yes -- undisputed. 
Highest level of craft even in the least of his works? Check. 
Never a piece 'badly made?' Check.
_The_ most infamously retro-conservative of the better known composers? Check.

That does not all add up to a higher creative genius, which, btw does not automatically require nor always include such a staggeringly high I.Q. as had Saint-Saëns.

Nor does it mean that such an individual as Saint-Saëns has the wherewithal to make less than very fine and nice yet ultimately at least a little (if not very) 'banal more of somethings quite similar to that already existing,' which he did, time and time again, perhaps transcending himself but one or two times in his entire written oeuvre.

This is just about antithetical to what Brahms did, even with his famous conservatism as part of his sensibility.

Comparisons between Saint-Saëns and Mozart are risible.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Genius, yes -- undisputed.
> Highest level of craft even in the least of his works? Check.
> Never a piece 'badly made?' Check.
> _The_ most infamously retro-conservative of the better known composers? Check.
> 
> That does not all add up to a higher creative genius, which, btw does not automatically require nor always include such a staggeringly high I.Q. as had Saint-Saëns.
> 
> Nor does it mean that such an individual as Saint-Saëns has the wherewithal to make less than very fine and nice yet ultimately at least a little (if not very) 'banal more of somethings quite similar to that already existing,' which he did, time and time again, perhaps transcending himself but one or two times in his entire written oeuvre.
> 
> This is just about antithetical to what Brahms did, even with his famous conservatism as part of his sensibility.
> 
> Comparisons between Saint-Saëns and Mozart are risible.


Well, I'd argue just as much. Just as I'd argue that Picasso was a greater "creative genius" (as in 'novelty') than was Vermeer-- but that Vermeer eclipsed Picasso in the craftsmanship of painting by an order of magnitude.

Novelty doesn't always translate to beauty or even quality-- as so many twentieth century compositions have shown.


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> Well, I'd argue just as much. Just as I'd argue that Picasso was a greater "creative genius" (as in 'novelty') than was Vermeer-- but that Vermeer eclipsed Picasso in the craftsmanship of painting by an order of magnitude.
> 
> Novelty doesn't always translate to beauty or even quality-- as so many twentieth century compositions have shown.


Both Vermeer and Picasso could draw and paint like angels, and both did.
Vermeer was radically 'novel' in his time, ditto Picasso.

I think your personal taste has you fixated on the older works, unable to see anything in the new, which are different but 'no less than.' Your personal idea of beauty and what you relate to, which is all fine and good until you step over that line and then blanket swathe the entire argument, yet again, in one individual's idea of "beauty," are but one individual's personally arrived at conclusions of what 'beauty' is.

There are literally legions who would agree with your idea of beauty who yet have the wider latitude, without any compromise, I _must_ add, to see the beauty in works done in later times.

But that list of categorical assets of Saint-Saëns, and seeming to think the same _externals_ somehow equate with the internal, as in Saint-Saëns + Mozart both prodigies, etc. makes me think you are far more considering externals and surface than what is inside the tin. That is like quickly concluding that any man wearing a tuxedo is a gentleman.


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## Blake

Marschallin Blair said:


> Novelty doesn't always translate to beauty or even quality-- as so many twentieth century compositions have shown.


And orthodox doesn't always translate to beauty or even quality... as so many conservatives have shown.

We should apply the same analytics to everyone... if this is the game we want to play. Otherwise, it's like riding a seesaw by yourself.


----------



## PetrB

Blake said:


> And orthodox doesn't always translate to beauty or even quality... as so many conservatives have shown.
> 
> We should apply the same analytics to everyone... if this is the game we want to play. Otherwise, it's like riding a seesaw by yourself.


Vapid is vapid, and can be found in many different quarters, even among those who are categorized as 'genius.'


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> *Can't we assume that Saint-Saens was here stating his actual views and perceptions on the matter? For him, Debussy wasn't bad music or aesthetically deficient music, but not music at all.*
> 
> As for whether or not Debussy's music is more radical than Wagner, it should be obvious that in terms of distance from tonality, it is. The reaction against it at the time was quite severe from some quarters, just as it was enthusiastic from others.
> 
> "The music of M. Debussy which professes to dismiss all elements of melody, appears strangely futile, vacuous, and non-existent. *Let no one object that the same criticism was once directed against Wagner, for the Wagnerian melody eluded his adversaries, whereas the music of M. Debussy, according to his own admission, contains no trace of melody.*"


Sure, we can assume that Saint-Saens meant what he said, but not that we know exactly what he meant by what he said, or exactly in what way he understood the music he described in the words he chose. I can't imagine that at age 85, in 1920, 26 years after the work was first heard, he was actually baffled by _L'Apres-midi_ and actually believed that it was not music. I think he was quite capable of seeing what Debussy was doing; heck, _I_ had no trouble with it when I first heard it as a teenager, and my musical experience was infinitely poorer than his! Even Mallarme, the author of the poem on which the piece was based, supposedly wrote to Debussy: "I have just come out of the concert, deeply moved. The marvel! Your illustration of the _Afternoon of a Faun_, which presents a dissonance with my text only by going much further, really, into nostalgia and into light, with finesse, with sensuality, with richness. I press your hand admiringly, Debussy. Yours, Mallarmé." Mallarme was not a musician, as far as I know, but he seemed to get it.

My suspicion is that Saint-Saens was not so much uncomprehending as resistant - and resistance can be persistent, especially if you're old, have nothing to lose, and hope to go down with your flag still flying.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

PetrB said:


> Vapid is vapid, and can be found in many different quarters, even among those who are categorized as 'genius.'


A̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶i̶u̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶r̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶a̶p̶i̶d̶!̶

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington's_Victory

:lol:


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> People rightly complained about the modernist bias of my last poll, and, duly chastened, I have taken a sharp turn in the other direction.


I'm not wholly convinced by S-S, but I enjoyed the range of choices we were given in this poll! :lol:


----------



## regenmusic

Saint-Seans was a prodigy, genius in many, many fields, even a scientist. He was
probably worn-out and unable to accept much new music that wasn't his own. 
Do we have a history of him accepting new, groundbreaking composers at all?


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## PetrB

regenmusic said:


> Saint-Seans was a prodigy, genius in many, many fields, even a scientist. He was
> probably worn-out and unable to accept much new music that wasn't his own.
> *Do we have a history of him accepting new, groundbreaking composers at all?*


He was an extreme retro-conservative relative to his times, straight out of the gate.

I seriously doubt there are any 'yeses' to your question.


----------



## Ukko

PetrB said:


> He was an extreme retro-conservative relative to his times, straight out of the gate.
> 
> I seriously doubt there are any 'yeses' to your question.


The guy had acceptance problems with a lot of music contemporary to him. Couldn't handle Franck's Symphony in D even.


----------



## PetrB

Ukko said:


> The guy had acceptance problems with a lot of music contemporary to him. Couldn't handle Franck's Symphony in D even.


Thanks. I knew no details, but that sounds exactly like the arch retro-conservative Saint-Saëns was well-known to be.

That he certainly knew music well enough to 'understand' what others were doing is not really in question, but I do question that 'getting it' on the level of the mechanics is absolutely not otherwise 'getting it.' His taste prevailed within his own mind, of course, but his conservatism was extreme, and since he had more than success enough, I think he was not so much grudging the success of others or acceptance of music so different relative to his own work, but rather he really did believe his stance and manner of writing was 'the right way.'

I think the near to last 'private musical thought' he had with _Le carnaval des animaux_, with its stripped down instrumentation for thirteen instruments [two pianos, two violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute (and piccolo), clarinet (C and B♭), glass harmonica, and xylophone] is perhaps his one and only flash of truly creative genius.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> Sure, we can assume that Saint-Saens meant what he said, but not that we know exactly what he meant by what he said, or exactly in what way he understood the music he described in the words he chose. I can't imagine that at age 85, in 1920, 26 years after the work was first heard, he was actually baffled by _L'Apres-midi_ and actually believed that it was not music. I think he was quite capable of seeing what Debussy was doing; heck, _I_ had no trouble with it when I first heard it as a teenager, and my musical experience was infinitely poorer than his! Even Mallarme, the author of the poem on which the piece was based, supposedly wrote to Debussy: "I have just come out of the concert, deeply moved. The marvel! Your illustration of the _Afternoon of a Faun_, which presents a dissonance with my text only by going much further, really, into nostalgia and into light, with finesse, with sensuality, with richness. I press your hand admiringly, Debussy. Yours, Mallarmé." Mallarme was not a musician, as far as I know, but he seemed to get it.


Nor was Kandinsky a musician, but he went away from hearing Schoenberg's Op. 11 pieces profoundly moved, despite a streak of anti-Semitism that got far worse with age.

I grew up with The Rite of Spring, and cannot possibly understand why others consider it difficult music; it has always simply been itself for me. The first time I heard Debussy's Images, I was horrified, considering it discordant and ugly. The first time I heard Schoenberg's music (several years later than Debussy), I was fascinated, and it was only later that I came to know his reputation as a "difficult" composer.

To look at pieces of music as if one can easily rank them from least to most accessible, based on certain objective qualities, is dead wrong. Things are or are not accessible on the basis of our own personal experience and sense of how things work.



> My suspicion is that Saint-Saens was not so much uncomprehending as resistant - and resistance can be persistent, especially if you're old, have nothing to lose, and hope to go down with your flag still flying.


The point remains that what he unequivocally said was that it was not music, that it has as much relationship to music as a palette to a painting. In other words, like the nasty review received by Takemitsu at the first public performance of one of his works, it was "pre-music".

Incredulity is not a reason to believe that he did not mean what he said. I personally have an easy time believing that someone can call something that is clearly music "not music" on the basis of their own personal perceptions.


----------



## Sid James

This post from my (now discontinued) "contrasts and connections" thread might put Saint-Saens' contribution to music in a more objective light. He did a lot for French music in the 19th century, and despite the fact that late in life he became increasingly critical of younger composers, in many respects it can be said that he paved the way for them.

http://www.talkclassical.com/1005-current-listening-vol-i-3328.html#post573798

I am in principle against participation in counter threads of this sort. I am dismayed in the direction in which this discussion has gone. I don't like participating in these threads, they put me on edge. Actually I don't know why I am here other than to lend some service to history itself and fight deadened ideology which even Boulez himself has moved away from in the past few decades. Oh well, its nice to drop in on TC now and then and see how even though Pierre has changed - and he's pushing ninety - there are still some pockets of diehard Modernism around.

Its folly because I am just shooting myself in the foot as I write this post. I unpleasantly await the wrath of the guardians of Modernism of TC, as well as those eager for payback for various not entirely unrelated reasons I won't go into now.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> This post from my (now discontinued) "contrasts and connections" thread might put Saint-Saens' contribution to music in a more objective light. He did a lot for French music in the 19th century, and despite the fact that late in life he became increasingly critical of younger composers, in many respects it can be said that he paved the way for them.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/1005-current-listening-vol-i-3328.html#post573798
> 
> I am in principle against participation in counter threads of this sort. I am dismayed in the direction in which this discussion has gone. I don't like participating in these threads, they put me on edge. Actually I don't know why I am here other than to lend some service to history itself and fight deadened ideology which even Boulez himself has moved away from in the past few decades. Oh well, its nice to drop in on TC now and then and see how even though Pierre has changed - and he's pushing ninety - there are still some pockets of diehard Modernism around.
> 
> Its folly because I am just shooting myself in the foot as I write this post. I unpleasantly await the wrath of the guardians of Modernism of TC, as well as those eager for payback for various not entirely unrelated reasons I won't go into now.


People are responding to a statement made by Camille Saint-Saëns on Debussy's _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune._ That discussion just happens to include mention of _the historically well known arch conservatism of Camille Saint-Saëns._

It is a very usual thread, and I don't see any "Modernist Ideology" or any other agenda happening here. It is just a discussion.

But, everyone sees what they want to see.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

ArtMusic said:


> Beautiful tonal piece by Debussy. It s immediately accessible and conveys the mood prevailing at the time, which is timeless. All the hallmarks of a great piece.


I wouldn't say that "immediately accessible" is one of the hallmarks of a great piece. 
Take the Grosse Fuge, for example: not immediately accessible, but nonetheless a great piece (in my opinion, at least).
A lot of other wonderful music, much of it from the 20th century, is also not immediately accessible - Schoenberg, for example.


----------



## Sid James

PetrB said:


> Another martyr sacrificed to some ideological cause of others?
> 
> Ghosts, all I see are ghosts here, vague allusions to something with nothing much pertinent to any part of this thread addressed.
> 
> "Get down off that cross. _We need the wood." ~ Dolly Parton​


I knew payback would be coming. Well I got what I deserved. You didn't fail my expectations, buddy.

Talking of wood, sticks and stones will break my bones but... (you know the rest PetrB, its what we used to say to bullies in the schoolyard).


----------



## violadude

Marschallin Blair said:


> I think Saint-Saens was a genius-- though admittedly a _conservative_ musical genius, not unlike Brahms or Mozart.


Mozart a conservative?

Apparently you missed my thread, now sadly on page 3.

http://www.talkclassical.com/36094-mozarts-musical-adventerousness-underplayed.html


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Sid, I gotta tell ya. I haven't read any bullying or modernist ideology in this thread. In fact, I've quite enjoyed the debate and opinions in this discussion.


----------



## violadude

MoonlightSonata said:


> I wouldn't say that "immediately accessible" is one of the hallmarks of a great piece.
> Take the Grosse Fuge, for example: not immediately accessible, but nonetheless a great piece (in my opinion, at least).
> A lot of other wonderful music, much of it from the 20th century, is also not immediately accessible - Schoenberg, for example.


Not only is immediate accessibility not necessarily the hallmark of a great piece, but Debussy's Prelude is neither tonal (as the person you're responding to suggests) nor was it immediately accessible to the audience that it first premiered for.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Curiously enough, Debussy had arragened the two piano version of Saint-Saëns's_ Symphony *No. 2*_.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> Not only is immediate accessibility not necessarily the hallmark of a great piece, but Debussy's Prelude is neither tonal (as the person you're responding too suggests) nor was it immediately accessible to the audience that it first premiered for.


I put the below link right under that same post you allude to. Evidently it was not looked at looked at and then ignored in order to keep the opinion intact LOL.





It is in the very beginning of the vid where the history of the performance is talked about... the musicians who first played it needed _weeks_ of rehearsal, so utterly new in both its music and playing style that it was utterly alien to anything they had played before. The music was at least just as new and alien to the premiere audience.


----------



## PetrB

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Curiously enough, Debussy had arragened the two piano version of Saint-Saëns's_ Symphony *No. 2*_.


He did a lot of job-work like that for his publisher, Durand, for additional income. Four-hand piano versions of orchestral works were popular home entertainment.

Debussy also edited both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier for a Durand edition.


----------



## tdc

violadude said:


> Mozart a conservative?
> 
> Apparently you missed my thread, now sadly on page 3.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/36094-mozarts-musical-adventerousness-underplayed.html


I agree Mozart was quite innovative, and I think in some other ways there are some similarities between Mozart and Debussy. Both wrote some fun pieces and were kind of musically "polite", and not especially extroverted composers. But this can be deceiving, as there is a lot more to these two "beneath the surface" so to speak. Boulez feels that Debussy's music can get as "deep" as that of any composer, and I have to agree with him there. Another thing is some might not be aware that Debussy spent 12 years at the conservatory - he wasn't exactly a lightweight.

*edit* - Time spent in school obviously doesn't necessarily equal musical depth - but I bring this up as Debussy's music seems to have a certain unique and free-flowing style, so I think some may assume he was somehow lighter and less-disciplined in his approach, which I don't believe was the case.


----------



## violadude

tdc said:


> *edit* - Time spent in school obviously doesn't necessarily equal musical depth - but I bring this up as Debussy's music seems to have a certain unique and free-flowing style, so I think some may assume he was somehow lighter and less-disciplined in his approach, which I don't believe was the case.


He was certainly disciplined. You can't break the rules *effectively* without having a deep familiarity with the rules in the first place. But he was averse to the strict nature of conservatory and found the then ubiquitous Austro-German style of music to be constricting, eventually (though he was an avid Wagnerite in his early years).


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> I knew payback would be coming. Well I got what I deserved. You didn't fail my expectations, buddy.
> 
> Talking of wood, sticks and stones will break my bones but... (you know the rest PetrB, its what we used to say to bullies in the schoolyard).


I removed my original post within ca one or two minutes. The wording was completely ill thought or not thought about at all and I apologize in that if I had thought for one moment, it would be certain to agitate you.

This is what I replaced it with:
"People are responding to a statement made by Camille Saint-Saëns on Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. That discussion just happens to include mention of the historically well known arch conservatism of Camille Saint-Saëns.

It is a very usual thread, and I don't see any "Modernist Ideology" or any other agenda happening here. It is just a discussion.

But, everyone sees what they want to see."

That last because I truly believe you are seeing something simply not at all present in the OP, or the sundry responses addressing the OP.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Nor was Kandinsky a musician, but he went away from hearing Schoenberg's Op. 11 pieces profoundly moved, despite a streak of anti-Semitism that got far worse with age.
> 
> I grew up with The Rite of Spring, and cannot possibly understand why others consider it difficult music; it has always simply been itself for me. The first time I heard Debussy's Images, I was horrified, considering it discordant and ugly. The first time I heard Schoenberg's music (several years later than Debussy), I was fascinated, and it was only later that I came to know his reputation as a "difficult" composer.
> 
> To look at pieces of music as if one can easily rank them from least to most accessible, based on certain objective qualities, is dead wrong. Things are or are not accessible on the basis of our own personal experience and sense of how things work.
> 
> The point remains that what he unequivocally said was that it was not music, that it has as much relationship to music as a palette to a painting. In other words, like the nasty review received by Takemitsu at the first public performance of one of his works, it was "pre-music".
> 
> Incredulity is not a reason to believe that he did not mean what he said. I personally have an easy time believing that someone can call something that is clearly music "not music" on the basis of their own personal perceptions.


If you presume to take people's words at face value, even when you know those people to harbor strong prejudices - which means that they are being less than objective, expressing primarily their feelings, which may conflict decidedly with objective truths they prefer not to acknowledge... And if you think that words, particularly value-laden words uttered as criticism, and particularly in a field such as art, in which objectivity beyond a certain point is impossible, even _have_ a face value which is the same for all who use them... And if you think that a clever figure of speech such as "it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture" can be taken literally to mean that "it is not music"... And if you make all these assumptions on top of the assumption that after a lifetime of experiencing music of all sorts, including non-European musics from Africa and Asia, a brilliant musician and great composer in 1920 cannot recognize _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_, a composition 26 years old, as belonging to the broad category of things known as "music"...

Well, if all those assumptions are acceptable to you, I must leave you to them. I have suggested only that a certain amount of humility may be warranted when we try to enter the mind of a man who is no longer here to speak, to paraphrase, to clarify his thoughts and convictions for us. Frankly I am a little shocked that what I presumed to be thoughtful musings on the matter ran so abruptly into such adamantine certainty, and I can't but observe that I've noticed on this forum a certain effort to stress the incomprehensibility of now-familiar music to it's first hearers, an effort seemingly made to show that contemporary music of whatever sort is not intrinsically more difficult than any other music, to say "See? Saint-Saens said Debussy was not even music, and now people say that Stockhausen or Cage is not music! It's always been this way! So..." Well, never one to believe that parallels and analogues constitute identities, I have actually questioned the validity of conclusions that might come after the "So..." But perhaps that isn't relevant here, and there's no such consideration underlying your very firm rejection of my speculations as to the exact contents of the mind of M. Saint-Saens.

Skeptical as I tend to be, I am certain only that Saint-Saens used the words he did, that Debussy's music did not fulfill Saint-Saens' idea of what good music should sound like, that his idea of good music was strictly limited, and that he held it firmly to the end. That much, I think, we agree on.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> He was certainly disciplined. You can't break the rules *effectively* without having a deep familiarity with the rules in the first place. But he was averse to the strict nature of conservatory and found the then ubiquitous Austro-German style of music to be constricting, eventually (though he was an avid Wagnerite in his early years).


You didn't get the first prize in Piano Performance at the Paris Conservatoire, nor a later Prix de Rome, by being a slouch student


----------



## Sid James

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Sid, I gotta tell ya. I haven't read any bullying or modernist ideology in this thread. In fact, I've quite enjoyed the debate and opinions in this discussion.


Reductionist thinking that says simply that Saint-Saens was a retrograde composer is oversimplifying things to say the least. That's a hallmark of Modernist ideology.

The link I gave from my former blog links him in with progressives in Paris, Franck and d'Indy. Saint-Saens was allied to others of the New German School, Liszt in particular, and Wagner also (Woodduck talked to this earlier). At a time when it wasn't fashionable, Saint-Saens supported other composers, such as Bizet. He stood behind Bizet even when early performances of Carmen where failing, and Saint-Saens' judgement that its a great opera was confirmed by its later success.

Saint-Saens not only supported new French music when he was younger but also did a lot to champion old music, particularly piano repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven. His music gives hints of things to come, such as the Neo-Classicism of the early 20th century (eg. his Suite for Cello and Orchestra sound like Bach's cello suites, but it was written before Pablo Casals rediscoverd these pieces) and also Impressionism, there are hints of gamelan for example in a brief episode in the middle movement of the fifth piano concerto. He was amongst the most widely travelled musicians of his time, taking in places like North Africa and South East Asia. The music from those places found its way into his own music.

Modernist ideology tends to downplay things like this. I don't even have to say any of this, its common knowledge. Its probably on wikipedia, its in books, its in liner notes of discs, etc. Why am I giving my time to say this when certain august members of this forum apparently know it all anyway (well, nobody knows it all, but they do in fact). People like me are just ignorant.

So, I could go on giving links to Boulez, in terms of both Saint-Saens and him being performer-composers, both being critics and writers on music, both performing old and new music of their day, both having a legacy for French music and beyond, both getting things right and wrong in terms of their opinions, both having long and fruitful lives, both changing from progressives early on to establishment late in their lives, maybe even both being not so very nice men (but I won't go there), and so on.

Hope you enjoyed my contribution to this discussion, although it doesn't feed into what some others have said, nor invite bullying and accept subordination to anyone. Sorry about that, I mean that's not a requirement of this or any other thread on this forum, as far as I can tell. If so, its my oversight of unwritten rules in this putatively free and open forum.


----------



## PetrB

Woodduck said:


> If you presume to take people's words at face value, even when you know those people to harbor strong prejudices - which means that they are being less than objective, expressing primarily their feelings, which may conflict decidedly with objective truths they prefer not to acknowledge... And if you think that words, particularly value-laden words uttered as criticism, and particularly in a field such as art, in which objectivity beyond a certain point is impossible, even _have_ a face value which is the same for all who use them... And if you think that a clever figure of speech such as "it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture" can be taken literally to mean that "it is not music"... And if you make all these assumptions on top of the assumption that after a lifetime of experiencing music of all sorts, including non-European musics from Africa and Asia, a brilliant musician and great composer in 1920 cannot recognize _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_, a composition 26 years old, as belonging to the broad category of things known as "music"...
> 
> Well, if all those assumptions are acceptable to you, I must leave you to them. I have suggested only that a certain amount of humility may be warranted when we try to enter the mind of a man who is no longer here to speak, to paraphrase, to clarify his thoughts and convictions for us. Frankly I am a little shocked that what I presumed to be thoughtful musings on the matter ran so abruptly into such adamantine certainty, and I can't but observe that I've noticed on this forum a certain effort to stress the incomprehensibility of now-familiar music to it's first hearers, an effort seemingly made to show that contemporary music of whatever sort is not intrinsically more difficult than any other music, to say "See? Saint-Saens said Debussy was not even music.
> 
> Skeptical as I tend to be, I am certain only that Saint-Saens used the words he did, that Debussy's music did not fulfill Saint-Saens' idea of what good music should sound like, that his idea of good music was strictly limited, and that he held it firmly to the end. That much, I think, we agree on.


It is pretty plain that Saint-Saens wanted his opinion on _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_ known, and known that he did not consider it music. Remember, that deeply abiding Parisienne tradition of the fiercely cutting _bon mot,_ completely apposite enough to slice, witty in an equal amount that it is apposite, as in the same moment it cuts as deep as is possible.

He likened the piece to rough materials on the table before anything is made of them. He knew exactly what he was saying and how it would be understood. Let us not, pray tell, discredit a genius in this particular arena when it is plain as day what he said was as carefully thought out as any piece he composed.

Ergo, "Not Music," is exactly what he meant to say.

The _fact_ that the first musicians to perform it found the score so alien that weeks of rehearsal were required is documented. Audiences similarly found it at least as strange, though they did have a ballet to watch to connect these strange sounds to, and were probably enthralled with watching Nijinksy do anything. There is no twisting or revising of the past in order to 'make it seem' like the contemporary music of today is meeting the same resistance, ergo it is as great as other past great music, but the difficulty any number of the composers of the past had in gaining an instant good reception of at least some of their work is also known, and it seems much glossed over in the reverential respect some now give those same composers.

Audiences are still mainly those who like / love music but do not know about it to near the extent musicians and composers do, and there have been hurdles for listeners and new works going way back -- Bach's parishioners and some of his employers included. To sweep that under the carpet is also to distort, and make out that both composers and the audiences of the past had some greater immediate connection with the new works produced; that is just as bad as what you intimate some are now doing re: modern / contemporary music and present day audiences.

There is no need or desire to deconstruct or re-write the past here, but yet another emphasis on the continuity of the whole, and that includes audiences being, to some degree, readily resistant to a fair amount of the new music presented to them, then, and now.

I do find the extreme reverence for some of these past composers, and genius, beyond over-the top, though. It is an emotional dynamic which makes for a kind of distortion all its own. Saint-Saens meant to say something brutally sharp about Debussy's piece, and that was very much _to his pleasure,_ whatever his reasons. He was also an amazing genius. Genius does not exclude pettiness and mean-spiritedness, nor holding petty grudges at imagined insults (Schoenberg) etc. These great composers were not nearly as great or noble persons as their music is great and noble -- that is next to impossible for anyone. They ate, digested food, breathed air, and had an array of weaknesses and foibles, flawed characters _just like many other people._ No need to dwell on it, but to set that all aside and set them up on gilded pillars does nothing to their credit, either.


----------



## Sid James

PetrB said:


> I removed my original post within ca one or two minutes. The wording was completely ill thought or not thought about at all and I apologize in that if I had thought for one moment, it would be certain to agitate you.
> 
> This is what I replaced it with:
> "People are responding to a statement made by Camille Saint-Saëns on Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. That discussion just happens to include mention of the historically well known arch conservatism of Camille Saint-Saëns.
> 
> It is a very usual thread, and I don't see any "Modernist Ideology" or any other agenda happening here. It is just a discussion.
> 
> But, everyone sees what they want to see."
> 
> That last because I truly believe you are seeing something simply not at all present in the OP, or the sundry responses addressing the OP.


I accept your apology and yes it is a discussion, the quote by Saint-Saens has stimulated many responses. If you want to say I'm not on topic, or single me out from the rest of the responses, you can say that about others as well. I gave my response as well as another long additional response just now. Its enough to explain how on TC forum Modernist ideology is the elephant in the room. Nobody acknowledges its there but it is. It inevitably turns into the same argument, with the same crowd.

I have the same right as anyone to give my opinion. I usually do it in one or two posts, and tend to avoid topics like this. I've had my fill for a good while now of this, I expect to get my commeupance in these sorts of topics. A bit like stepping into a nest of vipers - my fault, but I did it anyway, as I said initially I did it to present some balance in terms of Saint-Saens' music and contribution. I did it for love of history.


----------



## tdc

Sid James said:


> I accept your apology and yes it is a discussion, the quote by Saint-Saens has stimulated many responses. If you want to say I'm not on topic, or single me out from the rest of the responses, you can say that about others as well. I gave my response as well as another long additional response just now. Its enough to explain how on TC forum Modernist ideology is the elephant in the room. Nobody acknowledges its there but it is. It inevitably turns into the same argument, with the same crowd.
> 
> I have the same right as anyone to give my opinion. I usually do it in one or two posts, and tend to avoid topics like this. I've had my fill for a good while now of this, I expect to get my commeupance in these sorts of topics. A bit like stepping into a nest of vipers - my fault, but I did it anyway, as I said initially I did it to present some balance in terms of Saint-Saens' music and contribution. I did it for love of history.


I appreciate your contributions on Saint-Saens music - if you've noticed people on this forum are generally always appreciative of your contributions on music. You are free to say what you like about the music and may have noticed there are plenty of different opinions being offered in this thread, it is not all modernist ideology. I find your comments about the modernist dogma and ideology, completely irrelevant, completely untrue and completely unnecessary. I'd love to see the discussion just focused on music and leave it at that.


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## Woodduck

PetrB said:


> It is pretty plain that Saint-Saens wanted his opinion on _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_ known, and known that he did not consider it music. Remember, that deeply abiding Parisienne tradition of the fiercely cutting _bon mot..._
> 
> He likened the piece to rough materials on the table before anything is made of them. He knew exactly what he was saying and how it would be understood.
> 
> Ergo, "Not Music," is exactly what he meant to say.
> 
> Saint-Saens meant to say something brutally sharp about Debussy's piece, and that was very much _to his pleasure,_ whatever his reasons. He was also an amazing genius. Genius does not exclude pettiness and mean-spiritedness, nor holding petty grudges at imagined insults (Schoenberg) etc. These great composers were not nearly as great or noble persons as their music is great and noble -- that is next to impossible for anyone. They ate, digested food, breathed air, and had an array of weaknesses and foibles, flawed characters _just like many other people._ No need to dwell on it, but to set that all aside and set them up on gilded pillars does nothing to their credit, either.


To say that Saint-saens did not consider _L'Apres-midi_ a good piece of music is a reasonable and necessary extrapolation from his remarks about it. That he could not recognize it as music _at_ _all_ is simply ridiculous. Figures of speech uttered as cleverly calculated putdowns in a spirit of mockery or animosity are exactly that.

Do you really suppose that a man of Saint-Saens' sophistication held a definition of "music" as limited as what is now being attributed to him? Do you think it even possible that the African and Asian music he heard on his extensive travels also struck him as "not music" because it failed to conform to strict ideals of how tones should be organized? Do you suppose he was utterly baffled by it and thought to himself, "What is that noise those people are playing, singing, and dancing to? Surely it is not music!" We can't bring Saint-Saens before us to question him on his definition of music. But evidently you think he would frame it so as to include the drums of Africa and the gamelan of Bali but exclude the works of Debussy. I doubt that very much.

I have done nothing but raise questions as to the precise nature of Saint-Saens difficulty with Debussy's piece. My original post reads as follows:

_It's something of a cliche to say, when people express negative feelings about new music, that they don't "understand" it. In the case of Saint-Saens' comment, the music in question was no longer new, and I would not be too quick to say just what he did or didn't understand. Saint-Saens was after all born in 1835 and was 85 when he made his remark about L'Apres-midi. It would be presumptuous for us to say that a man of great intellect and prodigious talent and skill, who had spent his life composing brilliantly crafted works and keeping company with the greatest musicians of his time, and who had lived to see all the developments in music from Schumann and Chopin through Wagner to Stravinsky and Schoenberg, did not understand L'Apres-midi d'un faune. I think it would be both presumptuous and condescending. My opinion is that he understood it perfectly well, but that he simply did not like it...By 1920 Saint-Saens was acquainted with Debussy's entire output (Debussy died in 1918), and his comment on L'Apres-midi can be taken to express his larger judgment upon Debussy's work. There could not have been anything in the fairly simple harmonies and motivic materials of that particular piece that baffled Saint-Saens as a musician. But for him, devoted to the end of his life and composing career to classical notions of structure and development, L'Apres-midi's leisurely, languorous unfolding, its lack of melodic elaboration, its static indulgence in sheer atmosphere and mood, its disinclination to go anywhere, clearly seemed insubstantial and amorphous and, if not pointless, then having a point scarcely worth making._

I still think this is a much more rational and nuanced view than a crude claim that Saint-Saens did not consider Debussy's music to be music at all.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> I accept your apology and yes it is a discussion, the quote by Saint-Saens has stimulated many responses. If you want to say I'm not on topic, or single me out from the rest of the responses, you can say that about others as well. I gave my response as well as another long additional response just now. Its enough to explain how on TC forum Modernist ideology is the elephant in the room. Nobody acknowledges its there but it is. It inevitably turns into the same argument, with the same crowd.
> 
> I have the same right as anyone to give my opinion. I usually do it in one or two posts, and tend to avoid topics like this. I've had my fill for a good while now of this, I expect to get my commeupance in these sorts of topics. A bit like stepping into a nest of vipers - my fault, but I did it anyway, as I said initially I did it to present some balance in terms of Saint-Saens' music and contribution. I did it for love of history.


I'm sure those who were unaware of Saint-Saëns history and contributions welcomed your filling them in.

It has nothing to do with a modernist agenda for me to note that like many a genius, with similar facility such as that of Saint-Saëns, that often the accompanying and abiding quality of what they make is facile, i.e. it is superficial. I happen to think that of Saint-Saëns. This is very much a point to consider when you mention his knowledge and use of non-western music, i.e. what he took from it and how he used it was merely superficial 'exotic coloring,' and not some greater in-depth investigation which led him to anything near as fresh as what Debussy made from his exposure to Indonesian Gamelan music. The 19th century is peppered with such superficial exoticism and coloring, and other than a pleasant sound in such pieces, and a little bit of light coloring, there is no great thing to talk about there.

The modernist 'agenda' is not present here, only an evaluation of two composers, the differences between them, and a very calculatedly sharp, if not bitter, comment by Saint-Saëns on Debussy. I can imagine those who love Saint-Saëns music are more than affronted, but it was Saint-Saëns who said what he said, also a matter of historic record.

History too, tends to have always favored the composers who, if they take some other composer's music or use ethnic music, do something far fresher than Saint-Saëns did. I think for those who love his music, it must be hard to hear others say they think of him as a superb craftsman who composed superficial music, but a little reading other than posts in this thread would find exactly the same kind of assessment of Saint-Saëns in many a source more respected than the writing of anyone on TC.

The modernist agenda, well, I don't know what that is, exactly. I've studied truckloads of music my whole life, love music from the earliest dates of music history, know a fair deal of music history, and just can not see what is 'modernist' about comparing one composer to another, or evaluating a genius who was facile as facile. Time out of mind throughout music history, the composer who uses any other material than his own has been admonished to make it his own, re-work it, etc. Little coloristic dashes of ethnic music are just that, no matter how well deployed, they are decorative vs. substantial.

As to controverting opinions -- which is all they are -- some really get ticked off when their opinion is controverted. Why that should be, why they think their opinion is gold, why some think everyone should thank a poster and / or remember what that poster said even one month ago... I'll leave that to others to figure out. I do think if anyone has a temperament where they think that a contrary opinion invalidates them personally, they should know better than to put themselves in such a position, and if they think a contrary opinion invalidates their opinion, then it may just be their opinion was not as well-founded as they thought.

Just because, in any thread, no one takes a detour for a full-length history of the personages or era involved does not mean that history is either unknown or being denied. None of what you've presented in any way changes the facts, or what the opinions have so far been based upon. That's where I think many just don't get why or and what the big fuss about it, as it really is not necessary. People aren't forgetting or erasing history.

Personally, I somewhat resent the tone that all the participants in a thread should drop everything they are doing for a time-out history lesson that many well enough already know, and then give a reverential pause of respect for a composer just because some party thinks they're being maligned and history besmirched.


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## science

It's ok to be a conservative. It's ok to have conservative taste. One does not need to be cutting-edge, or appreciate cutting-edge art. To each one, his own tastes. 

If we accept the pluralism of aesthetic values, what will we argue about next, I wonder?


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## PetrB

science said:


> It's ok to be a conservative. It's ok to have conservative taste. One does not need to be cutting-edge, or appreciate cutting-edge art. To each one, his own tastes.
> 
> If we accept the pluralism of aesthetic values, what will we argue about next, I wonder?


I'm flamingly conservative when it comes to music and art, I deeply love and deeply admire tons of old and really older music, as well as the modern and the recent, yet it seems I am 'one who carries with me at nearly every waking and sleeping moment (to hear tell, anyway) the modernist agenda.'

With that in hand as only one measure of whack misperceptions floating about TC, what is argued about, and more or less nonsensically, is anyone's guess.


----------



## PetrB

Woodduck said:


> To say that Saint-saens did not consider _L'Apres-midi_ a good piece of music is a reasonable and necessary extrapolation from his remarks about it. That he could not recognize it as music _at_ _all_ is simply ridiculous. Figures of speech uttered as cleverly calculated putdowns in a spirit of mockery or animosity are exactly that.
> 
> Do you really suppose that a man of Saint-Saens' sophistication held a definition of "music" as limited as what is now being attributed to him? Do you think it even possible that the African and Asian music he heard on his extensive travels also struck him as "not music" because it failed to conform to strict ideals of how tones should be organized? Do you suppose he was utterly baffled by it and thought to himself, "What is that noise those people are playing, singing, and dancing to? Surely it is not music!" We can't bring Saint-Saens before us to question him on his definition of music. But evidently you think he would frame it so as to include the drums of Africa and the gamelan of Bali but exclude the works of Debussy. I doubt that very much.
> 
> I have done nothing but raise questions as to the precise nature of Saint-Saens difficulty with Debussy's piece. My original post reads as follows:
> 
> _It's something of a cliche to say, when people express negative feelings about new music, that they don't "understand" it. In the case of Saint-Saens' comment, the music in question was no longer new, and I would not be too quick to say just what he did or didn't understand. Saint-Saens was after all born in 1835 and was 85 when he made his remark about L'Apres-midi. It would be presumptuous for us to say that a man of great intellect and prodigious talent and skill, who had spent his life composing brilliantly crafted works and keeping company with the greatest musicians of his time, and who had lived to see all the developments in music from Schumann and Chopin through Wagner to Stravinsky and Schoenberg, did not understand L'Apres-midi d'un faune. I think it would be both presumptuous and condescending. My opinion is that he understood it perfectly well, but that he simply did not like it...By 1920 Saint-Saens was acquainted with Debussy's entire output (Debussy died in 1918), and his comment on L'Apres-midi can be taken to express his larger judgment upon Debussy's work. There could not have been anything in the fairly simple harmonies and motivic materials of that particular piece that baffled Saint-Saens as a musician. But for him, devoted to the end of his life and composing career to classical notions of structure and development, L'Apres-midi's leisurely, languorous unfolding, its lack of melodic elaboration, its static indulgence in sheer atmosphere and mood, its disinclination to go anywhere, clearly seemed insubstantial and amorphous and, if not pointless, then having a point scarcely worth making._
> 
> I still think this is a much more rational and nuanced view than a crude claim that Saint-Saens did not consider Debussy's music to be music at all.


You might want to redirect this to whomever you think said Saint-Saëns could not hear the Debussy as music.

All I said was "Ergo, "Not Music," is exactly what he meant to say."

I don't think anyone thinks Saint-Saens was deaf as well as arch-conservative....


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## science

PetrB said:


> I'm flamingly conservative when it comes to music and art, I deeply love and deeply admire tons of old and really older music, as well as the modern and the recent, yet it seems I am 'one who carries with me at nearly every waking and sleeping moment (to hear tell, anyway) the modernist agenda.'
> 
> With that in hand as only one measure of whack misperceptions floating about TC, what is argued about, and more or less nonsensically, is anyone's guess.


Ah, you've chosen to play a semantic game. Well, never mind about "conservative" then, I don't want to wrangle over it.

If we accept the pluralism of aesthetic values, what will we argue about next, I wonder?


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## science

Are we all on the same page here? We all realize that Debussy won this fight decisively, that a century later Saint-Saëns' judgment has become an embarrassment, and that we are essentially mocking him for it. Right?


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## tdc

science said:


> It's ok to be a conservative. It's ok to have conservative taste. One does not need to be cutting-edge, or appreciate cutting-edge art. To each one, his own tastes.


I agree completely.



science said:


> If we accept the pluralism of aesthetic values, what will we argue about next, I wonder?


I do not see these kinds of exchanges as arguments, as much as debates - an exchange of ideas and views. I think these kinds of exchanges can be very educational and enjoy them when they stay on topic. I respect members with differing views. It seems that for some they have a desire to create much more drama out of them, and escalate them into arguments for reasons I honestly do not understand.

I think this board would be really dull without any of these kinds of exchanges.


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## tdc

science said:


> Are we all on the same page here? We all realize that Debussy won this fight decisively, that a century later Saint-Saëns' judgment has become an embarrassment, and that we are essentially mocking him for it. Right?


Not what I'm getting out of this thread. We are all human and can say things that many will disagree with - no one is perfect. There have been threads discussing controversial quotes by people like Stravinsky and Boulez too. Many disagree with what they say but I don't see the mocking you are referring to, or see it as a fight.


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## science

tdc said:


> Not what I'm getting out of this thread. We are all human and can say things that many will disagree with - no one is perfect. There have been threads discussing controversial quotes by people like Stravinsky and Boulez too. Many disagree with what they say but I don't see the mocking you are referring to, or see it as a fight. It might reveal that composers aren't perfect people, but that shouldn't be news to anyone.


Well, we've certainly learned that S-S sucked (bc he was "conservative" in the old way), if we didn't know that before. Implicitly, we've learned what our own attitudes are supposed to be.


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## tdc

science said:


> Well, we've certainly learned that S-S sucked (bc he was "conservative" in the old way), if we didn't know that before. Implicitly, we've learned what our own attitudes are supposed to be.


We've learned what certain members opinions are about Saint-Saens, that is about it. Even experts can disagree - so if someone says something you disagree with you can just accept that as their opinion - it doesn't need to influence your view at all, and you are just as entitled to express your opinion. According to another member here Saint-Saens was near the level of Mozart and Brahms.


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## science

tdc said:


> I agree completely.
> 
> I do not see these kinds of exchanges as arguments, as much as debates - an exchange of ideas and views. I think these kinds of exchanges can be very educational and enjoy them when they stay on topic. I respect members with differing views. It seems that for some they have a desire to create much more drama out of them, and escalate them into arguments for reasons I honestly do not understand.
> 
> I think this board would be really dull without any of these kinds of exchanges.


I think I'm more neutral about the word "argument" than you are. For me, there is no significant difference between a debate and an argument, and not even that much difference between them a fight. And it's all good. I have done a lot of philosophy - and, as I think is clear from my behavior here - I can dig a debate/argument/fight as well as the next guy. After all, it's not like I'm one of the ones promoting an old orthodoxy!


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## science

tdc said:


> We've learned what certain members opinions are about Saint-Saens, that is about it. Even experts can disagree - so if someone says something you disagree with you can just accept that as their opinion - it doesn't need to influence your view at all, and you are just as entitled to express your opinion. According to another member here Saint-Saens was near the level of Mozart and Brahms.


Ok, I'm not sure why you don't think I "accept it as their opinion."

I'm simply taking (one version of) the minority side, that's all. The game was, "Let's pile on S-S." So I'm playing the other game. If the game was, "Let's pile on Debussy," I would've taken the other side. If I can find a way, I will always take the other side! It's a matter of principle. I think you know that I like Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, probably more than most people here. That's not at stake.


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## SimonNZ

It saddens me to consider how the nonsense "modernist ideology" talk from the last couple of pages must look to those not-yet-members who are considering joining TC.


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## SeptimalTritone

science said:


> For me, there is no significant difference between a debate and an argument, and not even that much difference between them a fight.


Well Mr. Korean nerd, you're the last person I expected to say that... especially since you know so much philosophy and literature. I thought that the more well-read you were, the more aware you were of the difference between an intellectual discussion and a personal fight.

I wonder what the debates are like at your literature book club. Do you get your turn to own the noobs for their taste being insufficiently modern? I'll bet that's an invigorating, adrenaline-pumping, even sexual experience. I envy you.

In the mean time though... I would like to ask you: can artistic analysis and commentary on compositional merit simultaneously occur with respecting everyone's tastes? I think it can. And I think people on TalkClassical do a good job here. But if you don't think so, then you'll have to decide the best course of action. And I don't think that fighting with PetrB would help very much.


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## poptart

I don't like any of the four options. Why didn't you have "Debussy was a genius years ahead of his time and beyond the understanding of small minds like Saint Saens" or "Saint Saens was a bitter old *insert insult of choice* jealous of a younger man's ability"? I might have voted then.


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## science

SeptimalTritone said:


> Well Mr. Korean nerd, you're the last person I expected to say that... especially since you know so much philosophy and literature. I thought that the more well-read you were, the more aware you were of the difference between an intellectual discussion and a personal fight.
> 
> I wonder what the debates are like at your literature book club. Do you get your turn to own the noobs for their taste being insufficiently modern? I'll bet that's an invigorating, adrenaline-pumping, even sexual experience. I envy you.
> 
> In the mean time though... I would like to ask you: can artistic analysis and commentary on compositional merit simultaneously occur with respecting everyone's tastes? I think it can. And I think people on TalkClassical do a good job here. But if you don't think so, then you'll have to decide the best course of action. And I don't think that fighting with PetrB would help very much.


Am I one who want to turn down noobs for their tastes being insufficiently modern? As far as I'm concerned, if someone wants to participate in the discussion, they're welcome to.

Even a fight doesn't have to be personal. It's really a mistake to make it personal - we all fight (~disagree), at least sometimes. Even though PetrB and I disagree about the attitudes he should evince toward people who know less about music than he does, or even toward people who don't share his basic values, it doesn't have to be personal.

A homogeneity of opinion - an intolerance for debate - would be undesirable. Let the people fight!


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## science

science said:


> If we accept the pluralism of aesthetic values, what will we argue about next, I wonder?


I think that this post of mine was interpreted as being anti-argument. I didn't mean it that way. I was really wondering, what would we argue about next?

After all, a few years ago the debate was whether modern music is as good as CPP music. A few years before that (not on this message board) the debate was whether traditional performances are as good as HIPPI performances. Now the debates are whether it's ok to be conservative and/or populist. I assume we'll move on someday... what will be next?


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## tdc

science said:


> Ok, I'm not sure why you don't think I "accept it as their opinion."
> 
> I'm simply taking (one version of) the minority side, that's all. The game was, "Let's pile on S-S." So I'm playing the other game. If the game was, "Let's pile on Debussy," I would've taken the other side. If I can find a way, I will always take the other side! It's a matter of principle. I think you know that I like Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, probably more than most people here. That's not at stake.


Fair enough, but even if you didn't like it - you are free to that opinion. No one should let anyone make them feel bad for their musical tastes - but no one has that power over an individual unless they are permitted by that individual's own insecurity.

For the record I do think there is a big difference between a debate and a fight. I view debates as communication in a constructive manner and fights as being destructive and always undesirable unless no other option exists.

Sometimes it comes across as though if PetrB or someguy disagree with a post they are labelled as modern ideologists or snobs etc. that becomes ad hominem territory, the arguments are no longer attacked - the posters are attacked. They shouldn't be penalized for intelligence, and it is the moderators job to decide if their posts are inappropriate. If one can't address the points in their posts but must resort to subtle personal attacks or modernist conspiracies, it comes across as though one is taking the debate too seriously and are playing the role of the sore loser. (Even though they don't have to feel that way - it is their own perception). No one has to "lose" in these exchanges. We can simply view it as learning from each other and respecting each others differences.


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## science

tdc said:


> Fair enough, but even if you didn't like it - you are free to that opinion. No one should let anyone make them feel bad for their musical tastes - but no one has that power over an individual unless they are permitted by that individual's own insecurity.
> 
> For the record I do think there is a big difference between a debate and a fight. I view debates as communication in a constructive manner and fights as being destructive and always undesirable unless no other option exists.
> 
> Sometimes it comes across as though if PetrB or someguy disagree with a post they are labelled as modern ideologists or snobs etc. that becomes ad hominem territory, the arguments are no longer attacked - the posters are attacked. They shouldn't be penalized for intelligence, and it is the moderators job to decide if their posts are inappropriate. If one can't address the points in their posts but must resort to subtle personal attacks or modernist conspiracies, it comes across as though one is taking the debate too seriously and are playing the role of the sore loser. (Even though they don't have to feel that way - it is their own perception). No one has to "lose" in these exchanges. We can simply view it as learning from each other and respecting each others differences.


I don't know what most of that post was about. I don't recognize myself in it, so if you meant for me to, you'll have to be more explicit. Anyway, if I break a rule, I can be punished the same as anyone else.

I am almost always going to take the minority view on any issue. It's who I am. I'm a fighter, and I when one group is pounding on (or scorning or whatever) another group, I'll take the second group's side, if I can. Almost every time.

You don't have to like it.


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## tdc

science said:


> I don't know what most of that post was about. I don't recognize myself in it, so if you meant for me to, you'll have to be more explicit. Anyway, if I break a rule, I can be punished the same as anyone else.


Well my post wasn't directed specifically at just you.



science said:


> I am almost always going to take the minority view on any issue. It's who I am. I'm a fighter, and I when one group is pounding on (or scorning or whatever) another group, I'll take the second group's side, if I can. Almost every time.
> 
> You don't have to like it.


Its not that I don't like what you are referring to, as much as that I think it is in your head. There is no "second group". Any view you are taking reflects something within yourself.


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## science

tdc said:


> Well my post wasn't directed specifically at just you.
> 
> Its not that I don't like what you are referring to, as much as that I think it is in your head. There is no "second group". Any view you are taking reflects something within yourself.


Maybe at a very deep level, it's something in my head. At a more obvious level, I don't think so. After all, I don't (for example) like watching Lang Lang play, but I do (for example) like Boulez's music... or pretty much whoever else is the trendy one. I haven't (for another example) listened to this López box (my wife is home for the week, and I've been working strangely a lot, and I've been sick, so it really isn't my fault!), but when I do, I'm sure I will enjoy it much more than I enjoy the box of Boskovsky playing Strauss waltzes. But, because of the way the field currently tilts, I'll admit you probably couldn't tell that from my posts. Also, I think I'm getting ready to be much more strongly pro-Renaissance than I've been hitherto.

The second group exists. They are the people who want to watch Lang Lang emote, or who fear that they can't enjoy modern music, or who would enjoy listening to the Vienna New Year's concert; however unpopular here, they definitely exist.

No one is going to mock me for enjoying Boulez or López. But if I liked Lang Lang or Strauss waltzes, we both know how it would go down.

And, it's important to be honest about this - in the cultural hierarchy, they are below us. Ok, let's take a deep breath and get ourselves ok with acknowledging that we're not in 9th grade in rural Kansas anymore, the jocks aren't the cool ones anymore, and within our world, we are the elite. We will always be presented with two options: indulgently tolerating the masses with their Whitacre and their Higdon, their Andrew Lloyd Webber, or actively scorning them lest they get above themselves. Every time we choose the second option, we lower ourselves to their place, even as we think we are putting them in theirs. Anything like who knows the most about music becomes suddenly irrelevant. The game that S-S and Debussy, that Boulez and Shostakovich were playing, that game is dead, and when we insist on playing it without any irony, we always lose. But, even if we're addicted to the game, at least let us play with some self-deprecating irony.


----------



## tdc

science said:


> Maybe at a very deep level, it's something in my head. At a more obvious level, I don't think so. After all, I don't (for example) like watching Lang Lang play, but I do (for example) like Boulez's music... or pretty much whoever else is the trendy one. I haven't (for another example) listened to this López box (my wife is home for the week, and I've been working strangely a lot, and I've been sick, so it really isn't my fault!), but when I do, I'm sure I will enjoy it much more than I enjoy the box of Boskovsky playing Strauss waltzes. But, because of the way the field currently tilts, I'll admit you probably couldn't tell that from my posts. Also, I think I'm getting ready to be much more strongly pro-Renaissance than I've been hitherto.
> 
> The second group exists. They are the people who want to watch Lang Lang emote, or who fear that they can't enjoy modern music, or who would enjoy listening to the Vienna New Year's concert; however unpopular here, they definitely exist.
> 
> No one is going to mock me for enjoying Boulez or López. But if I liked Lang Lang or Strauss waltzes, we both know how it would go down.
> 
> And, it's important to be honest about this - in the cultural hierarchy, they are below us. Ok, let's take a deep breath and get ourselves ok with acknowledging that we're not in 9th grade in rural Kansas anymore, the jocks aren't the cool ones anymore, and within our world, we are the elite. We will always be presented with two options: indulgently tolerating the masses with their Whitacre and their Higdon, their Andrew Lloyd Webber, or actively scorning them lest they get above themselves. Every time we choose the second option, we lower ourselves to their place, even as we think we are putting them in theirs. Anything like who knows the most about music becomes suddenly irrelevant. The game that S-S and Debussy, that Boulez and Shostakovich were playing, that game is dead, and when we insist on playing it without any irony, we always lose. But, even if we're addicted to the game, at least let us play with some self-deprecating irony.


Well I must apologize for continuing to derail this thread - this will be my last off-topic post. Take it or leave it, if we agree to disagree that is fine. I think what is going on is you are assigning a 'second group' status to things where only individual opinions exist - surely there are differences of opinion in these groups and a myriad of intricate and unique different people with their individual strengths and weaknesses. There are surely those out there who think all classical music is lame, there are those who think modern classical music is just noise, there are those who think no real music exists after Bach, there are those who think people who only like older classical music are lame etc. Some of these no doubt are intelligent and influential people in society. Who is to say they can't have their opinions? It seems like you are assigning more importance to the opinions of certain posters at TC (ironically the same ones you "fight") than to these other imagined groups therefore deciding they are being victimized in some way and need defending. I don't need anyone out there fighting with people that disagree with me because I am perceived as being in some threatened "second group" anymore than I think fans of Lang Lang need you fighting their battles for them. I think if there is one thing this world does not need - it is more fighting.


----------



## EdwardBast

science said:


> A homogeneity of opinion - an intolerance for debate - would be undesirable. Let the people fight!


Excellent! But would it be too much to ask that they fight about the topic at hand instead of needlessly increasing the volume of posts with meta-whinging about the nature of the fight, who is winning, and so on? It would make catching up on a thread after a good night's sleep ever so much easier.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Sid James said:


> Hope you enjoyed my contribution to this discussion, although it doesn't feed into what some others have said, nor invite bullying and accept subordination to anyone. Sorry about that, I mean that's not a requirement of this or any other thread on this forum, as far as I can tell. If so, its my oversight of unwritten rules in this putatively free and open forum.


Yup, you've got me, ol' Modernist DiesIraeVIX has been outed as the hard-line Modernist ideologue that he is. You're correct to sarcastically apologize. I do, indeed, only accept and enjoy contributions that invite bullying and accept subordination. How did you know?

_This_ is the post he was replying to. Does that response above seem appropriate? Who is doing the bullying, exactly?



DiesIraeVIX said:


> Sid, I gotta tell ya. I haven't read any bullying or modernist ideology in this thread. In fact, I've quite enjoyed the debate and opinions in this discussion.


----------



## Guest

tdc said:


> It seems like you are assigning more importance to the opinions of certain posters at TC (ironically the same ones you "fight") than to these other imagined groups therefore deciding they are being victimized in some way and need defending.


I'm just waiting for science to attack himself for perpetrating all those misguided and misdirected attacks he's made of me over the years. Now THAT would be fun to watch.

Otherwise, while I'm waiting, it has been entertaining to see how seriously this parodic thread has been taken, how easy it's been to accuse Mahlerian and others of mocking and denigrating Saint-Saëns. Wait, did I say entertaining? Hmmm. Pretty sure I meant disheartening.

Oh well.


----------



## science

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Yup, you've got me, ol' Modernist DiesIraeVIX has been outed as the hard-line Modernist ideologue that he is. You're correct to sarcastically apologize. I do, indeed, only accept and enjoy contributions that invite bullying and accept subordination. How did you know?
> 
> _This_ is the post he was replying to.


You know, basically, all he was doing was trying to offer a more positive POV on Saint-Saëns, the butt of the thread.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> I'm just waiting for science to attack himself for perpetrating all those misguided and misdirected attacks he's made of me over the years. Now THAT would be fun to watch.
> 
> Otherwise, while I'm waiting, it has been entertaining to see how seriously this parodic thread has been taken, how easy it's been to accuse Mahlerian and others of mocking and denigrating Saint-Saëns. Wait, did I say entertaining? Hmmm. Pretty sure I meant disheartening.
> 
> Oh well.


When I have the sway that you have, maybe I will!

I know Mahlerian meant to make a joke, not actually to deal with Saint-Saëns. But hopefully we've all seen that Saint-Saëns committed the kind of sin that can't be joked about, even a hundred years later!


----------



## DiesIraeCX

science said:


> You know, basically, all he was doing was trying to offer a more positive POV on Saint-Saëns, the butt of the thread.


science, that's not the section of his post I replied to. I'm grateful for that information he provided, who said I or anyone else wasn't grateful for it? From the very beginning of the thread, he could have voiced his opinions just as others have voiced theirs. I replied to a specific part of his post, the completely inappropriate and sarcastic part. Please go find a post I made in this thread that merited that response.

Here it is again for everyone to see. Do the "math" and tell me if it adds up. He seems to be conjuring up "adversaries" as he goes along.

*Me*: "_Sid, I gotta tell ya. I haven't read any bullying or modernist ideology in this thread. In fact, I've quite enjoyed the debate and opinions in this discussion._"

*Sid*: "... Hope you enjoyed my contribution to this discussion, although it doesn't feed into what some others have said, nor invite bullying and accept subordination to anyone. Sorry about that, I mean that's not a requirement of this or any other thread on this forum, as far as I can tell. If so, its my oversight of unwritten rules in this putatively free and open forum."


----------



## science

DiesIraeVIX said:


> science, that's not the section of his post I replied to. I'm grateful for that information he provided, who said I or anyone else wasn't grateful for it? From the very beginning of the thread, he could have voiced his opinions just as others have voiced theirs. I replied to a specific part of his post, the completely inappropriate and sarcastic part. Please go find a post I made in this thread that merited that response.
> 
> Here it is again for everyone to see. Do the "math" and tell me if it adds up. He seems to be conjuring up "adversaries" as he goes along.
> 
> *Me*: "_Sid, I gotta tell ya. I haven't read any bullying or modernist ideology in this thread. In fact, I've quite enjoyed the debate and opinions in this discussion._"
> 
> *Sid*: "Hope you enjoyed my contribution to this discussion, although it doesn't feed into what some others have said, nor invite bullying and accept subordination to anyone. Sorry about that, I mean that's not a requirement of this or any other thread on this forum, as far as I can tell. If so, its my oversight of unwritten rules in this putatively free and open forum."


Yeah, he's defensive. I see that. I think I get why he is too. But it's not right to discuss whether he should be, so I won't take that up.


----------



## isorhythm

science said:


> Maybe at a very deep level, it's something in my head. At a more obvious level, I don't think so. After all, I don't (for example) like watching Lang Lang play, but I do (for example) like Boulez's music... or pretty much whoever else is the trendy one. I haven't (for another example) listened to this López box (my wife is home for the week, and I've been working strangely a lot, and I've been sick, so it really isn't my fault!), but when I do, I'm sure I will enjoy it much more than I enjoy the box of Boskovsky playing Strauss waltzes. But, because of the way the field currently tilts, I'll admit you probably couldn't tell that from my posts. Also, I think I'm getting ready to be much more strongly pro-Renaissance than I've been hitherto.
> 
> The second group exists. They are the people who want to watch Lang Lang emote, or who fear that they can't enjoy modern music, or who would enjoy listening to the Vienna New Year's concert; however unpopular here, they definitely exist.
> 
> No one is going to mock me for enjoying Boulez or López. But if I liked Lang Lang or Strauss waltzes, we both know how it would go down.
> 
> And, it's important to be honest about this - in the cultural hierarchy, they are below us. Ok, let's take a deep breath and get ourselves ok with acknowledging that we're not in 9th grade in rural Kansas anymore, the jocks aren't the cool ones anymore, and within our world, we are the elite. We will always be presented with two options: indulgently tolerating the masses with their Whitacre and their Higdon, their Andrew Lloyd Webber, or actively scorning them lest they get above themselves. Every time we choose the second option, we lower ourselves to their place, even as we think we are putting them in theirs. Anything like who knows the most about music becomes suddenly irrelevant. The game that S-S and Debussy, that Boulez and Shostakovich were playing, that game is dead, and when we insist on playing it without any irony, we always lose. But, even if we're addicted to the game, at least let us play with some self-deprecating irony.


There's a lot of truth to this and I think it's important to keep in mind. That said, in the conservative v. modern debates I've seen on this forum so far, the modernists are reacting defensively, not really instigating.


----------



## PetrB

science said:


> ...hopefully we've all seen that Saint-Saëns committed the kind of sin that can't be joked about, even a hundred years later!


Sins, people! Cast those sinners out! Make of it your business and job. Forget any meaningful or otherwise vaguely interesting on-topic posts you could otherwise have made. Just steam roller your revival tent business straight into any thread where you imagine those sinners are sinning and feel free to derail it. After all, you are doing the righteous work.

Amen, and pass the hat.


----------



## Blancrocher

The only thing in the word I find more shocking than Saint-Saens' dismissal of Debussy is Debussy's dismissal of Saint-Saens: "I have a horror of sentimentality, and I cannot forget that its name is Saint-Saëns."

It pains me to see such otherwise estimable composers squabble like this.

*p.s.* Though I'm not so pained that I didn't just download Saint-Saens' "Musical Memories," which is currently selling for $0.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16459/16459-h/16459-h.htm


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> The only thing in the word I find more shocking than Saint-Saens' dismissal of Debussy is Debussy's dismissal of Saint-Saens: "I have a horror of sentimentality, and I cannot forget that its name is Saint-Saëns."
> 
> It pains me to see such otherwise estimable composers squabble like this.
> 
> *p.s.* Though I'm not so pained that I didn't just download Saint-Saens' "Musical Memories," which is currently selling for $0.
> 
> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16459/16459-h/16459-h.htm


Them Parisian French will make their _bon mots._ 
It is for them a sport as near to a religion as school football is for Texans.


----------



## clavichorder

I liked the fourth option. It makes sense to me. Debussy's music is just something else in disguise. I see others have thought so as well.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Them Parisian French will make their _bon mots._
> It is for them a sport as near to a religion as school football is for Texans.


. . . and their _mots justes_, too. _;D_

They'll win you the repartee but not many friends.


----------



## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> If you presume to take people's words at face value, even when you know those people to harbor strong prejudices - which means that they are being less than objective, expressing primarily their feelings, which may conflict decidedly with objective truths they prefer not to acknowledge... And if you think that words, particularly value-laden words uttered as criticism, and particularly in a field such as art, in which objectivity beyond a certain point is impossible, even _have_ a face value which is the same for all who use them... And if you think that a clever figure of speech such as "it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture" can be taken literally to mean that "it is not music"... And if you make all these assumptions on top of the assumption that after a lifetime of experiencing music of all sorts, including non-European musics from Africa and Asia, a brilliant musician and great composer in 1920 cannot recognize _L'Apres-midi d'un faune_, a composition 26 years old, as belonging to the broad category of things known as "music"...
> 
> Well, if all those assumptions are acceptable to you, I must leave you to them. I have suggested only that a certain amount of humility may be warranted when we try to enter the mind of a man who is no longer here to speak, to paraphrase, to clarify his thoughts and convictions for us. Frankly I am a little shocked that what I presumed to be thoughtful musings on the matter ran so abruptly into such adamantine certainty, and I can't but observe that I've noticed on this forum a certain effort to stress the incomprehensibility of now-familiar music to it's first hearers, an effort seemingly made to show that contemporary music of whatever sort is not intrinsically more difficult than any other music, to say "See? Saint-Saens said Debussy was not even music, and now people say that Stockhausen or Cage is not music! It's always been this way! So..." Well, never one to believe that parallels and analogues constitute identities, I have actually questioned the validity of conclusions that might come after the "So..." But perhaps that isn't relevant here, and there's no such consideration underlying your very firm rejection of my speculations as to the exact contents of the mind of M. Saint-Saens.
> 
> Skeptical as I tend to be, I am certain only that Saint-Saens used the words he did, that Debussy's music did not fulfill Saint-Saens' idea of what good music should sound like, that his idea of good music was strictly limited, and that he held it firmly to the end. That much, I think, we agree on.


Woodduck, your original post on the matter struck me with its singular surfeit of making excuses for Saint-Saens, all of which are tangential, and none of which have any bearing on whether or not he would accept Debussy as being music.

His intelligence has nothing to do with it.
His acceptance of other kinds of music has nothing to do with it.
The length of time since the piece's premiere has nothing to do with it.
Your own acceptance of the piece certainly has nothing to do with it.

Arguing from incredulity is an untenable position, and a fallacy.

But let me make it clearer, by Saint-Saens' own words:


Saint-Saens said:


> "Music is as old as human nature. We can get some idea of what it was at first from the music of savage tribes. There were a few notes and rudimentary melodies with blows struck in cadence as an accompaniment; or, sometimes, the same primitive rhythms without any accompaniment-and nothing else! Then melody was perfected and the rhythms became more complicated. Later came Greek music, of which we know little, and the music of the East and Far East.
> *Music, as we now understand the term, began with the attempts at harmony in the Middle Ages.* These attempts were labored and difficult, and the uncertainty of their gropings, combined with the slowness of their development, excites our wonder. Centuries were necessary before the writing of music became exact, but, slowly, laws were elaborated. Thanks to them the works of the Sixteenth Century came into being, in all their admirable purity and learned polyphony[...]
> 
> [Wagner] did not foresee the a-tonic system, but that is what we have come to. There is no longer any question of adding to the old rules new principles which are the natural expression of time and experience, but simply of casting aside all rules and every restraint.
> "Everyone ought to make his own rules. Music is free and unlimited in its liberty of expression. There are no perfect chords, dissonant chords or false chords. All aggregations of notes are legitimate."
> That is called, and they believe it, the development of taste.
> He whose taste is developed by this system is not like the man who by tasting a wine can tell you its age and its vineyard, but he is rather like the fellow who with perfect indifference gulps down good or bad wine, brandy or whiskey, and prefers that which burns his gullet the most. The man who gets his work hung in the Sâlon is not the one who puts on his canvas delicate touches in harmonious tones, but he who juxtaposes vermillion and Veronese green. The man with a "developed taste" is not the one who knows how to get new and unexpected results by passing from one key to another, as the great Richard did in Die Meistersinger, but rather the man who abandons all keys and piles up dissonances which he neither introduces nor concludes and who, as a result, grunts his way through music as a pig through a flower garden.
> 
> Possibly they may go farther still. There seems to be no reason why they should linger on the way to untrammeled freedom or restrict themselves within a scale. The boundless empire of sound is at their disposal and let them profit by it. That is what dogs do when they bay at the moon, cats when they meow, and the birds when they sing. A German has written a book to prove that the birds sing false. Of course he is wrong for they do not sing false. If they did, their song would not sound agreeable to us. They sing outside of scales and it is delightful, but that is not man-made art.
> Some Spanish singers give a similar impression, through singing interminable grace notes beyond notation. Their art is intermediate between the singing of the birds and of man. It is not a higher art.
> In certain quarters they marvel at the progress made in the last thirty years. The architects of the Fifteenth Century must have reasoned in the same way. They did not appreciate that they were assassinating Gothic art, and that after some centuries *we would have to revert to the art of the Greeks and Romans.*"


The art of the Greeks and Romans, of course, not being *music as we now understand the term*.

Now that you mention it, though, contemporary music is _not_, in fact, intrinsically more difficult than Debussy, at least not in toto. The Stockhausen piece mentioned earlier is based on a drone, a number of Cage's works are based on rhythm alone, and the visceral impact of works like Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is much more immediately graspable than anything like Pelleas et Melisande. If you want to argue otherwise, feel free.

But this isn't an extrapolation based on Saint-Saens' remarks. The point of this thread was never to mock Saint-Saens or anyone else. The perspectives of even accomplished composers of genius-level IQ can still be as narrow-minded as anyone else's. This narrow-mindedness should not be cause for mockery, but understanding; surely we too can be narrow-minded.


----------



## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> I liked the fourth option. It makes sense to me. Debussy's music is just something else in disguise. I see others have thought so as well.


Like Chopin or Mozart, who are still thought of as merely pretty by some, the underlying strengths are not at all obvious to many.

The take on Debussy has often been (earlier history at least) similar to how Chopin was / is thought about, i.e. 'just pretty music.' When Schumann wrote of Chopin's work, "Canon hidden in flowers." -- something similar could be said of Debussy.

There is a profound musical intelligence behind his works, great strength of structure, it seems like intent fully met, pliant fluency making it enormously expressive, and all the other qualities of the craft which are the yardsticks for the criteria of what is good or great, those on a par which has made many 'rank' him right up their in the top echelon of the other greats in the company of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and all the other 'most usual suspects.'

Others may differ in that opinion, but open just about any music history book, encyclopedia, and there is Claude Achille Debussy, right in along with the rest of that gang.


----------



## clavichorder

Yeah, I find it sort of interesting that Einstein could not value the structure in 'impressionist composer,' thinking it to be just of timbral and color interest. I hear more than that, but at the time, it probably sounded so new and different. Also, structure is just a more cut and dried thing in much of his favorite composers, like Mozart, Bach or Corelli.


----------



## PetrB

EdwardBast said:


> Excellent! But would it be too much to ask that they fight about the topic at hand instead of needlessly increasing the volume of posts with *meta-whinging* about the nature of the fight, who is winning, and so on? It would make catching up on a thread after a good night's sleep ever so much easier.


*meta-whinging*. Good one. If we could only get but a few of those each recorded in audio format, we could make one helluva piece via mixed Musique concrète and electronics, maybe toss in some acoustic instruments. At least it might have yielded something, uh, _interesting._ You know, like, _"I just know I can get a worthwhile song out of all this misery."_


----------



## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> Yeah, I find it sort of interesting that Einstein could not value the structure in 'impressionist composer,' thinking it to be just of timbral and color interest. I hear more than that, but at the time, it probably sounded so new and different. Also, structure is just a more cut and dried thing in much of his favorite composers, like Mozart, Bach or Corelli.


I'm certain that many more musicians other than Saint-Saëns, with all their knowledge but being so accustomed for their entire life to the older formalism, may have recognized some of the fundamental musical elements in Debussy (his use of mixed whole tone and diatonic scales, the harmonic 'atonalism.') I do not think many understood the highly calculated and brilliantly engineered ambiguity, nor that they really 'got' what Debussy had done with the architecture of form other than, to them, what an infant might do if given a bunch of colors and then used their hands and fingers and arbitrarily smeared pigment on a wall -- which is very close to the analogous comment Saint-Saëns made on Debussy's music. This I think is impossible to imagine without really understanding the full context of those who found it so baffling at the time, genius composer or other.


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

Blancrocher said:


> It pains me to see such otherwise estimable composers squabble like this.


I mean, I'd be willing to bet that some have become composers exactly so they can rip on other composers......if you look at many of the 'great' composers, especially since the 19th century, squabble accounts for about half of what they did.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Woodduck, your original post on the matter struck me with its singular surfeit of making excuses for Saint-Saens, all of which are tangential, and none of which have any bearing on whether or not he would accept Debussy as being music.


I have no reason to make excuses for Saint-Saens - I don't care about him personally, have never warmed to his music, and I really enjoy Debussy. And I have no idea if Woodduck has reasons to do this either. But I think he is quite right in questioning the notion of "face value" as he did. It is possible S-S refused to hear the Debussy as music, or refused to acknowledge to himself that he did. Or he could have felt himself responding to it as music and recoiled in horror at the possibility of revising his long held convictions. In fact, there are any number of possibilities. I think it is enormously naive to think there is face-value in such a case and I wonder why it matters anyway? S-S's prejudices, narrow-mindedness, position on the wrong side of history, and so on are perfectly apparent without adopting a simplistic model of human thought and expression.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Woodduck, *your original post on the matter struck me with its singular surfeit of making excuses for Saint-Saens, all of which are tangential, and none of which have any bearing on whether or not he would accept Debussy as being music.
> 
> His intelligence has nothing to do with it.
> His acceptance of other kinds of music has nothing to do with it.
> The length of time since the piece's premiere has nothing to do with it.
> Your own acceptance of the piece certainly has nothing to do with it.
> 
> Arguing from incredulity is an untenable position, and a fallacy.*
> 
> But let me make it clearer, by Saint-Saens' own words:
> 
> _"*Music is as old as human nature.* We can get some idea of what it was at first from the music of savage tribes. There were a few notes and rudimentary melodies with blows struck in cadence as an accompaniment; or, sometimes, the same primitive rhythms without any accompaniment-and nothing else! Then melody was perfected and the rhythms became more complicated. Later came Greek music, of which we know little, and the music of the East and Far East.
> *Music, as we now understand the term*, began with the attempts at harmony in the Middle Ages. These attempts were labored and difficult, and the uncertainty of their gropings, combined with the slowness of their development, excites our wonder. Centuries were necessary before the writing of music became exact, but, slowly, laws were elaborated. Thanks to them the works of the Sixteenth Century came into being, in all their admirable purity and learned polyphony[...]"
> 
> "The art of the Greeks and Romans, of course, not being *music as we now understand the term*."_
> 
> Now that you mention it, though, contemporary music is _not_, in fact, intrinsically more difficult than Debussy, at least not in toto. The Stockhausen piece mentioned earlier is based on a drone, a number of Cage's works are based on rhythm alone, and the visceral impact of works like Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is much more immediately graspable than anything like Pelleas et Melisande. If you want to argue otherwise, feel free.
> 
> But this isn't an extrapolation based on Saint-Saens' remarks. The point of this thread was never to mock Saint-Saens or anyone else. * The perspectives of even accomplished composers of genius-level IQ can still be as narrow-minded as anyone else's. This narrow-mindedness should not be cause for mockery, but understanding;* surely we too can be narrow-minded.


First let me get out of the way any suggestion that I want to argue anything about contemporary music. Now, on to Saint-Saens.

1. I was not "making excuses" for Saint-Saens. I was speculating on the actual degree of his understanding of a piece of music, about the actual significance of his characteristic witticism about it being smears of paint on a palette rather than a painting, and about whether we might be underestimating him with respect to the matter.

2. In considering Saint-Saens' capacity to understand _L'Apres-midi_, I thought the following considerations might have some value: his great intelligence; his experience with and understanding of music in general and other recent music in particular; his acquaintance with all of Debussy's oeuvre, Debussy having died in 1918; his having had 26 years to know _L'Apres-midi_; and the likelihood that his lifetime of musical experience might compare favorably with that of a kid of 15 (me) who found _L'Apres-midi_ a piece of cake on first hearing. I didn't offer any of these considerations as proof of anything, merely as considerations. You find them all completely irrelevant to assessing his understanding of Debussy? Fine. I wonder what you would consider relevant.

3. I did not "argue from incredulity." I was incredulous about the level of incomprehension with which Saint-Saens might be supposed to be hearing (or studying in score) the music of Debussy, and I argued only that there might be reasons for incredulity. That is entirely different, and no fallacy.

4. As for this persistent idea that Saint-Saens could not recognize music when he heard or read it, I am very nearly out of comments. I just think it's nuts. But I thank you for your extended quote showing that Saint-Saens made a distinction between "music" and "music as we now understand the term." That, of course, is a cute bit of sophistry in which we have no choice but to indulge him. We do not, however, have to follow him in it - and it serves, not to refute my position in this definitional spat, but to support it. "Music as we now understand the term" is clearly not the same thing as "music"; it was not the same thing to Saint-Saens, and it is not the same thing for the purpose of this debate or any other. What the phrase actually means, given the distinction Saint-Saens was making, is "the kind of music which is valid and acceptable to us." Obviously _L'Apres-midi_ was not acceptable to him. This tells us nothing whatever about how well he understood its techniques, formal precedures, or expressive intent. It is that understanding that I questioned in my original post. The questions remain, and I think they are interesting. I don't have any definitive answers. But one thing I'm clear about is that the whole matter is not rendered meaningless by the simple and fallacious pronouncement that Saint-Saens just did not recognize Debussy's work as any sort of music at all.

With your final remarks I agree wholeheartedly. "Understanding" of too-easily-mocked Saint-Saens is all I'm seeking.


----------



## Mahlerian

I think the fundamental gap between us in this dialogue is that you are equating Saint-Saens' recognition of Debussy's work as music with "understanding" it in some way. I did not do this, and have not done so since. You were the one who introduced the word "understanding" into this thread, and it is primarily your posts since which have dealt with it.

What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music? I was under the impression that this is what I was arguing for all this time. The word understanding is, as you have pointed out, quite often a loaded term in these kinds of debates, and as I believe, not necessarily worthwhile in making arguments because so hard to judge.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music? I was under the impression that this is what I was arguing for all this time.


This seems quite likely to me. Is this in any way excluded by or inconsistent with what Woodduck has been saying? I'm asking Woodduck too.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> I think the fundamental gap between us in this dialogue is that you are equating Saint-Saens' recognition of Debussy's work as music with "understanding" it in some way. I did not do this, and have not done so since. You were the one who introduced the word "understanding" into this thread, and it is primarily your posts since which have dealt with it.
> 
> *What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music? I was under the impression that this is what I was arguing for all this time. * The word understanding is, as you have pointed out, quite often a loaded term in these kinds of debates, and as I believe, not necessarily worthwhile in making arguments because so hard to judge.


My use of the word "understanding" was knowingly non-specific. Almost any meaning you want to assign to it is acceptable to me!

My whole inquiry could be rephrased as _In what ways_ did Saint-Saens understand Debussy's music? And do his comments reveal the nature and extent of that understanding? I suspect, considering certain facts and probabilities about him, that they do not. I suspect that he 'understood' Debussy better than his picturesque dismissal implies, and that his dismissal has more to do with disapproval than incomprehension.

The one meaning of "understanding" which I rejected at the outset of my OP was the one implying "liking" - i.e., "you don't like it because you don't understand it." And on the basis of that, I went on to argue that Saint-Saens dislike of _L'Apres-midi_ was not necessarily, or primarily, a question of not "understanding" it. To me, his image of the artist's palette versus an actual painting is ambiguous in its implications: it could indicate an inability to perceive structure in the music, or it could indicate a dissatisfaction with the conception of structure perceived. Given Saint-Saens' musical erudition and experience, I'm more inclined to think the latter. (Of course it could mean something less specific than either, and be more in the nature of a clever _bon mot_.) No certainty here, of course; just likelihood.

If I'd thought you were only asking, "What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music?", I wouldn't have been arguing with you. But you said that Saint-Saens didn't recognize _L'Apres-midi_ as "music at all." I don't like quibbling, but I have to say that "legitimacy as music" does not mean the same thing as "music at all." The distinction seems in fact the same one Saint-Saens makes in the long passage from his writings you quoted, where he speaks of both "music" and "music as we now understand the term." If you also recognize that distinction, then our difference of opinion may be quite minimal.


----------



## PetrB

EdwardBast said:


> This seems quite likely to me. Is this in any way excluded by or inconsistent with what Woodduck has been saying? I'm asking Woodduck too.


My guess as to the context within this dead composer's head is just as good as any of the angles being debated, I think. (post #155, above)
http://www.talkclassical.com/36175-how-right-saint-sa-11.html

And I think it near riotously funny that it seems no one wants to think a brilliant genius actually 'may not get everything.' It is anyone's guess if the paint pallet analogy was said from a point of understanding and a doggedness to still assert what the composer thought was the right way, but it is just as possible for all he did understand that he never recognized the strengths, or shape or purpose, of Debussy's form, ergo the basic comment that it is formless.

Take any emotional reaction to what may have been taken as an affront that the genius polymath composer may have been rather thick-headed and slow in an area totally new and foreign to him (he was not alone in that) -- and that it is _entirely possible that he did not 'get it' twenty years on'_ -- and the rest is really bickering over whose guess is better.


----------



## Woodduck

PetrB said:


> My guess as to the context within this dead composer's head is just as good as any of the angles being debated, I think. (post #155, above)
> http://www.talkclassical.com/36175-how-right-saint-sa-11.html
> 
> And I think it near riotously funny that it seems no one wants to think a brilliant genius actually 'may not get everything.' It is anyone's guess if the paint pallet analogy was said from a point of understanding and a doggedness to still assert what the composer thought was the right way, but it is just as possible for all he did understand that he never recognized the strengths, or shape or purpose, of Debussy's form, ergo the basic comment that it is formless.
> 
> Take any emotional reaction to what may have been taken as an affront that the genius polymath composer may have been rather thick-headed and slow in an area totally new and foreign to him (he was not alone in that) -- and that it is _entirely possible that he did not 'get it' twenty years on'_ -- and the rest is really bickering over whose guess is better.


Now, now. I know how much you relish finding near riotously funny all those who know less than you (which does not include whom?), but no one I'm aware of - certainly not I - has suggested that any "brilliant genius" (is there any other kind?) exists who "gets everything." In fact it's very likely that Saint-Saens did _not_ get _everything_ about Debussy. Does anyone get _everything_ about _any_ music? (Please, please - it's just a question! Don't assume I mean anything by it!) I've merely suggested that crusty old Camille "got" more than his comments might lead us to think.

But that's too subtle for riotous fun, isn't it? Not that I want to discourage healthy laughter, of course.

:lol:


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> My use of the word "understanding" was knowingly non-specific. Almost any meaning you want to assign to it is acceptable to me!
> 
> My whole inquiry could be rephrased as _In what ways_ did Saint-Saens understand Debussy's music? And do his comments reveal the nature and extent of that understanding? I suspect, considering certain facts and probabilities about him, that they do not. I suspect that he 'understood' Debussy better than his picturesque dismissal implies, and that his dismissal has more to do with disapproval than incomprehension.
> 
> The one meaning of "understanding" which I rejected at the outset of my OP was the one implying "liking" - i.e., "you don't like it because you don't understand it." And on the basis of that, I went on to argue that Saint-Saens dislike of _L'Apres-midi_ was not necessarily, or primarily, a question of not "understanding" it. To me, his image of the artist's palette versus an actual painting is ambiguous in its implications: it could indicate an inability to perceive structure in the music, or it could indicate a dissatisfaction with the conception of structure perceived. Given Saint-Saens' musical erudition and experience, I'm more inclined to think the latter. (Of course it could mean something less specific than either, and be more in the nature of a clever _bon mot_.) No certainty here, of course; just likelihood.
> 
> If I'd thought you were only asking, "What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music?", I wouldn't have been arguing with you. But you said that Saint-Saens didn't recognize _L'Apres-midi_ as "music at all." I don't like quibbling, but I have to say that that "legitimacy as music" does not mean the same thing as "music at all." The distinction seems in fact the same one Saint-Saens makes in the long passage from his writings you quoted, where he speaks of both "music" and "music as we now understand the term." If you also recognize that distinction, then our difference of opinion may be quite minimal.


Quite apart from the epiphenomena of Saint-Saens 'true thoughts,' Woodduck brings up a good point in general.

How many times have I reflexively and defensively heard it said that "if one doesn't 'like' a certain composer then one simply does not 'understand' him"?

Bosh.

There are composers and painters and novelists that I 'get,' and I admire their command of their artistry-- but at the same time, on aesthetic grounds, I can say, "I don't like it."


----------



## PetrB

Woodduck said:


> I've merely suggested that crusty old Camille "got" more than his comments might lead us to think.


...and others have suggested other angles, any of which might well be viable, while none could be confirmed unless _we had Saint-Saens_ to confirm them.

Once those are laid out on the table... well, even a pit bull will eventually let go.


----------



## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Now, now. I know how much you relish finding near riotously funny all those who know less than you (which does not include whom?), but no one I'm aware of - certainly not I - has suggested that any "brilliant genius" *(is there any other kind?*) exists who "gets everything." [...]


I'll just take a break here from my favourite late night pastime (that of biting the heads off whippets whilst listening to either Boulez or Shostakovitch) to respond to Woodduck's rhetorical question highlighted in the quote above: *evil genius*?


----------



## Woodduck

TalkingHead said:


> I'll just take a break here from my favourite late night pastime (that of biting the heads off whippets whilst listening to either Boulez or Shostakovitch) to respond to Woodduck's rhetorical question highlighted in the quote above: *evil genius*?


That is either brilliant or evil.


----------



## Sid James

tdc said:


> I appreciate your contributions on Saint-Saens music - if you've noticed people on this forum are generally always appreciative of your contributions on music. You are free to say what you like about the music and may have noticed there are plenty of different opinions being offered in this thread, it is not all modernist ideology. I find your comments about the modernist dogma and ideology, completely irrelevant, completely untrue and completely unnecessary. I'd love to see the discussion just focused on music and leave it at that.


When someone brands a composer as conservative, or purely conservative, what do you think that is? What I am arguing is that Saint-Saens is more than that, and certain interpretations of history which I see as being ideological, they will not accept a more balanced and nuanced assessment of his legacy for music. I appreciate your compliments and I have just done an essay, spent time before I logged on doing research, and it just further confirms my viewpoint. Saint-Saens was conservative compared to the most radical composers of his time - eg. Liszt and Wagner - but he wasn't just or purely a conservative. He was in some ways progressive, but in any case he left an important legacy for music, particularly for French music.

It is interesting to see that he came up against the same criticism that many Modern era composers - including Debussy but also Ravel and Stravinsky - came up against, namely that his music wasn't emotional enough, that it was too detached.

But I will let the essay which I am about to post to speak for itself. Some people will find it useful or interesting, others won't. Others might just be neutral about it, and yet others may know all this already. That's diversity, not the bullying I always get subjected to if I make a contribution, and let me remind you this has been going on here for years.



science said:


> Are we all on the same page here? We all realize that Debussy won this fight decisively, that a century later Saint-Saëns' judgment has become an embarrassment, and that we are essentially mocking him for it. Right?


And let's not forget Debussy made some comments on others music that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny today. Like the famous quip about Grieg's music being nothing but iced bon bons. He was distancing himself from Grieg, but both where influenced by Liszt, and guess what? They all did piano pieces that can be described as bon bons of one sort or another - short, evocative of imagery and very atmospheric.



tdc said:


> Not what I'm getting out of this thread. We are all human and can say things that many will disagree with - no one is perfect. There have been threads discussing controversial quotes by people like Stravinsky and Boulez too. Many disagree with what they say but I don't see the mocking you are referring to, or see it as a fight.


Forgive me for butting in, but neither do I see people laying the boot into John Cage, who I have demonstrated as being on record as saying he doesn't think John Corigliano's music should be performed, yet he hasn't heard it. In my essay I mention how even Stravinsky acknowledged that Saint-Saens made an effort to go to concerts of new music and sat through the whole piece.



DiesIraeVIX said:


> Yup, you've got me, ol' Modernist DiesIraeVIX has been outed as the hard-line Modernist ideologue that he is. You're correct to sarcastically apologize. I do, indeed, only accept and enjoy contributions that invite bullying and accept subordination. How did you know?
> 
> _This_ is the post he was replying to. Does that response above seem appropriate? Who is doing the bullying, exactly?


I didn't mean to bully you but to point out how I do think that Modernist bias does have a lot to do with responses here. So too devaluing of history, and either not wanting to know about it, or actual ignorance of it. What do you expect on a forum where most members have professed to be formalist? That's what I'm fighting against here, and I am in a minority, I am the one usually bullied to the extent of avoiding these topics altogether.



science said:


> When I have the sway that you have, maybe I will!
> 
> I know Mahlerian meant to make a joke, not actually to deal with Saint-Saëns. But hopefully we've all seen that Saint-Saëns committed the kind of sin that can't be joked about, even a hundred years later!


Modernism is like 100 years old now, some say 200 years. We can talk aesthetics, ideology, technique, whatever. There are connections between the 19th and 20th centuries. But I think its time to drop dissing old music as a tool for elevating new or newer music. Debussy died in 1918 but he was by then establishment. Saint-Saens became establishment earlier, died very old and by the end was a fossil. Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Schoenberg, all derided by conservatives and Modernists for one thing or another at certain points in time followed a similar trajectory, and they died in the 1940's and '50's.

That's like 60 + years ago. Let's get over this useless dynamic. History offers opportunity for various methods of interpretation, analysis and opinion. Nobody is unbiased and nobody needs to play this ridiculous oppressor versus victim game. Nobody needs to throw mudballs as they did at eachother then. At least that would be ideal, but I'm afraid in TC we are back in the 1950's (the Khrushchev quote in my signature speaks to an aspect of this in relation to politics - same thing, basically!). The more things change the more they stay the same. We need scapegoats and bogeymen, don't we? Music like politics thrives on them. I think this is sad.



Mahlerian said:


> I think the fundamental gap between us in this dialogue is that you are equating Saint-Saens' recognition of Debussy's work as music with "understanding" it in some way. I did not do this, and have not done so since. You were the one who introduced the word "understanding" into this thread, and it is primarily your posts since which have dealt with it.
> 
> What if Saint-Saens did in fact understand what Debussy was doing, and still refused, for one reason or another, to grant it legitimacy as music? I was under the impression that this is what I was arguing for all this time. The word understanding is, as you have pointed out, quite often a loaded term in these kinds of debates, and as I believe, not necessarily worthwhile in making arguments because so hard to judge.


It was basically a turf war, Mahlerian. Simple as that, and not limited to criticisms by the old guard of early Modernism. But my essay below will extrapolate on some facts.


----------



## Sid James

I’ve preprepared this post with more info on Saint-Saens. Again, it will be my last post here, I’m not getting into conflicts here and I’m sick of them. I want to shed a more positive and balanced light on Saint-Saens’ contribution to music, a composer who I did my fair share of criticising in the distant past. Again, I am glad to do this, but I spent an hour on this so I’m saying to my detractors give me a break. I hope though it offers something to other readers. The result is the same as in other threads I’ve done this – I ask myself why am I doing it, and again it is because I think that history is important.

It is clear to me after doing some research that Saint-Saens was interested in hearing new music in his latter years, even though his reaction to it was largely negative. Stravinsky said that Saint-Saens stayed in his seat to the end of the premiere of The Rite of Spring, which suggests that he listened to a whole piece and tried to give it some justice. He also attended the premieres of works by Schoenberg and Prokofiev. Of Richard Strauss’ Salome, Saint-Saens observed how “from time to time the cruellest discords are succeeded by exquisite suavities that caress the ear with delight.”

Earlier Saint-Saens was in the heady mix that was Paris in the mid to late 19th century. The music of Bellini, Mendelssohn and Schumann was new, and he went to premieres of those. The Société Nationale de Musique which he founded in 1871 arranged the performance of music by Franck, D’Indy, Ravel and others. Despite the famous quote by (or attributed to?) Ravel about Saint-Saens and howitzer rifles, Ravel admired Saint-Saens music, and shared in common with him a sense of elegance and emotional detachment in his music. Honegger was another admirer.

Could it be that Saint-Saens’ tendency to eschew the high drama and emotion of the likes of Liszt and Wagner was something that looked forward to aspects of Modern era music as well as back to the classical era and older traditions? His tendency towards restraint in an era of excess is shown in a number of works, one of my favourites is his Cello Concerto #1, where he uses a chamber orchestra looking back to Classicism but also incorporating the thematic unity found in concertos of Beethoven and Liszt. 

Tovey said the Cello Concerto was “pure and brilliant without putting on chastity as a garment, and without calling attention to its jewellery at a banquet of poor relations.” Given this, it could be that Saint-Saens was less a man of the 19th century having more in common with the 18th century and early 20th century Neo-Classicism, especially in terms of his tendency for low key emotion or outright detachment and emphasis on technical craftsmanship and refinement.

Saint-Saens was amazingly prolific, and started as a child prodigy. Despite the amount of child prodigies – no less back then as today, or further back in Mozart’s time – very few of them continue their careers into adulthood and achieve lasting success. Saint-Saens was aware of his ability to compose at will, and even saw the limitations of it: “I compose music as a tree produces apples.” 

At the same time, many of his works became accepted within his lifetime, and he has a large amount of pieces in the core repertoire: Symphony #3 “Organ,” Piano Concerto #2, Violin Concerto #3, Cello Concerto #1, Carnival of Animals (posthumously published), Danse Macabre, Violin Sonata #1, and Samson et Delilah with its hit song still occasionally gets produced today.

Nobody sounds like Saint-Saens either, even though he owes a lot to many other composers. He is still unique, I find the string sonority in his orchestral pieces to have a certain quality, but I can’t put words to it. Perhaps it is that combination of paring things down but still achieving a richness of sound? Of knowing how to use his resources to the max, and not having a need to overdo things.

Undoubtedly the older Saint-Saens was an arrogant and bitter man, attacking not only younger composers but also venting spleen at Brahms, Richard Strauss and even Franck and d’Indy, whose music he had championed earlier. Perhaps personal tragedies such as the death of his children, breakup of his marriage, and his closet homosexuality added to his sense of isolation and despair (apart from just getting old?). His days as a composer with new things to say more or less dried up by 1900, nevertheless his late chamber music has its admirers, and he continued working as a concert pianist until his final days.

Saint-Saens attracted withering criticism in his older years, including Romain Rolland (an ally of Debussy) who said that his music was “more or less dead – deader than Mendelssohn - and perhaps even deader than Brahms.” The English critic Runciman went against the grain of those in the UK, where Saint-Saens tended to be very popular, in saying that “Saint-Saens…has written more rubbish than anyone I can think of. It is the worst, most rubbishy kind of rubbish.”

Countering the oft-levelled charge of lack of emotional profundity in his music in late life, Saint-Saens wrote “Just as there are many mansions in our Father’s house, so there are many in Apollo’s. Art is vast. The artist has a perfect right to descend to the nethermost depths and to enter into the inner secrets of the soul, but this right is not a duty…the rose with its fresh colour and its perfume, is, in its way, as precious as the sturdy oak.”

Accounts of Saint-Saens in his younger days portray him as being witty and with a quick sense of humour. His party trick was being able to play any of Beethoven’s sonatas on demand from memory. He also did a bit of cross dressing in private soirees. The musicians he worked with in his prime read like a who’s who – not only Liszt and Wagner but also Berlioz, Gounod, Ferdinand Hiller, Sarasate. Cambridge awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Music, along with Tchaikovksy, Grieg and Boito. 

I can think of no other musician of Saint-Saens’ generation – apart from the organist-composer Widor who lived into his nineties – whose career saw so many dramatic changes in music. Its something like 75 years, from the mid 19th century to the 1920’s.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> And let's not forget Debussy made some comments on others music that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny today. Like the famous quip about Grieg's music being nothing but iced bon bons. He was distancing himself from Grieg....


" "Debussy wrote for a variety of publications as Monsieur Croche. [He] described Grieg's music rather affectionately as "pink bonbons filled with snow." "

Since you stand in to give a proper history and perspective, I thought it might be good if you got that one right... it seems you've misunderstood and stood it quite upside down.

BTW, Debussy had quite the sweet tooth, and he loved pastries.

Best regards.


----------



## ArtMusic

Sid James said:


> I've preprepared this post with more info on Saint-Saens. Again, it will be my last post here, I'm not getting into conflicts here and I'm sick of them. I want to shed a more positive and balanced light on Saint-Saens' contribution to music, a composer who I did my fair share of criticising in the distant past. Again, I am glad to do this, but I spent an hour on this so I'm saying to my detractors give me a break. I hope though it offers something to other readers. The result is the same as in other threads I've done this - I ask myself why am I doing it, and again it is because I think that history is important.
> 
> It is clear to me after doing some research that Saint-Saens was interested in hearing new music in his latter years, even though his reaction to it was largely negative. Stravinsky said that Saint-Saens stayed in his seat to the end of the premiere of The Rite of Spring, which suggests that he listened to a whole piece and tried to give it some justice. He also attended the premieres of works by Schoenberg and Prokofiev. Of Richard Strauss' Salome, Saint-Saens observed how "from time to time the cruellest discords are succeeded by exquisite suavities that caress the ear with delight."
> 
> Earlier Saint-Saens was in the heady mix that was Paris in the mid to late 19th century. The music of Bellini, Mendelssohn and Schumann was new, and he went to premieres of those. The Société Nationale de Musique which he founded in 1871 arranged the performance of music by Franck, D'Indy, Ravel and others. Despite the famous quote by (or attributed to?) Ravel about Saint-Saens and howitzer rifles, Ravel admired Saint-Saens music, and shared in common with him a sense of elegance and emotional detachment in his music. Honegger was another admirer.
> 
> Could it be that Saint-Saens' tendency to eschew the high drama and emotion of the likes of Liszt and Wagner was something that looked forward to aspects of Modern era music as well as back to the classical era and older traditions? His tendency towards restraint in an era of excess is shown in a number of works, one of my favourites is his Cello Concerto #1, where he uses a chamber orchestra looking back to Classicism but also incorporating the thematic unity found in concertos of Beethoven and Liszt.
> 
> Tovey said the Cello Concerto was "pure and brilliant without putting on chastity as a garment, and without calling attention to its jewellery at a banquet of poor relations." Given this, it could be that Saint-Saens was less a man of the 19th century having more in common with the 18th century and early 20th century Neo-Classicism, especially in terms of his tendency for low key emotion or outright detachment and emphasis on technical craftsmanship and refinement.
> 
> Saint-Saens was amazingly prolific, and started as a child prodigy. Despite the amount of child prodigies - no less back then as today, or further back in Mozart's time - very few of them continue their careers into adulthood and achieve lasting success. Saint-Saens was aware of his ability to compose at will, and even saw the limitations of it: "I compose music as a tree produces apples."
> 
> At the same time, many of his works became accepted within his lifetime, and he has a large amount of pieces in the core repertoire: Symphony #3 "Organ," Piano Concerto #2, Violin Concerto #3, Cello Concerto #1, Carnival of Animals (posthumously published), Danse Macabre, Violin Sonata #1, and Samson et Delilah with its hit song still occasionally gets produced today.
> 
> Nobody sounds like Saint-Saens either, even though he owes a lot to many other composers. He is still unique, I find the string sonority in his orchestral pieces to have a certain quality, but I can't put words to it. Perhaps it is that combination of paring things down but still achieving a richness of sound? Of knowing how to use his resources to the max, and not having a need to overdo things.
> 
> Undoubtedly the older Saint-Saens was an arrogant and bitter man, attacking not only younger composers but also venting spleen at Brahms, Richard Strauss and even Franck and d'Indy, whose music he had championed earlier. Perhaps personal tragedies such as the death of his children, breakup of his marriage, and his closet homosexuality added to his sense of isolation and despair (apart from just getting old?). His days as a composer with new things to say more or less dried up by 1900, nevertheless his late chamber music has its admirers, and he continued working as a concert pianist until his final days.
> 
> Saint-Saens attracted withering criticism in his older years, including Romain Rolland (an ally of Debussy) who said that his music was "more or less dead - deader than Mendelssohn - and perhaps even deader than Brahms." The English critic Runciman went against the grain of those in the UK, where Saint-Saens tended to be very popular, in saying that "Saint-Saens…has written more rubbish than anyone I can think of. It is the worst, most rubbishy kind of rubbish."
> 
> Countering the oft-levelled charge of lack of emotional profundity in his music in late life, Saint-Saens wrote "Just as there are many mansions in our Father's house, so there are many in Apollo's. Art is vast. The artist has a perfect right to descend to the nethermost depths and to enter into the inner secrets of the soul, but this right is not a duty…the rose with its fresh colour and its perfume, is, in its way, as precious as the sturdy oak."
> 
> Accounts of Saint-Saens in his younger days portray him as being witty and with a quick sense of humour. His party trick was being able to play any of Beethoven's sonatas on demand from memory. He also did a bit of cross dressing in private soirees. The musicians he worked with in his prime read like a who's who - not only Liszt and Wagner but also Berlioz, Gounod, Ferdinand Hiller, Sarasate. Cambridge awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Music, along with Tchaikovksy, Grieg and Boito.
> 
> I can think of no other musician of Saint-Saens' generation - apart from the organist-composer Widor who lived into his nineties - whose career saw so many dramatic changes in music. Its something like 75 years, from the mid 19th century to the 1920's.


That was a very enjoyable, Sid. Thank you for posting.


----------



## Woodduck

Nice perspective on an interesting man. Thanks, Sid.


----------



## science

PetrB said:


> " "Debussy wrote for a variety of publications as Monsieur Croche. [He] described Grieg's music rather affectionately as "pink bonbons filled with snow." "
> 
> Since you stand in to give a proper history and perspective, I thought it might be good if you got that one right... it seems you've misunderstood and stood it quite upside down.
> 
> BTW, Debussy had quite the sweet tooth, and he loved pastries.
> 
> Best regards.


Are you completely sure that was meant as praise? It doesn't sound like praise, and, although that line seems to appear every fourth or fifth time someone mentions Grieg's music, I've never seen it cited as praise.


----------



## PetrB

science said:


> Are you completely sure that was meant as praise? It doesn't sound like praise, and, although that line seems to appear every fourth or fifth time someone mentions Grieg's music, I've never seen it cited as praise.


It is akin to Stravinsky's comment on Sibelius, whose music he admired, if not in a passionate manner, i.e. he liked that quality he found in it which he called, "Something Italianate gone north."

I'm fairly certain Debussy was most specifically thinking of the Lyric Pieces, fine miniatures, and that salon type miniature 'sweet,' yet with that cooler northern trait in it which does generally tend to 'run' through the Scandinavians and Sibelius, as a local accent or particular approach to their writing. And of course it was meant affectionately and to bring a smile at the same time.

Sweet, outwardly, with a pleasantly surprising cool interior.

Hey, its lay talk for the general reader. Talk like many do, not a rapture on theoretical procedures. Analogue lingo is all that is left in that case, and having read the collected writings of our "Monsieur Croche," I can guarantee you there is no mistaking when Debussy wants to take a swipe or slice out of something, and "Pink bon-bons filled with snow" is not any of those clear negatives.


----------



## science

PetrB said:


> It is akin to Stravinsky's comment on Sibelius, whose music he admired, if not in a passionate manner, i.e. he liked that quality he found in it which he called, "Something Italianate gone north."
> 
> I'm fairly certain Debussy was most specifically thinking of the Lyric Pieces, fine miniatures, and that salon type miniature 'sweet,' yet with that cooler northern trait in it which does generally tend to 'run' through the Scandinavians and Sibelius, as a local accent or particular approach to their writing. And of course it was meant affectionately and to bring a smile at the same time.
> 
> Sweet, outwardly, with a pleasantly surprising cool interior.
> 
> Hey, its lay talk for the general reader. Talk like many do, not a rapture on theoretical procedures. Analogue lingo is all that is left in that case, and having read the collected writings of our "Monsieur Croche," I can guarantee you there is no mistaking when Debussy wants to take a swipe or slice out of something, and "Pink bon-bons filled with snow" is not any of those clear negatives.


Unpersuaded, I looked for the context. "Strange and delightful" is a good start, but it seems that everyone takes it as "dismissive," "disparaging," "sniping," or "cruel" or something along those lines. The essay from which it is taken evidently begins by noting that Grieg took the "wrong" (from Debussy's POV) side of the Dreyfus Affair, about which Debussy seemed to feel strongly - probably not a likely way to start an essay of praise. I did find one person (the author of a book about Ellington) who claimed that Debussy only "pretended to hate" Grieg.

I suspect it is to Grieg's credit that Debussy couldn't find a meaner thing to say, though I can't quite bring myself to see Debussy meaning it as anything but "faint praise," with which we know what is done.


----------



## Guest

It would be a big help to let us know where you found "the context." 

And where you found the snippets from "everyone." We have numerous examples of people right here at TC taking neutral observations or gentle advice or even simple praise and playing back as dismissive or disparaging or sniping or cruel or something along those lines. And there are also numerous examples outside the world of TC of different news broadcasters using the same words or phrases to describe this or that event, as if all they can do is parrot.

It would also be nice to know who that "one person" is. (In which of the many books about Ellington?)

And what is the justification for the assumption that Debussy was trying to be as mean as possible?

Without any of that information, which would be simple to supply, unpersuaded is what all of us now must of necessity be about your position.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> Could it be that Saint-Saëns' tendency to eschew the high drama and emotion of the likes of Liszt and Wagner was something that looked forward to aspects of Modern era music as well as back to the classical era and older traditions?.


Sid, when you drop the polemic and collate and present the facts in this manner, it is very smooth and admirable writing, and then as an article what is there speaks very well for itself. And a rounded portrait it is too. Lop off the first paragraph, of course, and you have a fine and tersely complete thing!

I would only caution you to question the above paragraph quoted, because I think it is questionable, i.e.

Chopin (1810 - 1849) was a hard core classicist, played Bach as his regular daily workout, assigned it to his pupils, and he also revered Mozart, whose music he also assigned to his pupils. That he has been performed very differently, i.e. distorted out of that classical clarity, with far too much rubato and pedal until only very recently has given many a false impression of what he was about and his 'style.' Saint-Saëns (1835 -1921) was also a classicist, opting as you've well noted for clarity and restraint. The upshot is none of this was really a pre-cursor of later neoclassicism, which got its initiation via Stravinsy's _Pulcinella_ in 1920, and was dubbed neoclassical by yet again, a critic or journalist, but more a simple fact that some composers in a continuum from Mozart to the present have been more innately inclined toward the Apollonian aesthetic view of music vs. the Dionysian -- the early ballets included, Stravinsky (1882 - 1971) was a classicist. Along with Beethoven (1770-1827), forever a one-man controversy and oscillation between both poles; there was Schubert (1797 - 1828) prominently of a classicist stripe; Mendelssohn (1809 -1847) is exactly another of those classicists, as also was Debussy. Stravinsky also a classicist, introduced and set the modern neoclassical style, while 'classicism' has been steadily manifest since Mozart.

A very finely written, matter of fact presentation tying in a good deal from any number of sources, delivered cool, therefore highly effective. Congratulations.


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## tdc

I've read that Debussy and Ravel could be fairly dismissive of Grieg, all though they did like some of his music and he had some influence on them - apparently Debussy's String Quartet was modelled after Grieg's.


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## PetrB

science said:


> Unpersuaded, I looked for the context. "Strange and delightful" is a good start, but it seems that everyone takes it as "dismissive," "disparaging," "sniping," or "cruel" or something along those lines. The essay from which it is taken evidently begins by noting that Grieg took the "wrong" (from Debussy's POV) side of the Dreyfus Affair, about which Debussy seemed to feel strongly - probably not a likely way to start an essay of praise. I did find one person (the author of a book about Ellington) who claimed that Debussy only "pretended to hate" Grieg.
> 
> I suspect it is to Grieg's credit that Debussy couldn't find a meaner thing to say, though I can't quite bring myself to see Debussy meaning it as anything but "faint praise," with which we know what is done.


If that essay was not directly from The collection of essays by "Monsieur Croche," you can bet your bippy that your found source has its own agenda.

All great deities on toast man, sometimes non effusive praise is duly given, and is neither cutting or slighting but apposite. He was writing of a composer really still most highly regarded as a miniaturist.

Debussy said what he said, it was thought and written in French, in an era, with a context, thought to be moderate but wholly good praise and with a bit of expected wit in it. Read the rest of _Mr. Croche_ and you will find Debussy less subtle than an elephant trumpeting FFFF while running through a china shop when he wants to cut, and you will also find that he rarely praises anything or anyone to the skies.

Do what you will, you are clearly to me a socio-political contextualist first, and interested in the actual music or composers as artists last. It really makes me wonder if you've found the right forum to meet your truer personal interests.


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## Blancrocher

For those interested, many of Debussy's remarks about Grieg (and others) are available online. Here are some of his "Monsieur Croche" contributions:

https://archive.org/stream/monsieurcrochean00debu/monsieurcrochean00debu_djvu.txt

What he says about Grieg is far from adulatory, but pretty typical of musical journalism of the time.

Unfortunately the selection, made by Debussy himself, is incomplete (and doesn't include the bonbon quote, for example), but it gives a sense of his style. The rest has been published elsewhere, of course. This looks like it's probably a good edition: http://www.amazon.com/Debussy-Music...212&sr=8-1&keywords=debussy+critical+writings


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## Richannes Wrahms

What Debussy cultivated, call it as you want to call it, I take it with me every time I listen and no Saint-Third-tier-Elephant is taking that away.


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## gregorx

Saint-Saëns wasn't highly regarded in his homeland by the time Debussy hit it big. He was okay, but he never did anything that I would call ground breaking. He was a child prodigy that wasn't the Mozart of his generation. He must have hated Debussy.


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## fbjim

I have to say that I'm delighted this thread got bumped, if only for that long post about Saint-Saens on the last page. He was no revolutionary, but he wrote some fabulous music that I've enjoyed- and I've actually performed, and loved the first cello concerto, though I imagine it wasn't a particularly good performance, since I was 14 years old. 

If not all of it was progressive, or adventurous- he had a very good sense of melody, and that's not something that can be faked.


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## hammeredklavier

PetrB said:


> Chopin (1810 - 1849) was a hard core classicist, played Bach as his regular daily workout, assigned it to his pupils, and he also revered Mozart, whose music he also assigned to his pupils.


As for Mozart, Niecks had already observed (II, p. 189) that no pupil (except Mikuli) claimed to have worked with Chopin on any Mozart compositions . The gap is puzzling ; could the veneration in which Chopin held Mozart have prevented him from entrusting Mozart's music to his own students - was he afraid his pupils would betray its stylistic purity? - or alternatively, might all his pupils except Mikuli simply have forgotten to mention Mozart? It is difficult to answer. On the other hand we know that Chopin listened respectfully to the remarks of Camille Pleyel, who had learnt the Viennese tradition from his father. Legouvé (I, p.375) relates a little-known statement: 'Chopin often said, "There is only one man today who knows how to play Mozart, that's Pleyel, and when he feels like playing a duet sonata with me, it's a lesson for me."'
< Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by His Pupils / Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, ‎Roy Howat · 1986 / P.136 >

I can see why you see Chopin as a "hardcore classicist"; I wonder what other kinds of music he would have given us if he lived longer. I don't necessarily think he was "heading" in a direction towards Debussy, Scriabin: 



https://www.talkclassical.com/69890-chopin-partimento-how-did.html#post2013394


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