Extremely interesting discussion on the various merits of Rock, classical and Jazz, and that's just

Pete H, good argument and well put. Pointless to attempt fighting against it really. I initially dug my heels in (almost certainly in the wrong place) to try and make the point that I don't see rock / pop / jazz as a 'lower' form of art to classical, or vice versa. It's all art, it's all up to interpretation by the listener, it will all be filed into 'like' and 'dislike' at that point. Any attempt to intellectualise it further somehow dilutes the point.

I have had a somewhat strange relationship with classical and fully realise that my lack of knowledge is far greater than my knowledge. I've approached the subject from 'the wrong end' in most people's view - I started with Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stockhausen, Cage, Reich, Glass, Riley etc and kind of explored backwards through the tonal romantic stuff (with vague indifference) until I found the remarkably interesting Bach at the other end. I still struggle with opera, though can find a handful I like (R. Strauss, Berg, Glass) and I also like the big polyphonic symphonic stuff like Brukner and Mahler and love string quartets from Bartok and Webern amongst others. I far prefer my Beethoven and Mozart on solo piano rather than full symphony and can for some reason remain largely unmoved by Rachmaninov at his most emotional. I can't make head nor tale of my classical taste myself so wouldn't expect anyone else to!

Tony.

 

You have my admiration for being able to cope with most of that stuff, Tony. I've tried, but I just can't get my head around it at all. (Glass I only find boring). I've read the theory and the rationale (insofar as I can comprehend it), but it just doesn't seem to help. Whereas I can thrill to the working out of a Bach fugal structure (there's just something intrinsically satisfying about it), I can't "get" Stockhausen, for example, at all, so I've given up trying.

It gets back to the "emotion" in music, I guess. Some of the stuff is, to my ears, pure intellectual exercise, highly accomplished, but with no heart at all. As Pete said earlier, one of the points of classical is that it is emotional, to a much greater degree than rock. It is sometimes a more stylised emotion, but it is always there. Just making a very loud noise is not emotion in my book.

One of the joys of listening to the Bach cantatas is the emotions - all kinds of emotion, joy, ecstacy, despair, resignation, peace, all depending on the subject of the cantata on that particular Sunday - and how beautifully Bach brings it off (especially allowing for the fact that he had a week in which to write and rehearse it!). I know I poke fun at rock, but I feel genuinely sorry for people who can't see the beauty of it. This is one of the absolute pinnacles of the musical art. I wish more people would climb it.

 

Tones, Maybe you'd consider voting for this little number on the Gramophone website

Gramophone Awards

 

notaclue said

I have a sneaking suspicion you're wrong if you're talking about people on this forum. But in the arts world in general I'm sure you're right, there are many people that turn out for all sorts of events that only go to be seen. That includes music of all genres

 

The bizarre thing with the serial stuff is that I just 'like' it – I don't understand it very well at all. I've got a lowest common denominator post punk background, i.e. zero musical training. I'm someone who can occasionally manage to bang a worth hearing noise out of an instrument using some combination of luck, ignorance and blind determination. I don't read music despite having played for about 25 years and barely even bothered learning where the notes are on the fretboard, yet I really like Webern etc which is allegedly the most academic and sterile end of classical music. This is just not how I hear it. It just works somehow.

Have you tried Webern's string quartets? I've got the Quartetto Italiano version on vinyl (Philips 6500105) and it is some of the most astounding music I have heard. I don't know whether it is available on CD, but it is a stunning album, the works are just so direct, concise and dynamic. Wonderful stuff. There is a remarkably sinister picture of the Quartetto Italiano on the cover, they look like they would happily torture your cat or children in a truly gross way, a blind determination that seems embedded in every fibre of the music. I've also got Boulez's complete Webern on CD and the Quartetto Italiano versions are far better to my ears.

Stockhausen was easy going for me as I have a good understanding of electronic music equipment, I know enough about the techniques to recognise that works like Hymnen and Telemusic etc are utterly amazing. Wonderful stuff, though I can get a little alienated by his larger orchestral treatments. At his most electronic the man is a genius, and I've met him!

Minimalism for me is about timing. Works like Glass's wonderful Einstein On The Beach are about ever moving bar lengths, a kind of 'where's Waldo' game with the downbeat. Great fun, and a source of much inspiration for many in the modern electronica scene. If you start feeling bored start counting! Minimalism is to timing what Bach is to intervals / counterpoint.

Tony.

 

Me too. Not just boring, but intensely irritating.
Sounds like he got stuck on page 2 of Czerny's exercises.

And as for individual expression in classical music, I would put it at the level of wearing a funny tie with a suit. Either way you're still wearing the suit!
I would say that if you're going to do a version of someone else's music, do it completely in your own way.
Like Shockabilly might cover Hendrix, or The Bad Plus cover "Heart of Glass". It should be about imagination!!!!

However, I must qualify this slightly by saying I tend to only like music that is challenging and has b*lls.. Whether it's Schubert's Impromptus, or Company, it still has to be large in the cojones department.

 

Been there, done that...

 

I'm disappointed that Tony didn't stick to his original argument, as it struck me as being both coherent, and accurate.

Accuracy, not being to the fore of the discussion so far. What I've found most intensely annoying, is the reference to 'western art music', or 'classical art music'. I've never before heard classical music referred to in this way. I wonder what the source of this novel characterisation is? Classical music is a genre, distinct from other musical genre's, but, nevertheless, recognisable as one among other musical genre's. All these genre's have a distinctive aesthetic, and as such, are all art forms.

Is the author of this term 'art music' trying to co-opt the distinction in film between commercial film's and art film's, into the world of music? Both commercial and art film's share a common cinematic language, they differ as regards their cinematic aims, ideological construction, and visual language, but are still recognisably the same medium. I see no such distinction between classical music and other musical genre's. All are overtly commercial, and with a few honourable exceptions, pursue a not particularly challenging emotional/nutritional content.

Indeed, I think Michaelab made a reference to the staging of Shakespeare in reponse to one of Tony's looser points, which I think is interesting to explore. I suspect that those posting a love for classical music in this thread, are referring to a canon of music that largely ended with the nineteenth century. Classical music didn't end with the nineteenth century, it continued with the Vienna School, Serialism, the excursions of Cage et al. They all saw themselves as inheritors of the classical tradition, but, responding and innovating to the changing trends of intellectual and musical exploration in the twentieth century. In this respect, they were no different from composer's in previous centuries. Often overlooked is how radical the musical ambitions of previous generations of classical composer's have been.

Yet, for many lover's of classical music, it is a genre that probably ended with Mahler. This conservatism is reflected in the programme selections of Orchestra's, Opera Houses, music festival's etc (the Prom's has got better in this respect, in recent years). This is a dual conservatism: a restrictive canon, which permits of a few exceptions, and thus becomes self-defining; and a conservative performance environment, which permits of few innovations.

In contrast with the staging of Shakespeare, whose play's have been pushed, pulled, prodded, re-evaluated, stripped, transformed in their varied performances, in trying to explore meanings within the works, trying to place them within a contemporary context etc - classical music performances tread a well trodden path. This results in the 'emotion' that several posters have referred to in listening to classical music, being a singular, contained emotion(s), a repeated singularity, performance by performance. A singularity which is constantly reinforced by the power of convention, of tradition of performance and canon. In this world, the twentieth century never happpened, the debate between Picasso, the artist as a genius, and Duchamp, art as a concept, has never taken place. In this world, the relationship of art to technological innovation is invisible, the sharing of ideas between musical and visual elements non-existent, and the intellectual practices and thinking of this century, a necessary absence.

I know that reference has already been made to the impact of different performer's approach to a canonical work - this is a variation within a conservative tradition, but, much less radical, say, than the shredding of convention within Serialism.

Akram

 

Hi Akram
haven't got time to deal now with your question regarding 'art' music, but essentially it comes down to function. I have for my sins a degree in what amounts to classical music. Originally in the Western Classical Tradition, music was either sacred or secular. Ultimately the sacred mutated into the 'art music' phrase you find distasteful, as opposed to music intended to be more disposable. I personally don't find the phrase distasteful at all. There is no intention to suggest that other music is not art, but simply that it was intended to fulfill a different function, and composers were intent on fulfilling what might be termed as an 'aesthetic' as opposed to creating entertainment. It is a term much used by music historians and will be found in many treatises and academic books about the subject.

 

Such terms are reasonably common in the 'classical' world! Classical music is strictly, or perhaps pedantically, the music of Haydn and Mozart. Most 19th Century 'classical' music is Romantic, 17th century music is Baroque. Terms like western art music are just an attempt to give a name to that noise produced by a bunch of folk in penguin suits and frocks with a guy (usually) waving a stick in front of them that makes it clear that it is music from the 16th century to now that is talked about, not just Mozart.

Not in my case. I sort of started with Stravinsky and worked forwards and backwards from there. I guess I listen to more 20th century and 17th century music that anything else. The penny finally dropped with Wagner this year, but that was after about 20 years of intermittent attempts to 'get it'. All those old leather-faced Nazis at Bayreuth don't help. I'm glad I stuck with him though.

I'll try and get round to your other points tomorrow.

duncan

 

The Shakespeare argument is fascinating. I recently saw Mark Rylance's final production at the Globe, the Tempest. Put on with 3 actors and assorted dancers, in a variety of costume ranging from Elizabethan to biker jackets and jeans. Now that's what I call innovation! Reinterpreting a very old work to mean something interesting to a modern audience, and creating an experience that is exciting and new.

Why is it that the vast majority of classical music (in the broadest sense) seems to be about performing the piece as it was intended (ie by the required orchestra, ensemble, soloist etc). Why is it that classical music is surrounded by pretense and hype, performed in grand concert halls to people in formal dress?

As a young person who does appreciate some classical music, I see a need for reform. I have recently seen a number of quality orchestras including the CBSO and the BBC Concert Orchestra; each event followed the same predictable, formulaic pattern of performance. Why do we watch whilst conductors and soloists traipse on and off the stage several times, bowing left right and centre? Why are we offered no communication with them? I for one would appreciate a world in which a soloist or conductor could talk to an audience about his/her interpretation of a piece. Also, why is technology never utilised? What about an interesting light show? Amplification (shock, horror!)? Imagine a world where a violin concerto didn't need huge pauses for the violin to be heard, because it was amplified?

I appreciate much of what I just wrote is a tad provocative, but I hope it will provoke intelligent debate rather than knee-jerk reactions.

 

Me too – it was this notion of 'higher art' that got my goat.

Aha, my most HUGE stumbling block with classical music. I am a devout atheist, in fact I go beyond atheism into antitheism - I feel religion to be a massively dangerous and destructive force in the world. I fear nothing more than the religious. As a result I find much classical music alienating in a remarkably creepy and odd way due entirely to it's subject matter. I'd happily argue that religious music is intensely low art as it is based on what I see as irrational superstition, delusion or even worse organised mind control of the masses. For some reason this argument does not apply to Coltrane's A Love Supreme, which is obviously great

Tony.

who has found a new hole to dig...

 

I agree with you about the religion, apart from pastafarianism, but just play Mozart's Requiem.

 

The St. Matthew Passion, the B Minor Mass, Messiah, Bach's sacred cantatas, and, as James says, Mozart's Requiem (or indeed any of Mozart's masses). Etc., etc., etc. I await with interest the arguments to justify that these are "intensely low art". Regardless of one's religious beliefs, these are aesthetic and artistic masterpieces, full stop. The fact that one doesn't agree with or believe in the subject matter is irrelevant, and possibly even a hippopotamus as well. What about Mussorgsky's "Night on a bare mountain" or Stravinsky's "Sacre du Printemps" - or Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld"? Are they any less brilliant for depicting pagan rituals and non-Judaeo-Christian dieties? Or do you make a difference between ancient and now extinct religions and modern, still-existing and still-influential religions? Are you letting the antics of the Bushite religion bias your view of the great composers? If you are, I think that's several steps too far.

Hope the hole's comfortable!

 

I tend to think that the composers knew what they were doing. There are of course adaptions of many pieces (everybody knows Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", but not so many know the original solo piano version), and these are perfectly acceptable.

On the silliness of that aspect, we are completely agreed.

It does happen, but not often enough. Part of the problem is that the audience (yours truly included) is not sufficiently musically literate to comprehend it completely. Classical music is complex, much more so than, say, rock, and it does require effort to "get". I'm still working on getting more modern stuff (I'm not doing very well).

Quite simply (and this is my personal view as a die-hard classical lover), because it is unnecessary and takes away from the music. I guess this might be the divergence of the points of view of "music as entertainment (in the modern sense)" and "music as great art". For maximum enjoyment, both aspects should be present. I personally would find a light show a totally unnecessary diversion from the main event - a light show is pure entertainment. To me, a light show would add precisely nothing to a great piece of music. Similarly, in a properly-designed hall, lack of amplification is no problem, and adds to the effect. I personally wouldn't like an amplified violin sioloist. If technology is to be used, let it be used in conjunction with music for which it is written and leave the great canon of classical music alone. Nothing wrong with trying it out, of course, but I wouldn't be there!

Only a tad, and worth debating. There will certainly be others less reactionary than myself.

 

Heavens above a light show......where do you think you're at a Zed Leppelin concert?

Seriously if the music and performances are good enough, who needs a light show?

 

It's remarkably spacious.

Tony.

 

Good to hear!

 

As the person who, it seems, has unwittingly kicked off this whole debate through the mere mention of Led Zeppelin, I thought I'd just quickly interject here to say that I thought bottleneck hit the nail on the head when he talked about emotional involvement with classical music. I have no doubt Tones' preference for classical over rock is entirely valid but like Chris classical just doesn't do it for me - the emotion of the music just doesn't communicate anything to me, unlike the strains of "Since I've been lovin' you".....

Cheers,

Jon

 

Being sensible, really there is good music and bad music. Also 'rock' doesn't really mean anything. Are we talking Iron Maiden or the Byrds?

It is equally daft to lump all classical music together and say you don't like it. Something like http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/ram/cdmvwilllarkasc.ram is a wonderfully accessible and just plain lovely piece that everybody can enjoy.