Does too much Bach ruin you for many other things?

A field I confess I need to explore.

A bit crap, certainly not, or that, at least was not what I meant to say. Let's say, "less interesting/appealing", which is a personal reaction on my part.

Agreed. There can be no "best", only personal preferences - I have mine, as you've seen!

 

Quite frankly, even if I absolutely love the late piano sonatas and string quartets, Beethoven's fugues are not very interesting. He seems to me at best a reluctant polyphonist. For a really great 'late' fugue (although truly exhausting) I would take Bruckner's 5th.

But that said, I don't think Tones is making a hierarchy of absolute value. He is stating what he likes, and I agree that Mahler, although he composed some of the most moving European music (many of his Lieder, the Song of the Earth) is, sometimes, in the brink of what is bearable in terms of complexity and length.

I think I can understand Tones' feeling through a quote (from memory) of Marie Claire Alain: 'Bach is a great comfort to us'.

In fact, and I know this is not share by many posters, Bach has, I think, a very strong humanity. His religious music is truly comforting (even when it is distressing) because he can easily identify with it.

While I do not agree that he lacks humour (but then what is humour in music?) I feel his music structures our feelings. I remember, when I was playing the G major PF from WTC II, my teacher said, when we got to a certain part: 'That's really Bach: a little bit of Heaven'. Mind you, he was an atheist.

Bach can lead you through Hell, too: just take his haunting last fugue.

 

He must have had a really terrible time composing the Hammerklavier.
I am intrigued as to why you find his fugues uninteresting, although I can see that a full time polyphonist might resent composers who resort to fugues when they reach a sort of end of the line, as with Mozart in the Jupiter. But it doesn't seem such a sin, even if it is by now a cliché, to return to the fugue when one feels one has exhausted the possibilities of contemporary idiom.

I actually quite like some new music which is explicitly inspired by the baroque (Peter Maxwell Davies anyone?). many modern composers are real admirers of early and baroque music. I have not noticed on this site a particular reciprocal admiration for Maxwell Davies (or for that matter Tippett) amongst fans of Bach and Purcell.

Re the thread topic, I recently stumbled upon the following quote, which I think interesting, although, since it comes from the internet, is not necessarily of reliable attribution.
Maurizio Pollini: “You know, it's peculiar: when you speak with someone who loves the visual arts, they will be equally enthusiastic about a painting by Giotto and a painting by a modern painter. Music people tend to be specialists, and I think that's a handicap for our musical life…â€Â

 

Dear Adam:

Pollini is interested in all kinds of music. But let me tell you that what he says about the visual arts is not necessary true. I, for one, like painting and architecture very much, and I do not have such catholic tastes.

I do not know Maxwell Davies

Mozart's polyphony is rather interesting, but then he really knew how to compose fugues. Beethoven is another matter. His counterpoint is interesting but I have the feeling that it is almost sham counterpoint. What I mean by this is that he starts a fugatto, then returns to a more harmonic structure. So, in consequence, there are interesting moments of counterpoint but there is not a polyphonic structure.

The great fugue for String Quartet may be an exception, but I never really analyzed it, because I do not like the result anyway.

 

I thought this article was rather interesting
http://www.learnedcounsel.com/counterpoint.htm
particularly the following quote from Charles Rosen, which rounds off the author's comments on Beethoven's use of fugal form 'Beethoven is perhaps the first composer for whom this exploratory function of music took precedence over every other: pleasure, instruction, and even, at times expression.' (The Classical Style, p.445).

I wonder in the light of you comments whether perhaps you dislike Beethoven's exploitation of the fugue for the purpose of formal exploration, and failure to love it for itself.

I find that late Beethoven gives me a sort of highly stimulated dissatisfaction. Perhaps this is the opposite of the complete satisfaction which a lot of people find in Bach.
Incidentally Maxwell Davies is worth a go (eg his "Renaissance and baroque realisations"). Unfortunately its not that easy to get hold of some recordings because his old record company Collins went bust. He then took the initiative and started his own website Maxopus, which was widely admired and sold his stuff direct. This disappeared a while ago, reputedly because his friend who ran the site fled with the cash.
To top it off he was arrested for eating a swan. Clearly he deserves your support.
You might want to try his string quartets on Naxos, which were well reviewed (and fugal in places). No? Oh all right I'll go now.

 

Hmmm it's interesting how this thread has developed. The Quote from Pollini is engaging, but is really a commonplace observation. It's usually put something like 'the ear craves the familiar, while the eye craves novelty'. People do have a tendency to become specialists in a particular composer, style or period, and then decry that which is not in their specialism. It does happen with other arts, but is particularly prevalent with music.

There are the Classics Only crowd with their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven perhaps the occasional Schubert or even Schumann, but dare go no further. There are the Romantics with their love of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Brahms – big slushy tunes. Then there are the Opera Buffs with their Rossini, Donizetti and Verdi. There's the Wagner in crowd. There's the English Music Fancier with his Elgar and Vaughan Williams, plus all those other delightfully obscure characters on the Lyrita label. And then on the fringe there's the New Music mob who dutifully go to performances of the London Sinfonietta and talk in hushed tones about poly-rhythms and micro-tonality. Interestingly, it's the new music people who are also keen on mediaeval stuff.

But the worst case of this seems to be in the pop/rock world were people become incredibly limited in their outlook. Narrowing down not only to one type of rock, but one particular singer or group.

As for me, well – let a thousand flowers bloom…

 

Then Cervantes is not better writer than Dan Brown?

Bach (or Scarlatti which I still prefer of 1685 batch) is not better than Telemann or Madonna?

Gourmet food is not better than Bic Mac?

 

Naturally not to all three. Just look at the sales figures. Can all those suckers, er, customers be wrong? Next thing you'll be telling us that cables make no difference to the sound of a hi-fi.

 

This post intends to make my position clear.

Dear Adam:

You said:

I wonder in the light of you comments whether perhaps you dislike Beethoven's exploitation of the fugue for the purpose of formal exploration, and failure to love it for itself.

I do not quite understand what you mean - 'love IT' refers to what? Formal exploration or Beethoven's exploration? In any case, I can only say that I love counterpoint as such, as in Dufay, Ockeghem, and also Bach. Mozart composed at least one marvelous fugue and his religious music is likewise good as far as counterpoint goes. If you want to change idiom, why use all the basic counterpoint techniques and abandon them as soon as they are used? That is not really experimenting...

You said that you love the late Beethoven and suggested that I did not. This is incorrect. I am very well acquainted with the late Beethoven, chiefly the sonatas. The Hammerklavier is indeed an experimental work; I grew accustomed to it because I really tried to understand it. Of course the 3rd movement is a marvel and doesn't really require great exposure; neither does the first movement.

My favorite really is the opus 111. Marvelous, deep, satisfying music. I once did a public presentation of the work explaining what I thought the work was about. I can only say that I completely love the work.

Therefore, even if I agree that many Bach lovers are attracted to its 'perfect peace' aspect, I would say that you can find many instances of truly 'stimulated dissatisfaction'. The organ fantasia in g minor springs to mind, as the great organ c minor prelude. The long a minor fugue, and many, many others (f# sharp minor WTC II, just to mention an example from the top of my head, but also b minor WTC I, b flat minor WTC II and there really is no end to the list).

Bach states perfection but also deep despair. You only must be able to understand it under the counterpoint (and for that, sometimes, you have to understand how counterpoint works - which you probably do).

Dear Blue Note
You wrote:

'There are the Classics Only crowd with their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven perhaps the occasional Schubert or even Schumann, but dare go no further.'

Indeed, but I do not belong to this group. You see, I began my music studies in the normal way. I am conversant even with Alban Berg (which I rather like). It was a question of personal choice, and to combine your post with Adam's, I do not necessarily prefer the classic approach - in fact, I absolutely love Buxtehude, and his music is every bit as tragic, pathetic and unsettling as Beethoven's.

Right now, my interests are actually going backwards. While I cannot say that I truly like Medieval music (there is Machaut, but I cannot say that I always like it) I am into Renaissance counterpoint... With a bit of Louis Couperin and Froberger (both famous 'Tombeau' writers) I do not think this qualifies me as a 'classic musician' I would not say 'let a thousand flowers bloom' only because rock is not a flower...

 

Answers to this question have filled libraries...

There are sociological stances, functionalist stances, 'receptor aesthetics' answers, relativistic and essentialist ones...

My position: Bach is better than Madonna because it expresses a lot more in many more different ways.

 

Or, perhaps, allows the one perceiving it to express more in many different ways.

Perhaps this is the difference between an entertainment piece (simple message, acceptable to a large proportion of the populace, little interpretation required) and a satisfying piece (complex message, requires engagement, can be interpreted in many different ways)?

 

My sentence meant, or was intended to mean
"I wonder in the light of you[r] comments whether perhaps you dislike Beethoven's exploitation of the fugue for the purpose of formal exploration, and [you dislike][Beethoven's] failure to love it [the fugue] for itself"

I think that should clear everything up.

 

This is an interesting formulation, but I can't help wondering whether you are being a bit unfair to Madonna, who is actually quite interesting in a number of ways:
her works are certainly amenable to a number of readings; she has contributed significantly to the (post)modern understanding of the concept of the star, gender and identity; and most importantly she has snogged (mid-period) Britney Spears on TV, which is more than you say for Bach.

I think I would unhesitatingly choose a world where Madonna existed but Chopin didn't than the other way round. If you are reading this, Madonna, I hope you are grateful.

 

Rodrigo,
I wouldn't have the temerity to impugn that any member of this august forum could possibly be such a base reductionist as to fall into one of these categories…

Seriously though, it's all too easy to fall into a “I know what I like†mindset. It's just mental laziness; I know I've been there. I think your approach of slowly increasing your area of interest is a good one. I wish all music lovers had that attitude.

I make an effort to listen to unfamiliar music. Sometimes I don't seem to get anywhere, but often you can make life-enhancing discoveries. A few years ago it was Janacek operas – can't imagine life without them now, last year it was Handel and Gluck operas – wonderful surprise discoveries, this year I've been getting into Monteverdi and some of the Scandinavian composers on the BIS and Ondine labels.

If I don't like a piece that has been praised by esteemed writers on music, I try to listen to it at least three times. By the third time, I often start to 'get' it. You do have to make the effort, finding the time is a problem for me. The rewards though are tremendous.

OK perhaps rock is not a flower, maybe more of a pernicious weed. I do try with rock, perhaps making some headway with something like Radiohead. But it's all so samey and just plain boring. Now if you make a statement like that on the Hi Fi forum, as I did once inadvertently, you get accosted by indignant blokes who recon that a handful of seventies pop groups represent the apogee of human accomplishment. It saddens me to think that many people spend so much time and money on Hi Fi equipment (auditioning, swapping, tweaking, etc) yet are not willing to do the same with music.

 

I must say I would definitely choose Chopin's world. But then again if I had to choose between a world where Madonna existed and one where broad beans didn't, I would definitely choose the one without broad beans. Broad beans are the pits! Yuck!

 

Y'know, sometimes classical music fans can come across as pretentious, judgemental twats, though I can understand why listening to Radiohead might make a person think rock is samey and plain boring. But it's not.

 

Dear Adam:

Thank you for the clarification. I think my previous answer covers it: it does not seem experimentation, really...

Re Madonna, I think Bat was thinking of music and not in terms of sociological impact. You may tell me that you cannot tell both things apart, but I do not quite agree.

Dear Blue Note:

I agree: one must experiment because this is really the only way to enrich our inner references - that is, to widen our sensitivity for music. The only problem is that some composers are so alien to what we really like that one tends to avoid them. In my case I would say there are a lot of composers in that category: Haydn (sorry Adam), Webber, Rossini, Verdi (to name but a few), but also Frescobaldi (his music makes me so depressed I cannot bear it). And yes, Chopin all the way!

Dear Sandgrownun

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

Finally, dear Joe:

Well perhaps I am a bit pretentious, but put yourself in the position of someone who loves European culture and is watching it being destroyed by cheap American-burger culture. I bit strong, I know, and it is not aimed against you. But I'm tired of listening to people claiming that pop and rock are the full equal (in terms of quality) of Bach, Beethoven or Wagner.

This pop thing is only the consequence of the fact that capitalization has allowed the uncultured to be market. As the uncultured have, because there are so many of them, much more to spend that the cultured we get mass culture, cheap art and all sorts of intellectual indigence.

As you can see, in terms of aesthetics I am rather conservative. If prompted, I will explain why, in general, I don't like modern and post-modern art (there are several exceptions to this).

P.S.: This does not mean that I crave for a class society where the cultured are rich and the uncultured are poor. It only means that capitalism has had a perverse effect. Not that I know how to cure it.

Neither does it mean that all rock lovers are uncultured. I even know of some highly musically cultured people who like it. But as a rule rock and pop are akin to fast food. There may be exceptions I do not know of - they surely exist.

 

Hi Joe, Well I think you are rather proving my point – enter rock fan predictably hurling unwarranted insults. As has been said before on this thread, being 'judgemental' is simply saying “I think X is better than Y†– we're all judgemental about everything. Music means a great deal to me, of course I'm going to make judgements about it, but that does not stop me from exploring new things that look interesting.

Is it 'pretentious' to assert that Shakespeare is perhaps more important than Jeffrey Archer say, or that St. Paul's Cathedral is a tad more interesting architecturally than your average suburban semi?

That I personally find most rock music boring is an honest and simple statement of fact. Why does that mean I should be labelled as a 'twat'?

Radiohead was actually recommended to me by a very enthusiastic and seemingly knowledgeable rock fan, so there you go… OK so if you hold that there is some musically interesting rock out there, then please educate us. Let us know what to listen to and what to listen out for. You've already trashed one recommendation I've had, so what is good then and why?

 

Ooh, what a pity, his ensemble Canzonas are so magnificent. And his keyboard music - except perhaps the two collections of Toccatas. They are almost impossible for me to structure in my head, even if I look in the score when listening. And trying to play them myself makes me just more confused as to their structure.

 

To prevent this discussion from becoming too interesting, here I post again.

1) It's not all in the mind. Bach IS better than Madonna.
If she hadn't those big bumpers, we would never have heard of her. Chopin got famous because of his wonderful music.

I would say good (not only classical) music exists, besides in this world, also in a parallel world (I'm incurable as you see) where it has higher vibrations than Madonna's music and the like. So depending on our own vibrations, which depend on our musical past history over previous lifetimes, we either find us better attunement with Bach or with Madonna.

3) I still feel that I can say objectively say that Bach is not quite the finest music you can find, or the finest music that can possibly exist. In fact the whole Western classical music is a relatively recent development, especially keyboard music because harpsichords and organs didn't exist before the late Middle Ages.

And anyway harpsichord is just a mechanized form of the eastern string instrument santoor, or santur.