"Where have the great composers gone?"

[Richard Barrett]

Why is LvB considered to be greater than Spohr,Tchaikovsky greater than Taneyev,RVW greater than Rubbra ?

Now that's an interesting question. In some cases, which composers are considered to have written "great music" will change over the course of time, or be contentious in one way or another, but it does seem unlikely that the preferences you mentioned will ever be overturned. Why? I think it has to do with the first members of each pair producing work which in some way expands the range of what music is and can be - supposedly something which goes beyond personal taste, for example I would recognise much of Schoenberg's work as having that music-expanding quality although I don't much like listening to most of it.

[ahinton]

Now that's an interesting question. In some cases, which composers are considered to have written "great music" will change over the course of time, or be contentious in one way or another, but it does seem unlikely that the preferences you mentioned will ever be overturned. Why? I think it has to do with the first members of each pair producing work which in some way expands the range of what music is and can be - supposedly something which goes beyond personal taste, for example I would recognise much of Schoenberg's work as having that music-expanding quality although I don't much like listening to most of it.

Shame! (Up to you, though, of course)...

[EdgeleyRob]

Now that's an interesting question. In some cases, which composers are considered to have written "great music" will change over the course of time, or be contentious in one way or another, but it does seem unlikely that the preferences you mentioned will ever be overturned. Why? I think it has to do with the first members of each pair producing work which in some way expands the range of what music is and can be - supposedly something which goes beyond personal taste, for example I would recognise much of Schoenberg's work as having that music-expanding quality although I don't much like listening to most of it.

Well thanks RB,I'm relieved that a great composer thinks it's an interesting question and not a silly one.
It is a question that's always puzzles me when for instance,I listen to Zemlinsky and think 'this is good as Mahler',or Weinberg and think 'this is as good as DSCH ' etc,etc

[french frank]

It is a question that's always puzzles me when for instance,I listen to Zemlinsky and think 'this is good as Mahler',or Weinberg and think 'this is as good as DSCH ' etc,etc

I just accepted that I've got rotten taste, my experience of music is less than most people's and I'd do well to shut up on the subject! Which is just another piece in the jigsaw, or nail in the coffin of the Ungreat.

[Richard Tarleton]

I listen to Zemlinsky and think 'this is good as Mahler'

Looking at the other end of the scale I think of Dowland's Fantasia P1 as a tiny Bach Chaconne a century earlier, and his Lachrimae as doing for the viol consort what Beethoven's late quartets did for, er, the quartet two centuries later....his chromatic creations seem ahead of their time....but JD was a miniaturist, whose total output fills just 11 CDs, and who in his lifetime was as important as a practising musician as he was for being a composer....The 16thC is full of musicians who made music for a range of socio-economic and religious purposes, and to whom the concept of great composer would have been very strange indeed - yet we revere them as great today. Palestrina, Victoria, Tallis, Byrd....

What came before the great composers? Was the first great composer (that we know about) a woman?

Just a few idle (and strictly amateur) thoughts.

[Richard Barrett]

It is a question that's always puzzles me when for instance,I listen to Zemlinsky and think 'this is good as Mahler',or Weinberg and think 'this is as good as DSCH ' etc,etc

I think it's natural to feel some kind of profound personal affinity with a piece of music, or a whole body of work, which others might not see very much in, for reasons you might not be able to describe convincingly. When I think of Zemlinsky I think of the points in his Lyrische Symphonie where the baritone soloist sings "du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen" which at that moment seem like the most perfectly poetic expression one could imagine; whereas when I think of Mahler I wouldn't be able to count such moments, there are so many in each work, and in an important sense they aren't even moments because each is so strongly integrated into a structural and expressive whole. But this isn't to detract from Zemlinsky; his work simply does different things, which one might or might not be attuned to.

One of the things that makes what is known as "great music" is the multiplicity of ways it can be approached, interpreted (in performance and/or listening), contextualised, analysed and so on, the number of things in other words that music scholars can get their teeth into, and music scholars are (or should be) the "experts" whose lives are devoted to exploring, explaining and making accessible these things to interested listeners (pace Michael Gove's assertion that we've had enough of "experts", which I think might be a difficult opinion to hold onto when travelling in a plane or on the operating table), so that listeners can experience that multiplicity too, or as much of it as they're interested in experiencing. And every assimilated musical experience engenders another level of "expertise" in the listener, whether he/she is aware of it or not. I'm rambling now; but the point I'm trying to make is that recognising the limitations of say Zemlinsky's music doesn't in itself make it "better" or "worse" than anything else.

Stockhausen once said in an interview that he "once told [Morton Feldman] that one of his pieces could be a moment in my music, but never the other way around". This has been dismissed as "notoriously arrogant" (Michael Nyman) but if you know their music it isn't difficult to see what he means. But obviously there's room in the musical world for both the Stockhausens and the Feldmans, and without necessarily thinking of the generalising approach of the former as "better" than the particularising approach of the latter, even if the former approach, for the reasons I've mentioned, might lead more easily to an attribution (or accusation!) of "greatness".

[Stanfordian]

Well thanks RB,I'm relieved that a great composer thinks it's an interesting question and not a silly one.
It is a question that's always puzzles me when for instance,I listen to Zemlinsky and think 'this is good as Mahler',or Weinberg and think 'this is as good as DSCH ' etc,etc

Hiya EdgeleyRob,

An interesting post. My view is slighly different. When I hear Zemlinsky and Weinberg I think they are excellent composers. When I hear Mahler and DSCH I know they are great composers.

On the other hand Sir C.V. Stanford I feel wrote some great works (Blue Bird & Songs of the Sea) but he wouldn't be regarded by me as a great composer.

[ahinton]

I think it's natural to feel some kind of profound personal affinity with a piece of music, or a whole body of work, which others might not see very much in, for reasons you might not be able to describe convincingly. When I think of Zemlinsky I think of the points in his Lyrische Symphonie where the baritone soloist sings "du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen" which at that moment seem like the most perfectly poetic expression one could imagine; whereas when I think of Mahler I wouldn't be able to count such moments, there are so many in each work, and in an important sense they aren't even moments because each is so strongly integrated into a structural and expressive whole. But this isn't to detract from Zemlinsky; his work simply does different things, which one might or might not be attuned to.

One of the things that makes what is known as "great music" is the multiplicity of ways it can be approached, interpreted (in performance and/or listening), contextualised, analysed and so on, the number of things in other words that music scholars can get their teeth into, and music scholars are (or should be) the "experts" whose lives are devoted to exploring, explaining and making accessible these things to interested listeners (pace Michael Gove's assertion that we've had enough of "experts", which I think might be a difficult opinion to hold onto when travelling in a plane or on the operating table), so that listeners can experience that multiplicity too, or as much of it as they're interested in experiencing. And every assimilated musical experience engenders another level of "expertise" in the listener, whether he/she is aware of it or not. I'm rambling now; but the point I'm trying to make is that recognising the limitations of say Zemlinsky's music doesn't in itself make it "better" or "worse" than anything else.

There's nothing remotely "rambling" about any of that; on the contrary, it hits all the nails on all the heads. Many thanks for this (although I never anticipated the inclusion of the egregious Mr Gove in such discussion)...

[Padraig]

I just accepted that I've got rotten taste, my experience of music is less than most people's and I'd do well to shut up on the subject! Which is just another piece in the jigsaw, or nail in the coffin of the Ungreat.

I take it you believe all this , f f! Whether a) and b) are true or not, I don't think they should debar you from a view on the subject. In fact the view that you do state slant in this quite astonishing statement gets at the heart of the debate as effectively as other responses.

[french frank]

I take it you believe all this , f f!

Pretty much so . I was always aware that my CD purchases tended to be 'minor' composers and I still have a very poor selection of the 'great composers' (Mozart and Bach excepted).

Whether a) and b) are true or not, I don't think they should debar you from a view on the subject. In fact the view that you do state slant in this quite astonishing statement gets at the heart of the debate as effectively as other responses.

I think you might be saying, possibly, what I felt: that the canon of "great music" is created by people other than people like me - critics, teachers, concert promoters, those who influence what music is heard.

[EdgeleyRob]

Many thanks everyone for your most interesting replies.
But ff, if you like lesser known neglected composers you can't have rotten taste.

[The_Student]

Could I possibly just add, (apologies if this has already been noodled through on a previous page) but considering the earlier music that is commonly known (within the musical canon) was composed at a time when music was very much a payed employment, successful composers were employees of noblemen etc. but, there were 100s of composers who never made the canon.

also, JS Bach-didnt his work go missing for over 100 years? he did not die a "great" then-wasn't it the 'Londoner Bach' who had more success? but with luck his work was rediscovered. (apologies if this is historically incorrect). Shostakovich could be suggested to be an example- I might be wrong-but wasn't he accepted into the canon at a quite late stage? The composers who are working today, it is possible the same will happen-from the 1000s of DIY composers at home to the 'professionals', only a handful will make it into the canon that is being written now-but it won't be known for a few generations. New "greats" are everywhere, but might have possibly subverted and exhausted the idea of the canon?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bach's keyboard Music was well-known long after his death - used as teaching material (for both Mozart and Beethoven, IIRC). The choral and instrumental works were neglected - and about a third of the Cantatas have been lost (the St Matthew Passion was rescued from a grocer who had used some of the Music to wrap cheeses in, if that isn't a legend that has been debunked in recent years).

I think that there is a difference between "Great Composers" (still plenty of those around) and "The Great Composers" - the latter an outmoded list of a very select number of men from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. I wouldn't myself say that "The Canon" has been "exhausted" so much as "expanded" - to the greater benefit of Music, its performers and audiences.

[anamnesis]

Bach's keyboard Music was well-known long after his death - used as teaching material (for both Mozart and Beethoven, IIRC). .

Morning! When Beethoven studied with Neefe he learnt the Well Tempered Clavier, but Mozart didn't know anything about Johann Sebastian as a boy/teenager. What puzzles me is that it seems that even his son Christian didn't mention his father when Mozart studied with him in London (as an 8yrs old). THE GREAT Bach was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in this times. In deed, Bach was "dead" (at least for the average audience, a bunch of experts might have known him) till Mendelssohn reanimated him (St Matthew Passion, 1829).
Best greetings

[anamnesis]

What came before the great composers? Was the first great composer (that we know about) a woman?

A women? Hildegard von Bingen maybe? :-)