# Neurosis or Emotional Power in Post-Classical Music?



## Common Listener (Apr 6, 2019)

A couple of comments in other threads made frequently recurring thoughts recur yet again. For one of them, in Current Listening, a nuanced take on Mahler had, among its negative parts, the idea that the music was neurotic. I don't want to name the poster (though he's perfectly welcome to name himself) because I'm distorting the thought by only taking a part of it and going elsewhere with it.  But I've noticed the same thing, myself: a lot of post-classical music strikes me as neurotic - rather than a truly powerful fortissimo and truly graceful pianissimo, it seems to settle into or veer wildly between bombast and weakness. (The disintegration of "structure" may be related.) People like Brahms and Dvorak (and a few others such as Rimsky-Korsakov, at least sometimes) seem to create something colorful, dynamic, and powerful and (for their time) modern without succumbing to this. I'm not really wanting to have a "composer fight" and pit Brahms and Mahler against each other or anything but I'm just using them as examples and hoping they're more helpful than harmful. Basically, I don't have much more to add myself and was just curious about listening to people's thoughts on the general idea of whether there was an increase in "neurotic" music (whatever exact term you'd use) and why this is or the important characteristics of it or whatever.

(And this isn't a notion I'm wedded to, either - it seems that way to me at this point but maybe I'm wrong and hearing things as "neurotic" that are really something else. This isn't an "I've got a point to prove" thread, but an "I'm curious about a notion" thread.)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

To use way more generalization than is probably warranted, the evolution of art music from 1600 to 1800 principally involved music dedicated to 1) God, and 2) genteel living as expected by the aristocracy (royalty, upper classes). Those were who paid for music and what was expected in return. Composers, always mindful of feeding families, obliged. The prevalent zeitgeist from the end of the eighteenth century involved collapsing social orders (French Revolution, Enlightenment, etc.) and a sort of democratization of music that allowed composers more latitude to express their individual personalities and also broadened the horizons of what one was allowed to express, in part with the aim of putting (paid) fannies in seats. This gave composers who were so inclined permission to express semi-neurotic (Symphonie Fantastique, Der Freischutz) and fully neurotic (much of Mahler) emotional states that titillated no-longer-completely-genteel/religious audiences. But that was still up to the individual composer and his innate personality. It was a matter of the loosening up of the composers' license (and wasn't a feature of only music, but of all the arts).


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

If one considers the (no longer officially used in the medical community) term neurosis to be, as one source terms it, "a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviour, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality," one might legitimately consider that the condition was a prerequisite for every Romantic era artist. In fact, it seems that the more neurotic the artist proved to be, the better his art and his reputation today. Maybe that what truly distinguishes the first tier from the second and third tiers -- that sense of being neurotic.

I make this statement contemplating not just composers, but also poets and dramatists and painters and stage designers. Non-neurotic folks turn to the trades, or to safe professions like banking and accountancy. They tend to be more interested in making money than making art. One has to be a bit at a loss with the touch of reality in order to possess the imagination necessary for an artist. Grave sanity is the enemy of artistic creation. I'll choose neurosis any day.

Can one even enjoy art if he or she is not somewhat neurotic? I'm not sure. But the gravely sane folks that I know seem rather dull where the artistic passions are involved.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

^Stop romanticizing mental disorders, they don't help anyone make art, if anything they make you LESS productive, less focused on your art, and less in touch with your emotions.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

MarkW said:


> To use way more generalization than is probably warranted, the evolution of art music from 1600 to 1800 principally involved music dedicated to 1) God, and 2) genteel living as expected by the aristocracy (royalty, upper classes). Those were who paid for music and what was expected in return. Composers, always mindful of feeding families, obliged. The prevalent zeitgeist from the end of the eighteenth century involved collapsing social orders (French Revolution, Enlightenment, etc.) and a sort of democratization of music that allowed composers more latitude to express their individual personalities and also broadened the horizons of what one was allowed to express, in part with the aim of putting (paid) fannies in seats. This gave composers who were so inclined permission to express semi-neurotic (Symphonie Fantastique, Der Freischutz) and fully neurotic (much of Mahler) emotional states that titillated no-longer-completely-genteel/religious audiences. But that was still up to the individual composer and his innate personality. It was a matter of the loosening up of the composers' license (and wasn't a feature of only music, but of all the arts).


Have to remember that in the USA 'fannies' means something quite different from the UK.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Boychev said:


> ^Stop romanticizing mental disorders, they don't help anyone make art, if anything they make you LESS productive, less focused on your art, and less in touch with your emotions.


Worth repeating ... so here it is again!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

as MarkW and Sonnet CLV said, the expression of neurosis is a big part of art and not just music. Like there are painters like El Greco, Goya, Munch, Van Gogh and all the modern expressionist painters, in music there are pieces of music that express neurosis and it's not a negative aspect since art is about expression. 
And I'd say that it's a thing that even predates the romantic era. I think that for instance the music of a Gesualdo in its restless chromaticism had already a component of neurosis.

And obviously it's a huge part of the music/art/movies/literature/architecture of the twentieth century.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ While disagreeing that neurotic and neurosis are even close to being the right terms - neurotic behaviour is usually hard to empathise with, for a start, so presumably neurotic music would be the same (or, if the intention is to refer to neurotic composers, then there are hundreds of examples through the history of music) - I agree that the quality you are choosing to call "neurotic" can be found in the art of any era. But I did wonder, when reading the OP, what music Common Listener has in mind in demonstrating a change towards neuroticism between classical and "post-classical" music (or what he - ? - means by this term).


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The _Zeitgeist_ has much--almost everything--to do with the increasing "neuroses" of the arts in the West. The Enlightenment took away both God and the sanctity of the social order from the class of Given Truths about the world.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

The contrast between Dvořák and Mahler is good. Dvořák is a non-neurotic composer, Mahler is higly neurotic. This is how I feel it, but I cannot really express why, because it is just a feeling. Maybe because Mahler made all the music about himself, including his 9th symphony, which is like his authobiography, and also because of frequent themes of funeral and military marches. On the other hand, Dvořák kept his own persona away from his music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Let's get some perspective here. "Neurosis" is simply anxiety. Mahler had a lot more to be neurotic about at the turn of the century with World Wars I and II to follow, than Brahms did. Artists are the "antennae" of society, and will always pick up & reflect any changes which occur. Basically, the whole world went into spasms and nearly destroyed itself, so why blame Mahler for being "neurotic?" At least he didn't drop a friggin' atomic bomb on anybody.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Let's get some perspective here. "Neurosis" is simply anxiety. Mahler had a lot more to be neurotic about at the turn of the century with World Wars I and II to follow, than Brahms did. Artists are the "antennae" of society, and will always pick up & reflect any changes which occur. Basically, the whole world went into spasms and nearly destroyed itself, so why blame Mahler for being "neurotic?" At least he didn't drop a friggin' atomic bomb on anybody.


The whole Austro-Hungarian empire in Mahler's time was pretty decadent and nearing its end. It is no wonder that the 2nd Viennese school was born there. If Mahler was neurotic, then Schoenberg was psychotic.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_...a nuanced take on Mahler had, among its negative parts, the idea that the music was neurotic...I've noticed the same thing, myself: a lot of post-classical music strikes me as neurotic._

I wouldn't be concerned about labels someone may put on music. A lot people said Wagner's music was neurotic, too. And many others even worse.

When I performed Beethoven's Missa Solemnis there is a difficult patch near the end my director described to me as the "mental illness" section of the music. Yet I don't find most people saying Beethoven's music is mentally ill or projects such.

I also wouldn't accept anyone's description of music as neurotic to necessarily be negative. I know music from other composers, Allan Pettersosn and Mirolslav Kabelas among them, to project what seems to me to be great unhappiness and confusion. Were they unhappy and/or confused and presenting that in their music? There is some evidence to support that in the case of Kabelas whose wife was murdered by communists in Czechoslovakia and whose music was constrained by government edict.

A recent New York Times story on the development of music from Beethoven forward indicates the volume level in music constantly became greater from about the time of Beethoven's Wellington's Victory in 1813 through our time, in part because instruments became louder.

The Second Viennese School in the early 20th century, more than anything else, changed the emotional temperature of music. In some ways they made it OK to profess what one might think of as negative emotional traits in music. So there is the combination of increased volume and what one may think of as the acceptance of negative emotions in classical muisc.

Surely people can find earlier examples but music in the 20th century of airplanes, automobiles and two world wars sounded much different than it ever had before ... to the point sound worlds themselves either replaced or accompanied the traditional ideas of music. To me, this indicates a natural progression akin to the ratings system put in place for film about 1970 that allowed nudity, graphic violence, language and other attributes not earlier seen on celluloid.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Interesting that many can assign the term "neurotic" to works and composers with some certainty ... but what does the term mean to them. It is a term (an outdated one) from psychiatry to describe people and behaviour that is negative, often unpleasant and harmful (including to the perpetrator's effectiveness). Please can someone tell me how this word is being used to describe music in this thread. My sense is that it is not a term I would apply to music I liked or respected but I am not sure most posts here are using it to condemn music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Interesting that many can assign the term "neurotic" to works and composers with some certainty ... but what does the term mean to them. It is a term (an outdated one) from psychiatry to describe people and behaviour that is negative, often unpleasant and harmful (including to the perpetrator's effectiveness). Please can someone tell me how this word is being used to describe music in this thread. My sense is that it is not a term I would apply to music I liked or respected but I am not sure most posts here are using it to condemn music.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis



> _"Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations"_
> 
> "According to C. George Boeree, professor emeritus at Shippensburg University, the symptoms of neurosis may involve:
> 
> ...


 music, literature, art, cinema, even architecture can express those things in a way or another. And an artistic expression of those things (that are part of the complexity of our world) is not necessarily a bad thing, and actually has produced a lot of things of great value.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Interesting that many can assign the term "neurotic" to works and composers with some certainty ... but what does the term mean to them. It is a term (an outdated one) from psychiatry to describe people and behaviour that is negative, often unpleasant and harmful (including to the perpetrator's effectiveness). Please can someone tell me how this word is being used to describe music in this thread. My sense is that it is not a term I would apply to music I liked or respected but I am not sure most posts here are using it to condemn music.


not fully sane, unbalanced, emotionally unhealthy, a mild form a mental ilness.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nowadays, thanks to people like Dr. Phil and TV shows like "Criminal Minds," terms like "neurotic" and "sociopath" and "narcissist" are being thrown around on social media with increasing frequency. It's bogus!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Nowadays, thanks to people like Dr. Phil and TV shows like "Criminal Minds," terms like "neurotic" and "sociopath" and "narcissist" are being thrown around on social media with increasing frequency. It's bogus!


why? You don't think that sociopathy or narcissism exist or do you mean something else?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis
> 
> music, literature, art, cinema, even architecture can express those things in a way or another. And an artistic expression of those things (that are part of the complexity of our world) is not necessarily a bad thing, and actually has produced a lot of things of great value.


Sorry but I am none the wiser. I am well aware of the theories and practices of clinical psychologists that you quote. But they refer to dysfunctions so presumably "neurotic music" is dysfunctional and fails to deliver something healthy and of value. I do accept that "neurotic composers" might still make great music but aside from the use of the term neurotic to describe them such composers have always been with us. Surely Mozart was neurotic, for example.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Sorry but I am none the wiser. I am well aware of the theories and practices of clinical psychologists that you quote. But they refer to dysfunctions so presumably "neurotic music" is dysfunctional and fails to deliver something healthy and of value.


so do you think that Van Gogh's paintings are worthless?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> why? You don't think that sociopathy or narcissism exist or do you mean something else?


These conditions might exist and yet be misrepresented in popular culture. But it is one thing applying such terms to people and quite another to apply it to works of art.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> These conditions might exist and yet be misrepresented in popular culture. But it is one thing applying such terms to people and quite another to apply it to works of art.


I replied but I think it was a bit confused, so I'll try again.

we were talking of art that can express neurosis, which is a different thing. I just replied to Millionrainbows about sociopathy and narcissism but that's a completely different argument.

You said " that "neurotic music" is dysfunctional and fails to deliver something healthy and of value." But that's like saying that the expression of the interior world of an artist (what expressionist artists tried to do) isn't worthless and the only art that has some value is the one that is still tied to classical values of balance, form, purity, calm.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Sorry but I am none the wiser. I am well aware of the theories and practices of clinical psychologists that you quote. But they refer to dysfunctions so presumably "neurotic music" is dysfunctional and fails to deliver something healthy and of value. I do accept that "neurotic composers" might still make great music but aside from the use of the term neurotic to describe them such composers have always been with us. Surely Mozart was neurotic, for example.


Music expresses feelings and we feel those feelings while listening to the music. When I listen to Mahler, I find the music full of unbalanced emotions. Just listen to the 9th symphony. It is full of anxiety and unpleasant feelings, alongside the melancholic and bittersweet. I would not describe the music of Mahler as joyful or happy (unlike Dvořák, whom I would describe as joyful composer). That is why I used the term neurotic to characterize his music. It is simply an expression of the feelings I feel when I listen to Mahler.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> I'm definitely applying it to art obviously.
> View attachment 134580


That illustrates my point. It seems to be the case that Van Gogh was a misfit and a sad and very neurotic man but there is nothing neurotic about that painting - indeed it is a very honest self portrait. My point has been that the term neurotic (flawed though the concept is) can be applied to people but not to good or great art. If we are applying it to artists then there is nothing new (or "post-classical" to use the OP's term) about artists being neurotic. A good proportion of artists from any period could fit the term.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Sorry but I am none the wiser. I am well aware of the theories and practices of clinical psychologists that you quote. But they refer to dysfunctions so presumably "neurotic music" is dysfunctional and fails to deliver something healthy and of value. I do accept that "neurotic composers" might still make great music but aside from the use of the term neurotic to describe them such composers have always been with us. Surely Mozart was neurotic, for example.


and BTW, there is another composer you like (you mentioned it if I rembember correctly), that I would describe as very neurotic - Allan Pettersson. Listen to the symphony 6, it is like a landscape full existential pain. It does not mean that it is bad music. It is first class music, just like with Mahler. Nobody would doubt his genius as a composer and the great quality of the music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> Music expresses feelings and we feel those feelings while listening to the music. When I listen to Mahler, I find the music full of unbalanced emotions. Just listen to the 9th symphony. It is full of anxiety and unpleasant feelings, alongside the melancholic and bittersweet. I would not describe the music of Mahler as joyful or happy (unlike Dvořák, whom I would describe as joyful composer). That is why I used the term neurotic to characterize his music. It is simply an expression of the feelings I feel when I listen to Mahler.


Thank you for addressing my main point. But are you sure that the emotions we feel when we listen to music are the same feelings that the composer was experiencing? I suppose we could never know for sure. As for Mahler - I do not agree at all that his music is neurotic, despite the qualities you list. It might deal with melancholy and anxious feelings but it isn't made up of them. Rather, if such feelings are portrayed in the music (a very big if) then they are not simply laid out for us to recognise or be appalled by. They are processed and .... resolved. Mahler's greatness lies partly in his ability to deal with huge contradictory elements and to meld them into something awesome, coherent and satisfying. I find nothing neurotic in the music and probably wouldn't enjoy it very much if I did. I do not think the contrast between Dvorak and Mahler is about one producing happy works while the other producing unhappy neurotic pieces. It's partly about a different period in history and each living in very different environments as well as the two composer's different personalities and talents.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> That illustrates my point. It seems to be the case that Van Gogh was a misfit and a sad and very neurotic man but there is nothing neurotic about that painting - indeed it is a very honest self portrait.


I edited my comment because I think it was confused but in any case there's a component of neurosis in that painting. Does air in reality show that undulated movement that he's painting? Do you think it was just a simple decoration? Van Gogh was considered and rightly so one of the first expressionists, and those lines are a way to express his interior torment. Sure it's honest, but it honestly shows that to the viewer.

But maybe that was subtle? What about this super famous one:









do you think it's just a "honest portrait" or it's an expression of anguish and torment?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> and BTW, there is another composer you like (you mentioned it if I rembember correctly), that I would describe as very neurotic - Allan Pettersson. Listen to the symphony 6, it is like a landscape full existential pain. It does not mean that it is bad music. It is first class music, just like with Mahler. Nobody would doubt his genius as a composer and the great quality of the music.


Yes - I was thinking of Pettersson. A lot of his music (but not the best) does sound somewhat neurotic to me, too. I think he often failed to fully sublimate his pain and misery into satisfying, uplifting and resolved music. I think though that the 6th is a good symphony and one where he succeeded in avoiding producing a "neurotic piece".


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> I edited my comment because I think it was confused but in any case there's a component of neurosis in that painting. Does air in reality show that undulated movement that he's painting? Do you think it was just a simple decoration? Van Gogh was considered and rightly so one of the first expressionists, and those lines are a way to express his interior torment. Sure it's honest, but it honestly shows that to the viewer.
> 
> But maybe that was subtle? What about this super famous one:
> 
> View attachment 134584


I don't think it is about a divergence from (photo-)realism. Of course, most figurative art tells us a truth by getting underneath its subject, by showing up some aspects and downplaying others. And, yes, Van Gogh is portraying his inner torment. None of that means the work is neurotic ... even if its subject is partly his own neurosis.

I thought The Scream would come up soon! Again, it depicts feelings and that it not the same as being them. It is a massively successful painting - one of the most famous in the world - because it takes that feeling, analyses it and then encapsulates it in a thing of undoubted beauty. The feeling is sublimated (a Freudian term, I think).


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I don't think it is about a divergence from (photo-)realism. Of course, most figurative art tells us a truth by getting underneath its subject, by showing up some aspects and downplaying others. And, yes, Van Gogh is portraying his inner torment. None of that means the work is neurotic ... even if its subject is partly his own neurosis.


A neurotic person is showing through his art his neurosis and still the work isn't neurotic?



Enthusiast said:


> I thought The Scream would come up soon! Again, it depicts feelings and that it not the same as being them. It is a massively successful painting - one of the most famous in the world - because it takes that feeling, analyses it and then encapsulates it in a thing of undoubted beauty. The feeling is sublimated (a Freudian term, I think).


again, I don't even understand what you mean. It's like you're saying "sure, the painting shows anguish, but it's not anguished" and that does not make any sense to me. I agree it's a beautiful painting (ugly beauty, to say it with Thelonious Monk) but still it's neurotic art because it expresses neurosis.

There's nothing of the sense of beauty in the classical sense of proportion, balance, perfection, calm etc of painters like Raphael. The figure hardly looks like a man. The colors are livid; the drawing is crude.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ What can I say? War is horrible but art inspired by the horror of war can be uplifting ... or at least satisfying (such as Guernica). Making a work of art about even a war crime involves transformation from the horror to something that is beautiful and powerful and yet still true. We experience and learn things about the horror but without the risk of ending up traumatised. Van Gogh's painting(s) do not make us experience neurosis and are not like being in the company of a neurotic ... even when they communicate about what it is like to be in his head. I could never think of them as neurotic paintings.

None of this has anything to do with the styles of different periods (although the styles can be shown to mirror their times) so Mozart's neuroses was presumably sublimated in the style of his day - I believe you can hear how.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Van Gogh's painting(s) do not make us experience neurosis and are not like being in the company of a neurotic ... even when they communicate about what it is like to be in his head. I could never think of them as neurotic paintings.


but the vast majority of people can see that with his art he's communicating that. Of course it's transformed in something beautiful, but still it doesn't change the fact that it's showing his interior emotion and the intensity of his torment.
And I've made the example of Van Gogh just because he's very famous, but if we consider the art of the twentieth century there's art that went much further in that direction.



Enthusiast said:


> None of this has anything to do with the styles of different periods (although the styles can be shown to mirror their times) so Mozart's neuroses was presumably sublimated in the style of his day - I believe you can hear how.


Of course it has a lot to do with style of the period, and with the ideals of that art. Classicism and expressionism have completely different goals. Mozart's music to my knowledge never wanted even to show neurosis, he was a classical composer of the classical period, looking for balance, sense of form, beauty. Schoenberg had completely other kind of goals. And the effect of their music is indeed completely different.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> These conditions might exist and yet be misrepresented in popular culture. But it is one thing applying such terms to people and quite another to apply it to works of art.


I don't think you can apply the term to anything but living, breathing creatures who have an internal emotional landscape.
People can be neurotic. Dogs can be neurotic. But a symphony? A painting? I think we are crossing Wittgenstein's caution of how we use language. Creating what appears to be a valid claim, "Mahler's music is neurotic", with the fact that a neurosis (a relatively mild mental illness) is a condition of someone's mind.

Music can not be neurotic. It could be created by a neurotic; designed to make you share their inner turmoil and confusion, allowing the listener to feel what it's like to be neurotic. That doesn't make the music or the listener neurotic. And it doesn't even follow that the composer is/was neurotic. To me, it proves how much genius was involved to create the work of art, successfully bringing me into a world I might never have known or experienced.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Joe B said:


> I don't think you can apply the term to anything but living, breathing creatures who have an internal emotional landscape.
> People can be neurotic. Dogs can be neurotic. But a symphony? A painting? I think we are crossing Wittgenstein's caution of how we use language. Creating what appears to be a valid claim, "Mahler's music is neurotic", with the fact that a neurosis (a relatively mild mental illness) is a condition of someone's mind.
> 
> Music can not be neurotic. It could be created by a neurotic; designed to make you share their inner turmoil and confusion, allowing the listener to feel what it's like to be neurotic. That doesn't make the music or the listener neurotic. And it doesn't even follow that the composer is/was neurotic. To me, it proves how much genius was involved to create the work of art, successfully bringing me into a world I might never have known or experienced.


when someone is saying that music or art is neurotic doesn't mean that you have to become a neurotic too listening to it. But just that you can understand the emotion it's communicating. And there's a lot of music and art that it's absolutely successful at that.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

norman bates said:


> when someone is saying that music or art is neurotic doesn't mean that you have to become a neurotic too listening to it. But just that you can understand the emotion it's communicating. And there's a lot of music and art that it's absolutely successful at that.


I understand what you just said, and I believe I said that as well. If you read most of the posts here, many people are using the word as an adjective to describe the art work itself. That is what my post finds in error.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Common Listener said:


> Basically, I don't have much more to add myself and was just curious about listening to people's thoughts on the general idea of whether there was an increase in "neurotic" music (whatever exact term you'd use) and why this is or the important characteristics of it or whatever.


Lost among the mumbo jumbo above is the simple question: why is there so much neurotic music nowadays? And nihilistic? Where did the idea of beauty go? Composers from the beginning of time up through 1910 lived through some pretty godawful times. Disease, war, conquest, famine, political turmoil the like of which we can't imagine. Today we have luxuries and pretty easy lives compared to our ancestors. So despite the horrible world situation in the past, composers by and large wrote music that aimed for the beautiful.

Then something changed: for two generations the goal seems to have been to see who can write the ugliest music. Some composers say it's a reflection of the times: nuclear threats, biological warfare, pollutions, etc, etc. Problems that are different, but no worse than before. So why don't they strive for the beautiful? Why don't they write music to uplift and inspire people? Well, some composers did - and got lambasted by critics and the academics out there. Movie composers sure understand it. Korngold couldn't write ugly if he had too. But so many "serious" composers can't seem to find anything elevating or beautiful. well, the angst of our era is killing fine art and not just music. So much visual art, so many plays and musicals are just depressing these days? Can't anyone find joy in life anymore?


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> Can't anyone find joy in life anymore?


Stop with the joy nonsense or I'll have you arrested. :tiphat:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> Lost among the mumbo jumbo above is the simple question: why is there so much neurotic music nowadays? And nihilistic? Where did the idea of beauty go? Composers from the beginning of time up through 1910 lived through some pretty godawful times. Disease, war, conquest, famine, political turmoil the like of which we can't imagine. Today we have luxuries and pretty easy lives compared to our ancestors. So despite the horrible world situation in the past, composers by and large wrote music that aimed for the beautiful.
> 
> Then something changed: for two generations the goal seems to have been to see who can write the ugliest music. Some composers say it's a reflection of the times: nuclear threats, biological warfare, pollutions, etc, etc. Problems that are different, but no worse than before. So why don't they strive for the beautiful? Why don't they write music to uplift and inspire people? Well, some composers did - and got lambasted by critics and the academics out there. Movie composers sure understand it. Korngold couldn't write ugly if he had too. But so many "serious" composers can't seem to find anything elevating or beautiful. well, the angst of our era is killing fine art and not just music. So much visual art, so many plays and musicals are just depressing these days? Can't anyone find joy in life anymore?


probably different reasons. For one, certain composer to be considered and accepted in the circles of serious music tended to adhere to the models of the time. Likewise in popular music obviously a lot of musicians again tend follow the trend.
But on the other hand, and maybe more importantly as Strange music said, the world saw the "death of God" and the rise of psychanalisys, that means that the foundation of a lot of values of the past and protected men by the fear of death with the promise of beyond with a heaven giving them at the same time a direction and boundaries didn't exist anymore. Media like radio and television definitely determined increased awareness of all tragedies of the world (not to mention that as you said the world saw two of the worst wars ever seen.) Horrible things happened even before the twentieth century, but I guess that people weren't literally assaulted at every turn by news like today






Personally, even if I think that we've been enriched having also that kind of art expressing negativity, anxiety, depression I'd love too to see again more beautiful and uplifting art and architecture and movies instead of just despair, neurosis etc.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

One of the most troubling of painters is Goya. His depictions of the tortures and madness of the Peninsular War are one thing; his other paintings of people strangely staring at or past one another, and then his Black Paintings such as Bandits Stabbing a Woman, which he had in his private rooms near the end of his life, all make one wonder whether he was fighting within himself between compassion and his own possible sadism. What if Goya had composed music? And would he have been as disturbed as his art suggests had he lived at any other time?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> but the vast majority of people can see that with his art he's communicating that. Of course it's transformed in something beautiful, but still it doesn't change the fact that it's showing his interior emotion and the intensity of his torment.
> And I've made the example of Van Gogh just because he's very famous, but if we consider the art of the twentieth century there's art that went much further in that direction.
> 
> Of course it has a lot to do with style of the period, and with the ideals of that art. Classicism and expressionism have completely different goals. Mozart's music to my knowledge never wanted even to show neurosis, he was a classical composer of the classical period, looking for balance, sense of form, beauty. Schoenberg had completely other kind of goals. And the effect of their music is indeed completely different.


I suspect we are not going to agree or even to understand each other's position. If I understand you correctly if an artist seeks to portray "neurosis" then they produce neurotic music even when they have succeeded in finding beauty and resolution in the resulting work? But artists who do not set out to portray "neurosis" (or misery?) do not produce neurotic works even when there is a real edge to the music? I don't agree with that, of course, but even if I did I would still not see neurotic art as a mainstay of post-classical (Mahler onwards if I understand the OP correctly) music. Van Gogh was an extreme in terms of being successfully creative while clearly suffering from very poor mental health.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I suspect we are not going to agree or even to understand each other's position. If I understand you correctly if an artist seeks to portray "neurosis" then they produce neurotic music even when they have succeeded in finding beauty and resolution in the resulting work?


if I'm able to read the emotion that the artist is trying to convey yes. And in any case I'd be careful with the use of the term "beauty". Because to many a painting like The shout is not beautiful at all, at least not in the classical sense of beauty. It has artistic value, it's expressive, it's powerful and intense, it's clever and I like to watch it. I'm not sure if that means it's "beautiful".



Enthusiast said:


> But artists who do not set out to portray "neurosis" (or misery?) do not produce neurotic works even when there is a real edge to the music?


I guess it depends, in the specific case of Mozart I can't find any trace of neurosis in something like the clarinet concerto. I'm not an expert of Mozart though and not a big fan of him, so my opinion on his music is not the most reliable.



Enthusiast said:


> I don't agree with that, of course, but even if I did I would still not see neurotic art as a mainstay of post-classical (Mahler onwards if I understand the OP correctly) music.


look, in rock music there were even very influential bands like Pere Ubu who has exactly the idea to put neurosis in music.










It happened a lot during all the century, but there were artists like them who explicitly went in that direction. It happened in rock, it happened in jazz (especially from the forties with the advent of bebop). And how it's not possible to see it in the music of Schoenberg or Barraque and actually a lot of modern classical music I don't know.



Enthusiast said:


> Van Gogh was an extreme in terms of being successfully creative while clearly suffering from very poor mental health.


yes, but even if he was completely sane I'm just talking about his art. Neurosis doesn't imply being crazy. One can be a rational, intelligent and functioning person on many levels and still convey the elements of frustration, anger, contradictions etc in his art.
I have the impression you're talking as being neurotic is something like an exception of few ill persons. I suspect that the vast majority of the population has some form of neurosis.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Here's a definition: "...neurosis, a word that has been in use since the 1700s (is/was used) to describe mental, emotional, or physical reactions that are drastic and irrational."_

To me this seems to define a lot of Mahler's music and that of many others, especially those in the 20th century.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> why? You don't think that sociopathy or narcissism exist or do you mean something else?


This is what I mean: the term "bromadrosis:"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_odor

In other words, 'sociopathy' and 'narcissism' might exist to some degree in extreme cases, but these terms are largely "made-up" as terms to justify the existence of the psychiatric industry, and are thrown around carelessly by many people to "label" others.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Jacck said:


> and BTW, there is another composer you like (you mentioned it if I rembember correctly), that I would describe as very neurotic - Allan Pettersson. Listen to the symphony 6, it is like a landscape full existential pain. It does not mean that it is bad music. It is first class music, just like with Mahler. *Nobody would doubt his genius as a composer and the great quality of the music.*


Especially Paul Best, that narcissistic sociopath we got kicked-off the forum. :lol:

I think the debate here is missing a crucial point: art is the expression of being. Therefore, when we start accusing people of being neurotic, sociopathic, and narcissistic, we are also applying that to art, since it is the expression of being. I think this distinction is overly-rational and destructive. When you look at a Van Gogh, then by God, you'd better accept him as the man he was!

This shows how this trend of psychological arm-chair name calling is starting to affect people's view on art: must art now be the product of "healthy, well-adjusted individuals"? Or can we go back to it being an expression of very "special" people who are expressing our humanity for us?

_Be careful_ of what attitudes and theories you buy into.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I hear plenty of *neurosis* in Bach's sacred music... composers were creating *tempest* music in the baroque, often implying psychosomatic connotations - that the storm is in your mind... seems to me this is a tradition, from a time when *psychoanalysis* was not the pseudo-science it is today... when people might have to be aware of their mental states without intervention, through introspection, art, philosophy etc...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> This is what I mean: the term "bromadrosis:"
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_odor
> 
> In other words, 'sociopathy' and 'narcissism' might exist to some degree in extreme cases, but these terms are largely "made-up" as terms to justify the existence of the psychiatric industry, and are thrown around carelessly by many people to "label" others.


I disagree and I think that especially the definition of psychopathy or sociopathy are very useful. Because those are terms that define lack of empathy, which could be an extremely dangerous thing especially in certain contexts. For instance, a test to allow only people that are not psychopaths to have political roles would have spared the world millions of deaths and wars (or even the advice of using disinfectant injiections to cure coronavirus).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I disagree and I think that especially the definition of psychopathy or sociopathy are very useful. Because those are terms that define lack of empathy, which could be an extremely dangerous thing especially in certain contexts. For instance, a test to allow only people that are not psychopaths to have political roles would have spared the world millions of deaths and wars (or even the advice of using disinfectant injiections to cure coronavirus).


Well, I think this politicized statement reveals a lot about your thinking.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, I think this politicized statement reveals a lot about your thinking.


My political orientation does not have anything to do with what I've said. The world has seen (and keep seeing) dangerous psychopaths who in theory were on opposite sides, like Hitler and Stalin.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> if I'm able to read the emotion that the artist is trying to convey yes. And in any case I'd be careful with the use of the term "beauty". Because to many a painting like The shout is not beautiful at all, at least not in the classical sense of beauty. It has artistic value, it's expressive, it's powerful and intense, it's clever and I like to watch it. I'm not sure if that means it's "beautiful".
> 
> I guess it depends, in the specific case of Mozart I can't find any trace of neurosis in something like the clarinet concerto. I'm not an expert of Mozart though and not a big fan of him, so my opinion on his music is not the most reliable.
> 
> ...


I'm not sure you are engaging with me or what I have said. I have been talking about how bad and ugly things can be represented in art but not (or mostly not) in their raw form. To want to make them into a work of art is not that common but when it is done it involves transforming them into something rewarding and beautiful. Note that I use the term beauty as a catch all for something that satisfies and pleases and I certainly do not want to get into a debate about what beauty means.

On your last sentence, I have no such thoughts. Perhaps everyone is a bit neurotic, I agree ... to the extent that I agree that the word really means anything precise these days. These days we use a variety of more precise terms like "depression" (which can get so extreme as to be psychotic) and all those currently fashionable character trait terms like sociopathy, psychopathy and so on, terms that currently seem useful but are not easy or even possible to diagnose.

The idea that the art of the last 100 years has been dominated by attempts to portray such conditions seems to me untrue and unhelpful. Isn't it one of those arguments that aim to show that we have departed from real music or real art? Such generalisations always fall down when examined in detail.

By the way, here is a detail from a painting based on what must have been a hallucination (i.e. a result of psychosis):


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Joe B said:


> I don't think you can apply the term to anything but living, breathing creatures who have an internal emotional landscape.
> People can be neurotic. Dogs can be neurotic. But a symphony? A painting? I think we are crossing Wittgenstein's caution of how we use language. Creating what appears to be a valid claim, "Mahler's music is neurotic", with the fact that a neurosis (a relatively mild mental illness) is a condition of someone's mind.
> Music can not be neurotic. It could be created by a neurotic; designed to make you share their inner turmoil and confusion, allowing the listener to feel what it's like to be neurotic. That doesn't make the music or the listener neurotic. And it doesn't even follow that the composer is/was neurotic. To me, it proves how much genius was involved to create the work of art, successfully bringing me into a world I might never have known or experienced.


Why not? We say that music is aggressive, sad, melancholic, joyful, cheerful etc. So why not neurotic?


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Classical musick imho is so full of neurosis and ''closet'' issues...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> ... to the extent that I agree that the word really means anything precise these days. These days we use a variety of more precise terms like "depression" (which can get so extreme as to be psychotic) and all those currently fashionable character trait terms like sociopathy, psychopathy and so on, terms that currently seem useful but are not easy or even possible to diagnose.


in the US, the word was discontinued from psychiatric use in the 1980's, probably because it carried too much psychoanalytic baggage. But 90% of the world does not use DSM-IV, but ICD-10. And the ICD-10 has a chapter called neurotic disorders
https://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2005/fr-icd.htm?gf40.htm+
so the term still exists and is still used in non-anglocentric world and comprises mostly milder forms of mental ilness such as anxiety, mild mood disorders, social anxiety disorder, various psychosomatic disorders etc.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I'm not sure you are engaging with me or what I have said. I have been talking about how bad and ugly things can be represented in art but not (or mostly not) in their raw form. To want to make them into a work of art is not that common but when it is done it involves transforming them into something rewarding and beautiful. Note that I use the term beauty as a catch all for something that satisfies and pleases and I certainly do not want to get into a debate about what beauty means.


but still there's a lot of art that (like it or not, I'm not a fan of it) doesn't even want to create something beautiful or even try to avoid it. There's art made to provoke a reaction or to illustrate a concept.



Enthusiast said:


> On your last sentence, I have no such thoughts. Perhaps everyone is a bit neurotic, I agree ... to the extent that I agree that the word really means anything precise these days. These days we use a variety of more precise terms like "depression" (which can get so extreme as to be psychotic) and all those currently fashionable character trait terms like sociopathy, psychopathy and so on, terms that currently seem useful but are not easy or even possible to diagnose.


For what I know there's a specific test to see psychopathy. And honestly, I don't think it's that hard to recognize lack of empathy.



Enthusiast said:


> The idea that the art of the last 100 years has been dominated by attempts to portray such conditions seems to me untrue and unhelpful. Isn't it one of those arguments that aim to show that we have departed from real music or real art? Such generalisations always fall down when examined in detail.


now it's clear why you were against what I'm saying. You just think that since I'm saying that a lot of modern art has tried to express negative emotions and neurosis therefore it's a negative thing and I'm covertly bashing modern art.
Actually I think it's a good thing that modern art opened to that, and in fact I love art (and music, and architecture) of the 20th century more than any other period.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ I do know something about your tastes and know that you are not interested in putting down modern music. 

For the rest ... I think we are going round in circles.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> in the US, the word was discontinued from psychiatric use in the 1980's, probably because it carried too much psychoanalytic baggage. But 90% of the world does not use DSM-IV, but ICD-10. And the ICD-10 has a chapter called neurotic disorders
> https://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2005/fr-icd.htm?gf40.htm+
> so the term still exists and is still used in non-anglocentric world and comprises mostly milder forms of mental ilness such as anxiety, mild mood disorders, social anxiety disorder, various psychosomatic disorders etc.


Yes. The precision in the term is gone and actually this is because it didn't reflect reality.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> Why not? We say that music is aggressive, sad, melancholic, joyful, cheerful etc. So why not neurotic?


They are not the same. Neurotic can mean too many things but is never a description of actions or feelings - it is more concerned with motivations and personalities. You can do something sadly or aggressively or you can feel sad or aggressive. We all know what that means. But can you be _feeling _neurotic? And what would it mean to say that Tom did something neurotically? The use of the word to describe art would be a big step backwards from the language we used before neuroses were "discovered" (or do I mean invented?).


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> They are not the same. Neurotic can mean too many things but is never a description of actions or feelings - it is more concerned with motivations and personalities. You can do something sadly or aggressively or you can feel sad or aggressive. We all know what that means. But can you be _feeling _neurotic? And what would it mean to say that Tom did something neurotically? The use of the word to describe art would be a big step backwards from the language we used before neuroses were "discovered" (or do I mean invented?).


for me, the word and its use is pretty clear. It means mental and emotional imbalance. Each of us likely experienced some form of neurosis in his life, so we can actually imagine it in other people, because we have an experience with anxiety, sadness etc. It is much harder to imagine a psychosis. So when I hear the symphonies of Mahler and experience all of these harrowing emotions they contain, the word neurotic seems fitting to me. (this does not mean the symphonies are bad, they are without doubt some of the greatest ever written)


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Jacck said:


> Why not? We say that music is aggressive, sad, melancholic, joyful, cheerful etc. So why not neurotic?


No, you are saying that, which is an anthropomorphism. You are attributing states of mind to organized sound waves. You can say all those things, but it doesn't follow that whatever is said actually means anything.

Neurotic: having, caused by, or relating to neurosis.
Neurosis: a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality.

You can say the music was written by a neurotic, that the music makes you feel neurotic, or that listening to a particular piece of music can cause the listener to experience a neurosis. But to attribute 'a state of mind' to sound makes no sense. Wittgenstein's philosophy of language has been used to dispel many so called problems in philosophy which are nothing more than verbal gibberish.

I believe many of the posts in this thread fall under this criticism.

Why do you think we are having this back and forth? Because we can not come to an agreement on the actual meaning of neurotic. It is a disagreement over semantics. The accepted definition says it refers to a mental condition. How can this then be used as an adjective to describe organized sound waves?

I am not disagreeing with what anyone is intending to say. I'm saying it's being stated incorrectly.
Neurotic music? OK, how about a neurotic rock? Or a neurotic car?

I believe you are a medical doctor? I'm sure you have corrected many patients when they try to tell you that 'such and such' caused the condition, when you know scientifically that there is only a correlation between what they said and what they have. I'm sure you are very careful with your use of 'correlation' vs 'cause', because the words are used differently and carry a very different meaning.

I am not trying to argue. I am trying to explain what I said. If what I have said doesn't make any sense to you, then just write me off. I can't figure out any other way to explain myself.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Joe B said:


> No, you are saying that, which is an anthropomorphism. You are attributing states of mind to organized sound waves. You can say all those things, but it doesn't follow that whatever is said actually means anything.
> 
> Neurotic: having, caused by, or relating to neurosis.
> Neurosis: a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality.
> ...


Technically speaking, you are of course right. But we are not writing a scientific publication here, but we are discussing the effects of art on us, which is by its nature subjective, so some imprecise language is OK. I am of course not attributing the word neurotic to organized sound waves, but to the effect the organized waves have on our subjective experience. Instead of writing each time that "Mahler's music evokes in me feelings that I would describe as neurotic", I have used a shortcut and said that "Mahler's music is neurotic"


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> for me, the word and its use is pretty clear. It means mental and emotional imbalance. Each of us likely experienced some form of neurosis in his life, so we can actually imagine it in other people, because we have an experience with anxiety, sadness etc. It is much harder to imagine a psychosis. So when I hear the symphonies of Mahler and experience all of these harrowing emotions they contain, the word neurotic seems fitting to me. (this does not mean the symphonies are bad, they are without doubt some of the greatest ever written)


I do think that psychosis is a much more precise word even if you cannot imagine suffering from it. Whatever neurosis means to you and other people it refers to a deficit, a dysfunction (as does psychosis, of course). I am not comfortable applying that diagnosis to any of Mahler's great symphonies. As you acknowledge, they are magnificent achievements, works of towering greatness. So how can they be called neurotic? Clearly they cannot. They may or may not be inspired by neurotic feelings and they may or may not remind you and some others of neurosis. But that is not the same as calling them neurotic. I think this will become more clear to you if you try to use a more precise word. You would not call a work you loved depressed or depressive because that would mean you found the work to be seriously flawed.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I do think that psychosis is a much more precise word even if you cannot imagine suffering from it. Whatever neurosis means to you and other people it refers to a deficit, a dysfunction (as does psychosis, of course). I am not comfortable applying that diagnosis to any of Mahler's great symphonies. As you acknowledge, they are magnificent achievements, works of towering greatness. So how can they be called neurotic? Clearly they cannot. They may or may not be inspired by neurotic feelings and they may or may not remind you and some others of neurosis. But that is not the same as calling them neurotic. I think this will become more clear to you if you try to use a more precise word. You would not call a work you loved depressed or depressive because that would mean you found the work to be seriously flawed.


actually I do call works I love depressive (I actually mentioned two days ago in another discussion some very depressive works, one being Peter Warlock's The curlew which is one of my favorite pieces ever written: it's a beautiful piece and a depressive one). As I call music I love neurotic. And I don't feel like I'm insulting the music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ The Curlew is certainly bleak and may indeed paint a picture of melancholy. But - you know what I'm going to say - it is a successful work of art and is not at all dysfunctional. So, forgive me, I don't think you should call it depressive.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ The Curlew is certainly bleak and may indeed paint a picture of melancholy. But - you know what I'm going to say - it is a successful work of art and is not at all dysfunctional. So, forgive me, I don't think you should call it depressive.


a few quotes from books looking ten seconds on google

"warlock recognised that the sheer weight of emotion evoked by the melancholy symbols
(the curlew, the wind, the water etc.) needed music of corresponding lenght and heaviness,
and the result is* 25 minutes of the most sublimely depressing music* and poetry imaginable,
possible the finest piece of english music written in the presente century" (C. Wilson, 2/1967)

"The curlew is ane emotionally draining experinece; Cecil Gray, to whom it was dedicated, could 
no longer listen to it after Warlocks' Suicide"

"sometimes it can be* enormously depressing as in peter warlock's the curlew*"

this one is a comment from a forum:

"But I'd start with a good selection of the songs, with or without The Curlew depending on how receptive you are to Yeatsian fin de siecle melancholy reinforced by solo cor anglais at its most depressive:winkeye:

Which is my roundabout way of suggesting that it's a great work but really not one to listen to every day. And even for occasional consumption you really need to keep your old service revolver well out of reach!"

a lot of people call it depressive and they don't mean it in a bad way.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Art can depict depression or it can cause it. But it would be a gross insult to call a successful successful work of art itself "depressed". That is my main and central point. I am not sure if you are understanding the difference.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Art can depict depression or it can cause it. But it would be a gross insult to call a successful successful work of art itself "depressed". That is my main and central point. I am not sure if you are understanding the difference.


no I don't understand your difference and it seems that a lot of people out there don't understand it either. Or better, I understand it but I disagree. I know ther are those who say that even bleak music can be uplifting and it's true in a sense.
But the curlew is a work that depicts depression and a downer and it's a beautiful work at the same time.
Calling it depressing it's not an insult but just a characteristic of the music. I've quoted a guy that calls it depressive and the finest british piece of music of the century, do you think that he meant it in a derogatory way? He's just describing what the piece is trying to convey and how it works on the mood of a listener. 
The point is that beauty it's not just simply uplifting, it can be uplifting because it's beautiful music and one can resonate with the emotion of the piece, and it can be depressing at the same time, even if it seems a contradiction, because music can have (duh) a influence on the mood.

"Hey play something happy and uplifting!"

"ok, here's the Curlew for you guys, it's uplifting because it's beautiful"


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Nowadays, thanks to people like Dr. Phil and TV shows like "Criminal Minds," terms like "neurotic" and "sociopath" and "narcissist" are being thrown around on social media with increasing frequency. It's bogus!


I dont knoiw buddy...I see more and more psychopats and sociopaths around, they came out of woodwork in last 20 years...


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Flamme said:


> I dont knoiw buddy...I see more and more psychopats and sociopaths around, they came out of woodwork in last 20 years...


. . . and narcissists. Don't forget the narcissists. They hate to be forgotten.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Yes, yes, u actually read my mind!!! I wrote on somewhere on FB how I was ''frozen'' when my ex polish gf, who was kind, caring and loving suddenly embraced some sort of psychopatic philosophy of certain ''Ayn Rand'' who plays with claims like ''empathy, altruism are EVIL''...So basically that gilr told me she CANNOT CARE 4 OTHER PPL...So basically according 2 her ''modus vivendi''', ppl MUST ONLY CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES, ALL GOODNESS IS WEAKNESS and that ********...That is very scary abnd selfish in my eyes, but who knows maybe i am weak and should develop a thick skin and walk on corpses of my ''enemies'' to reach the ''goal'', whatever it is...Not 2 mention it is directly against catholicism, most poles are so proud of and against the last message of the current pope who talks about the ''plague of egomania'', if I understood him corrctly I really feel sorry 4 myself and her althouh she dont want and she refuses my help, so there it goes


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Flamme said:


> ...That is very scary and selfish in my eyes, but who knows maybe i am weak and should develop a thick skin and walk on corpses of my ''enemies'' to reach the ''goal'', whatever it is...


If you do decided to walk on the corpses of your enemies, remember to wear boots.

As for Rand, there were two (I think there were two of them) interviews of Rand on the Phil Donahue show. I have seen them online. She really had no idea how conflicted and twisted her views really were, or how awful things would be if her teachings were actually applied. (We are seeing all too much that as it is.)


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

2 b honest I can be very scary and avengeful but only if I use all other means 2 stop some kind of behaviour or bring some1 back under my wings...Beware of a wrath of a quiet man they say. I am sadly a very caring and empathetitc person who always tries 2 c things through other ppls eyes even if they constantly refuse 2 c them through MINE...I wish I am more cruel and wickedly cunning and who knows maybe life will force me 2 become some sort of a ''monster'', in the end.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Flamme said:


> ...I wish I am more cruel and wickedly cunning and who knows maybe life will force me 2 become some sort of a ''monster'', in the end.


If _life_ does not, TC just might.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Yes, yes, u actually read my mind!!! I wrote on somewhere on FB how I was ''frozen'' when my ex polish gf, who was kind, caring and loving suddenly embraced some sort of psychopatic philosophy of certain ''Ayn Rand'' who plays with claims like ''empathy, altruism are EVIL''...So basically that gilr told me she CANNOT CARE 4 OTHER PPL...So basically according 2 her ''modus vivendi''', ppl MUST ONLY CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES, ALL GOODNESS IS WEAKNESS and that ********...That is very scary abnd selfish in my eyes, but who knows maybe i am weak and should develop a thick skin and walk on corpses of my ''enemies'' to reach the ''goal'', whatever it is...Not 2 mention it is directly against catholicism, most poles are so proud of and against the last message of the current pope who talks about the ''plague of egomania'', if I understood him corrctly I really feel sorry 4 myself and her althouh she dont want and she refuses my help, so there it goes


I'm not sure what you want to say with your comment, but definitely what Ayn Rand here does not have anything to do with psychopathy which is a lack of empathy, and one can have empathy without necessarily putting the need of any other person on the planet above his own.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Well I see it as an well worded excuse 2 be selfish and self-centered...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Well I see it as an well worded excuse 2 be selfish and self-centered...


I would say that her arguments in the video are very rational and solid (and I don't think she's saying that people can't do good things for others), but I don't want to start another discussion about this... but I'm not sure what's the relation with psychopathy or even where this discussion is going anymore


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Person I am talking about became very selfish, cold and cynical, extreme narcissist and I guess she found the theoiries that justifiy such behaviour...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Person I am talking about became very selfish, cold and cynical, extreme narcissist and I guess she found the theoiries that justifiy such behaviour...


from wiki:

"Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy toward other people"

it means it's a mental disorder about lack of empathy and need of admiration, not something that can be started by reading Ayn Rand and her ideas on altruism.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Well she might have contributed, but ok maybe u dont see it or want to see...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Well she might have contributed, but ok maybe u dont see it or want to see...


probably because I agree with what Rand says in the video and my empathy still works perfectly


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Sometimes we cannot see how we really are only from our pov, I dont know u, maybe with u it is fine, or fine 2 some extent, or fine only in your world view, but 4 this person I am certain.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Flamme said:


> Sometimes we cannot see how we really are only from our pov, I dont know u, maybe with u it is fine, or fine 2 some extent, or fine only in your world view, but 4 this person I am certain.


from my perspective empathy it's not like a special merit but a mechanism that nature gives to people (normal functioning people, at least from that point of view) in order to feel bad if we don't help each other when we see someone suffering, and that's helpful for the species.
That means that even someone who doesn't believe in altruism could feel bad for others and give help, because his brain would feel better that way if he has a normal sense of empathy.

And if the person you're saying does not have a sense of empathy probably she didn't have before and now she has just found something to justify her behaviour, but she was already like that.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

norman bates said:


> I would say that her arguments in the video are very rational and solid (and I don't think she's saying that people can't do good things for others), but I don't want to start another discussion about this... but I'm not sure what's the relation with psychopathy or even where this discussion is going anymore


Rand was a master of the straw man argument. The number of real "altruists", whether defined by Comte or Rand, can be counted on the fingers of a fingerless hand. Maybe Saint Francis of Assisi was one. However, the findings of ecology have confirmed what most everybody already knew--that a balance between "pure" self-interest and concern for the well-being of others (that one's fate as a species is not entirely in one's own hands) is what makes for both benign and humane societies and functioning ecosystems. Rand and company were never able to successfully counter the findings of ecology within her philosophy of unfettered self-interest leading to her fictional paradise in the Valley of Greed.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Rand was a master of the straw man argument. The number of real "altruists", whether defined by Comte or Rand, can be counted on the fingers of a fingerless hand. Maybe Saint Francis of Assisi was one. However, the findings of ecology have confirmed what most everybody already knew--that a balance between "pure" self-interest and concern for the well-being of others (that one's fate as a species is not entirely in one's own hands) is what makes for both benign and humane societies and functioning ecosystems.


I guess that empathy it's exactly what help us to achieve (well, sometimes) that balance.

in any case, I'm not sure I remember here a discussion going so randomly off topic, but still it's been interesting.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

norman bates said:


> in any case, I'm not sure I remember here a discussion going so randomly off topic, but still it's been interesting.


I find it often happens, once the core of the topic has been exhausted. (The alternative is that the thread simply dies.)


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Sorry, accidental duplicate


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Adding a comment to this thread risks stirring up a nest of hornets. So be it. Much cut and thrust here was driven by whether you are willing to extend the meaning of words by a transference between a thing and its cause or effect, or you prefer to keep closer to a primary use. Take a simpler word: sad. Can a piece of music be sad? In the primary sense it cannot be sad, because (so far as I am aware) it has no consciousness and cannot experience anything, including sadness. However, if people say it is sad, we understand it means that a conscious listener experiences sadness, or experiences the sense that the symphony was written out of feelings of sadness experienced by the composer. These are different usages of the word, and you may or may not be comfortable with both usages. For more technical words (like neurosis) I think one should be more cautious before accepting this sort of elision (- a word which I guess has itself extended its meaning metaphorically).
Taking a parallel situation, it has become commonplace to say that organisations believe things or have values, in the same way that people believe things or have values. Well, organisations have rules, practices, a culture, etc, but only thinking beings can believe things or have values. The policies of an organisation may express the values of (some of) the people within it, but claiming that the organisation itself has values distorts meaning. This is a more objectionable example than the musical one, because the distortion is often used cynically, sometimes as a form of virtue signalling in the hope of gaining competitive advantage, or sometimes to suppress diversity in employee thinking.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> no I don't understand your difference and it seems that a lot of people out there don't understand it either. Or better, I understand it but I disagree. I know ther are those who say that even bleak music can be uplifting and it's true in a sense.
> But the curlew is a work that depicts depression and a downer and it's a beautiful work at the same time.
> Calling it depressing it's not an insult but just a characteristic of the music. I've quoted a guy that calls it depressive and the finest british piece of music of the century, do you think that he meant it in a derogatory way? He's just describing what the piece is trying to convey and how it works on the mood of a listener.
> The point is that beauty it's not just simply uplifting, it can be uplifting because it's beautiful music and one can resonate with the emotion of the piece, and it can be depressing at the same time, even if it seems a contradiction, because music can have (duh) a influence on the mood.
> ...


You play with my using "beauty" and "uplifting" for all the different flavours of artistic merit. Fair enough but I have already mentioned that I am using these terms as shorthand and, anyway, they don't jar with me as they do with you. I actually do find The Curlew beautiful and, broadly, uplifting (in that I feel satisfied and a little transformed when I've heard it). It may be about sadness but it doesn't make me sad! To take a more extreme example, listening to Bernstein's Vienna Mahler 6 is a powerful and grueling experience. I feel exhausted after it. But it is not ugly to me (in fact it is beautiful to me) and I feel deeply rewarded by the experience of listening to it. So, laugh it up, but I am describing how I do actually experience art. It's fine if you don't and it has no bearing on our discussion here.

I'm not sure what I am meant to make of the "evidence" that many others agree with you as majorities vote for all sorts of wrong things and, particularly, as I am not seeing very much agreement - or indeed interest! - with either of our positions in this thread. I can see three positions being adopted:

One is the position I read in your posts - that if a work is "about" a feeling or act that might once have been described as neurotic then, to succeed, that work must itself be neurotic.

Another is the view that doing that is anthropomorphising ... that neurotic refers to people not to works.

A third - the one I am advancing - is that the term refers to dysfunction and deficit and therefore should not be used to describe successful works of art.

I think the middle position is broadly right (but don't have a problem thinking of a work of art as a living thing) and as I don't think you have objected to it I assume you broadly agree.

The position I ascribe to you is sometimes mixed up with a different view - that if a work appears sad then it is in itself sad. Presumably other words - happy, exciting, lively etc. - can also be used in the same way? _*This is obviously correct and is a standard in our simplest attempts to describe works of art.*_

But when you start to use medical and faux-medical terms in place of sad, happy etc., I think you risk confusion. Call a piece sad. Call it bleak. Say it often saddens or depresses you to listen to it. But what do you add by just saying that the work (the work itself) is neurotic or depressed? Such terms are less precise for your purpose and also, actually, ambiguous when applied to a work of art. The only thing they add is a suggestion of pathology - dysfunctionality, weakness, blocked communication, failure to empathise - but it does not seem you are seeking to use the term as a criticism. So I think you are using the words wrongly.

Of course, an artist can legitimately be described as neurotic (Peter Warlock was, at least, widely experienced as an unpleasant man) but s/he might still produce great ("healthy", effective) works. Conversely, the production of a work that is a representation of something pathological - for example, hallucinatory effects (such as the background in the Van Gogh self-portrait or the detail from the Matthias Grünewald picture that I posted) - without the artist or the work being sick. We all have nightmares.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

I think our posts crossed, Enthusiast. Agree entirely.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> Enthusiast: "Of course, an artist can legitimately be described as neurotic (Peter Warlock was, at least, widely experienced as an unpleasant man) but s/he might still produce great ("healthy", effective) works. Conversely, the production of a work that is a representation of something pathological - for example, hallucinatory effects (such as the background in the Van Gogh self-portrait or the detail from the Matthias Grünewald picture that I posted) - without the artist or the work being sick. We all have nightmares."


A close examination of the paintings of Goya makes for a difficult test case in disentangling "nightmares" from serious mental illness, perhaps involving brain disease, malformation, lesions. Various explanations of Goya's works depicting sadism, torture, and "routine" murder have been set forward--Goya editorializing on the horrors of war, on the terrible condition of women in Spanish society, on the inability to fully read a person's actual character from their visages. Yet some of his art is so bloody-minded, and painted for his private enjoyment/torment, that it is difficult to describe such work as only the expression of "nightmares". It is easier to work with visual art than with music in dealing with this topic of the mindset of the art's creators--one cannot hide so easily from what is being depicted.

I misspoke previously when ascribing Bandits Stabbing a Women to Goya's Black Paintings--it is an example from a different group of horrific Goya art.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Yes, Goya's mental health was fragile. And this informed his works. But the results were often fine (complete, effective, satisfying ... beautiful) works of art. The subject matter may be unpalatable, the works may depict ugliness - but if that is all they were we would not value them, I don't think.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> You play with my using "beauty" and "uplifting" for all the different flavours of artistic merit. Fair enough but I have already mentioned that I am using these terms as shorthand and, anyway, they don't jar with me as they do with you. I actually do find The Curlew beautiful and, broadly, uplifting (in that I feel satisfied and a little transformed when I've heard it). It may be about sadness but it doesn't make me sad!


yes, I've got this and I already replied that to me a work can be both uplifting and depressing at the same time without contradictions.



Enthusiast said:


> I'm not sure what I am meant to make of the "evidence" that many others agree with you as majorities vote for all sorts of wrong things and, particularly, as I am not seeing very much agreement - or indeed interest! - with either of our positions in this thread. I can see three positions being adopted:
> 
> One is the position I read in your posts - that if a work is "about" a feeling or act that might once have been described as neurotic then, to succeed, that work must itself be neurotic.


I'm not saying that a if a work is called neurotic once (or happy, or sad, or nostalgic or whatever other quality one wants to put to a work to describe it) it should be accepted it is like that. I'm saying that even if you're replying as it's a strange thing it's widely considered like that. Even if beauty has an uplifting quality nobody would play The Curlew to an audience for a happy celebration, because it's indeed also a depressing experience.



Enthusiast said:


> Another is the view that doing that is anthropomorphising ... that neurotic refers to people not to works.
> 
> A third - the one I am advancing - is that the term refers to dysfunction and deficit and therefore should not be used to describe successful works of art.
> 
> ...


I'm adding an adjective that describes a piece in a different way. For instance a work could sound happy and energic, full of humour and still neurotic (like say, a lot of the music on Trout Mask Replica, or many tunes of Thelonious Monk).








Enthusiast said:


> Such terms are less precise for your purpose and also, actually, ambiguous when applied to a work of art.


even simple terms as happy or sad are ambiguous. Someone said (usually it's a quote attributed to Frank Zappa) that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Those terms have a meaning... to a certain degree.



Enthusiast said:


> The only thing they add is a suggestion of pathology - dysfunctionality, weakness, blocked communication, failure to empathise - but it does not seem you are seeking to use the term as a criticism. So I think you are using the words wrongly.


I don't think I'm using those words wrongly because an artistic experience and reality are different things. I enjoy to watch a good horror movie because it could a cathartic experience, because it could be adrenalinic, because it's just a good movie. And that does not mean that I would like to live the terrible things described in it. Same for art: something that in reality it's not a good thing (depression, neurosis) can be good in a artistic work because they add layers of expressivity, they can describe reality, they can bring something interesting.
Let's put it this way, we agree to disagree.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Back 2 topic, that person doesnt deserve a Minute of my time! I wish I was talented or 2 some day I learn to play sme instrument because I think its a great therapy 4 players although hard work as well.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> A close examination of the paintings of Goya makes for a difficult test case in disentangling "nightmares" from serious mental illness, perhaps involving brain disease, malformation, lestions. Various explanations of Goya's works depicting sadism, torture, and "routine" murder have been set forward--Goya editorializing on the horrors of war, on the terrible condition of women in Spanish society, on the inability to fully read a person's actual character from their visages. Yet some of his art is so bloody-minded, and painted for his private enjoyment/torment, that it is difficult to describe such work as only the expression of "nightmares". It is easier to work with visual art than with music in dealing with this topic of the mindset of the art's creators--one cannot hide so easily from what is being depicted.
> 
> I misspoke previously when ascribing Bandits Stabbing a Women to Goya's Black Paintings--it is an example from a different group of horrific Goya art.


I love his black paintings but can you imagine living in a house for years with that stuff on the walls like he did? Now that would be seriously depressing.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)




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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Joe B said:


> You can say the music was written by a neurotic, that the music makes you feel neurotic, or that listening to a particular piece of music can cause the listener to experience a neurosis. But to attribute 'a state of mind' to sound makes no sense.


This reveals a separation of art from its creator and the human dimension.

All art is _an expression of being,_ and it uses "templates" of agreed-upon or perceivable meanings (common experience) to convey this.

The separation of art into an "object" apart from this human connection is overly-rational and borders on the absurd; yet I see rational thinkers on this form using this strategy over and over, and frankly it gets tiresome.

Art is a symbolic language, don't try to escape this fact. It is not an "object" because it is an expression of being.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I just read this post somewhere else. But here we get it with your target identified. But I don't think you are fair. It makes no difference to the pont being made whether art is a language or sound. I don't read any objectivisation in the post you criticise. The poster only refers to a composer once and doesn't look at the context - but he didn't need to to make the point he was making. Or perhaps I am wrong? Could you reword his post to show what you feel he should have done? I'm having trouble seeing the relevance in your post or even whether it is important that a work of art is or is not an object - but clearly works of art are objects.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> I'm having trouble seeing the relevance in your post or even whether it is important that a work of art is or is not an object - but clearly works of art are objects.


Okay, whatever. Just don't forget: there's a real human being behind that art. And you're human, too. Don't forget.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm human and I interact with the music I listen to. What composers did and thought and how their lives were can be interesting but I think I really only know then from their music.


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