Sentimental - Beautiful - Kitsch

[Joseph K]

On the other hand (for example):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vne1E6VH23s

... or, the First Movement of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi521FxqYwU

Not that I was saying it was wholly absent in the 18th century, but I reckon it's intensified in later music. I mean, in Beethoven it's tempered by a stiff-upper-lip, but by the time you get to say, the last movement of Mahler's 9th, it's quite bleak - difficult to listen to, at least for this listener, for its deeply felt tragic, heart-on-its-sleeve sadness.

[doversoul1]

Yes that's right - I think there was a lot of fatalism wrapped up in Romanticism - presumably a hangover from religion's idea that perfection was a worthy objective but unrealisable in "this" life. Hence Tristan & Isolde! But I've always assumed that the love of Nature, and idealised ways in which the Romantic poets portrayed love, sexual union especially, as re-connecctive with the natural, was at odds with the pessimism. Maybe insofar as the Romantics hung onto some religious belief in transcendence as inhering more in human imperfection than in the limitations of the descriptive? I don't know...

I’m probably completely wrong but to me, Romantics saw death as something like the shadow that gave extra brightness to the light of la vita, amore etc.. You could almost say that they dreamed (the idea of) of death. Also it seems to me, to Romantics, nature existed for their pleasure and not something with which they felt in need of reconnecting. In short, a very Western thing

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A lot depends on which "Romantics" we're talking about, dovers - the connection with Nature that Wordsworth describes in The Prelude shows that there was never any any severence that needed "reconnecting". And, as for John Clare ...

(And I suspect that the "Chain of Being" that forms the structure of Mahler's Third Symphony goes deeper than a subjective experience of an individual's "pleasure".)

[Serial_Apologist]

A lot depends on which "Romantics" we're talking about, dovers - the connection with Nature that Wordsworth describes in The Prelude shows that there was never any any severence that needed "reconnecting". And, as for John Clare ...

(And I suspect that the "Chain of Being" that forms the structure of Mahler's Third Symphony goes deeper than a subjective experience of an individual's "pleasure".)

Yes. I also think that dovers has a point: we in the west are very bad at letting go; what cannot be possessed is envied insofar as the capitalist system's need for everyone to keep up with its measurements for success tallies with the religious model of human greed and failure; identity is inextricably associated with status; we (well, obviously our elders and "betters" not the living generations) built an entire system based on white superiority over "heathen nations" whose "otherness" justified exploiting their peoples and resources, so that now we have a system based on security meaning collateral as much as armed might, and look what it has done to the natural environment so loved by the Romantics!

[NatBalance]

Here is a (translated) passage from a quintessentially Romantic poem, "Heimkehr" by Heinrich Heine.

By the old grey tower
a sentry-box stands;
….
I wish he would shoot me dead.

Blimey, that's a real downer, but I get your point.

You seemed to be querying what was "wrong" with music that was "sentimental". I was simply saying that the word, as now used, meant over sentimental so that was what was "wrong". If you had defined the word, as you meant it to be understood, your rather general comment would have been easier to reply to. I have never heard the word "kitsch" used to describe music. Just rather quirky, not very valuable, collectibles which are characteristic of objects which appeal to a taste for the individual and perhaps rather amusing. Toby jugs, for instance. Or garden gnomes. De gustibus.

Yes I was asking what is wrong with sentimental? The fact that it is now taken as meaning over sentimental, well, not sure how to answer that. I hadn't really realised that when I started this thread. That is something for the people who take it that way to sort out for themselves.

I think you're right, kitsch has perhaps not been used to describe music. I may be getting mixed up there. Other words are used but the same meaning is behind them. I believe muzack is one of them, sentimental rubbish is another.

Indeed. I was just making the point that calling the Romantic period the "Happiness period" is to miss at least half of the character of it.

Yes you are right. Romance I guess is the want for extreme happyness, a want so extreme that when it cannot be gained, life itself is not sufficient, so death is the only option.

Given its commercial success, perhaps its "composer"'s name, Add 'n' sell, was also in bad taste ….

Good one

The point I am trying to make is why is such excellent music being poo pooed? It's the same with picture painting. Anything that is absolutely astoundingly gorgeous is trashed as being shallow. For instance, such high standard artwork as this:- https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsand...antasy-forever would never be considered to be of much value in the world of art, can you imagine it winning the Turner prize? But yet it is of such staggeringly high quality. Whereas work like this:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14149880 can go for tens of thousands of pounds.

I'm not saying the Kyffin Williams' art is rubbish (although I think it alright it doesn't do much for me), but for it to go for such prices and the fantasy art to be considered kitsch! I mean, I just don't get it. It's the same with music. It's a topsy turvey world. I very often dissagree with the general public but on this I am with them. Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony and Adinsell's Warsaw Concerto ROCK! They are not over sentimental rubbish. They are top quality sentimental perfection.

[Richard Barrett]

The point I am trying to make is why is such excellent music being poo pooed?

I don't know if you've noticed this but different people get different things out of art, music, literature and so on. I for example look for music (and visual art etc.) to expand my view of what music can do, rather than to reinforce something I already know it can do, and to bring about a state of mind where emotional and intellectual responses become indistinguishable from one another. I'm not saying this from the privileged position of a practitioner because this is what I always wanted from music, from the time I first developed an interest in it, although I wouldn't at that time of course have been able to articulate in words what it was I was looking for - and finding, though not in the kind of music you're citing, which seems to me to invite a stereotyped emotional response, as opposed to drawing the listener into using their imagination and discovering something they hadn't known before (including about themselves). I'm not saying that it's desirable or even possible for this kind of experience to happen every day, but the fact that it does happen informs all of one's musical preferences and listening habits. So, the music you mention is no doubt "excellent" at doing certain things, but one might be completely uninterested in those things. There are no objective standards for what counts as "staggeringly high quality" in music or art. Nor should there be.

[ahinton]

Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony and Adinsell's Warsaw Concerto ROCK! They are not over sentimental rubbish. They are top quality sentimental perfection.

Writing of these two works in the same sentence is about as convincing an example as any of the notion that comparisons are odious. Addinsell / Douglas' Warsaw Concerto's substance, such as it is, pretends at best to imitate certain models by presenting the sketchiest of outlines of the contents of a Romantic piano concerto on a sufficiently small scale so that its listeners have as little as possible on which to concentrate; its structure, insofar as it has one, is as creaky as could be. Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony, on the other hand - a four-movement work of around an hour's duration - could arly be farther from this! That said, each serves its avowed purpose well, the one as an empty piece of Dangerous Moonshine that one might almost think of as an Accompaniment to a NON-imaginary filom scene and the other a finely formed through-composed contribution to the Russian symphonic canon with an intellectual and emotional thrust whose scope dwarfs that of the Addinsell / Douglas work.

[Judith Robbyns]

NatBalance: "Yes I was asking what is wrong with sentimental? The fact that it is now taken as meaning over sentimental, well, not sure how to answer that. I hadn't really realised that when I started this thread. That is something for the people who take it that way to sort out for themselves."

All these movements evolve, often starting as a reaction (even a 'corrective') to a previous movement, then the special characteristics are seen to become over emphasised and a new reaction/corrective follows. So the 'sentimental' was a reaction to the intellectual values of the Enlightenment, and newly centred on individuals and their feelings. The whole Romantic movement was also concerned with feelings/emotions, but was much more complex and intense in its concerns, Nature, Life, Death, Destiny … The purely sentimental seemed simplistic in comparison. Rachmaninoff was part of late Romanticism. Addinsell is less valued because he deliberately tried to imitate (seldom a good idea artistically) Rachmaninoff, harking back to a previous age musically. It was written-to-order film music (and not in any real sense a 'concerto'). In the context of the film it was very effective in capturing the essence and atmosphere of the film's story. And that is the way it may be admired and considered a success, but not as a Romantic concerto to compare with Rachmaninoff.

Also think of the way the word 'romantic' has been devalued, depending on the context: cheap romantic fiction, True Romance. It's what happens artistically when the aim is to capture the attention and approval of the mass audience; and make money. All in my view.

[Richard Barrett]

he deliberately tried to imitate (seldom a good idea artistically) Rachmaninoff, harking back to a previous age musically

Although of course in previous periods imitation wasn't looked down on in that way (Handel did it all the time, as is well known). And as for the "previous age", Rachmaninoff lived until 1943 at which point his own music also belonged stylistically to a previous age! To me, his 2nd Concerto is indelibly associated with the film Brief Encounter, where its heart-on-sleeve romanticism forms a counterpoint to the outwardly reserved characters in the story, in which I think it succeeds brilliantly, although I'd never want to hear it in a concert.

[gradus]

Differerent strokes ... or perhaps being a composer and not solely a listener makes a difference??

[NatBalance]

I for example look for music (and visual art etc.) to expand my view of what music can do, rather than to reinforce something I already know it can do, and to bring about a state of mind where emotional and intellectual responses become indistinguishable from one another.

Well, expanding one's horizons in music is always a pleasure, as it is in life, but that is just one aspect. Expanding on older types of music I find is also great fun and can create wonderfull results. It's a bit like what they are doing these days with steam locomotives, they're building new ones (from scratch) but using present day technology.

There are no objective standards for what counts as "staggeringly high quality" in music or art. Nor should there be.

I suppose the point is that quality of art is entirely objective. I often wonder how they mark work in art education. They could mark something down and that certain something could later become 'the thing'.

Ahinton - in reply to my statement "Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony and Adinsell's Warsaw Concerto ROCK! They are not over sentimental rubbish. They are top quality sentimental perfection."

Writing of these two works in the same sentence is about as convincing an example as any of the notion that comparisons are odious. Addinsell / Douglas' Warsaw Concerto's substance, such as it is, pretends at best to imitate certain models by presenting the sketchiest of outlines of the contents of a Romantic piano concerto on a sufficiently small scale so that its listeners have as little as possible on which to concentrate; its structure, insofar as it has one, is as creaky as could be.

I wasn't really comparing them, I was just saying they are both superb pieces of music. I've never understood criticism of structure of music. It seems to me a bit like criticising the shape of a piece of chocolate. It's not that significant a feature, it's the taste that really counts, unless of course you go to extremes e.g. the chocolate is shaped like something disgusting, or the piece of music has too many repeats (or not enough perhaps). I've read that the structure of Chopin's piano concertos is weak. I'd be interested to hear how they would sound if their structure was strong. How would it improve them?

Addinsell/ Douglas's work does not pretend to imitate a certain model, it was openly commissioned to imitate Rachmaninov's style, being as he would not allow his music to be used, and an expert job they did too.

Addinsell is less valued because he deliberately tried to imitate (seldom a good idea artistically) Rachmaninoff ….

This does not affect the quality of the music though. As you say this is a judgement on the composer. He (or they) were asked to copy Rachmaninov's style, and they did a high class job of it. This can be compared to Colin Matthews' attempt at copying Holst's style when composing Pluto as a follow on piece to The Planets. In my opinion Addinsell / Douglas did a much better job in copying Rachmanivov's style than Matthews did in copying Holst's (a good attempt but he didn't really crack it, a more difficult task probably aswell).

That said, each serves its avowed purpose well, the one as an empty piece of Dangerous Moonshine that one might almost think of as an Accompaniment to a NON-imaginary filom sceneand the other a finely formed through-composed contribution to the Russian symphonic canon with an intellectual and emotional thrust whose scope dwarfs that of the Addinsell / Douglas work.

Blimey …. empty? Of course the longer piece of music's scope by its very nature dwarfs the shorter, but by heck, the Warsaw Concerto does one hell of a lot with the short time it's got.

[oddoneout]

I suppose the point is that quality of art is entirely objective. I often wonder how they mark work in art education. They could mark something down and that certain something could later become 'the thing'.

I would have thought it inevitably has a subjective bias? Marking in education situations will be done to a framework which in theory reduces the chance of personal opinion affecting the grade. Students will learn to work to the criteria not necessarily to their own inclinations - happens in other subjects as well. My sister produced art work which was not deemed 'suitable' at both 'A' level and Degree level, and much wrangling ensued between her and her teachers to reach a compromise. Much of what she did is now mainstream( found art, performance art, using craft techniques for instance) but was decades ahead of its time and so didn't/couldn't get graded. In my opinion it doesn't really matter if the examiners miss 'the thing'(the system will catch up eventually!) so long as the student isn't discouraged from pursuing personal inspiration once out of the confines of exam constrained education.

[ahinton]

Ahinton - in reply to my statement "Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony and Adinsell's Warsaw Concerto ROCK! They are not over sentimental rubbish. They are top quality sentimental perfection."

I wasn't really comparing them, I was just saying they are both superb pieces of music. I've never understood criticism of structure of music. It seems to me a bit like criticising the shape of a piece of chocolate. It's not that significant a feature, it's the taste that really counts, unless of course you go to extremes e.g. the chocolate is shaped like something disgusting, or the piece of music has too many repeats (or not enough perhaps). I've read that the structure of Chopin's piano concertos is weak. I'd be interested to hear how they would sound if their structure was strong. How would it improve them?

If the purpose of mentioning them in the same paragraph was not to compare them, I am unsure what it was. As to your question about Chopin, I have no idea, not least because I do not agree that the structures of his concertos IS weak.

Addinsell/ Douglas's work does not pretend to imitate a certain model, it was openly commissioned to imitate Rachmaninov's style, being as he would not allow his music to be used, and an expert job they did too.

Well, it does to my ears, to the extent that it is notable for its UNRachmaninoffian characteristics; I know about the background to the commission, of course, but the success of the result is probably ascribable to the extent to which it persuaded some lilsteners to believe it to be an imitation of Rachmaninoff's style whereas in reality its closest connection thereto might have been as a cobbling together of rejected scraps that Rachmaninoff wrote in his sketchbook when half asleep. If the commissioners really wanted some passable imitation Rachmaninoff, they might have been wiser to approach Roger Sacheverell Coke, or York Bowen, or Richard Arnell instead.

This does not affect the quality of the music though. As you say this is a judgement on the composer. He (or they) were asked to copy Rachmaninov's style, and they did a high class job of it.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

This can be compared to Colin Matthews' attempt at copying Holst's style when composing Pluto as a follow on piece to The Planets. In my opinion Addinsell / Douglas did a much better job in copying Rachmanivov's style than Matthews did in copying Holst's (a good attempt but he didn't really crack it, a more difficult task probably aswell).

It can't, in all fairness, because imitating Holst's style was not Colin Matthews' brief or what he actually did in that work.

Blimey …. empty? Of course the longer piece of music's scope by its very nature dwarfs the shorter, but by heck, the Warsaw Concerto does one hell of a lot with the short time it's got.

I did write that it served its purpose well, which I believe it did but, when bearing in mind what that purpose was, that doesn't make it a piece of music in the same class as Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony - and not just because of its far shorter duration.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've never understood criticism of structure of music. It seems to me a bit like criticising the shape of a piece of chocolate. It's not that significant a feature, it's the taste that really counts, unless of course you go to extremes e.g. the chocolate is shaped like something disgusting, or the piece of music has too many repeats (or not enough perhaps).

Most music carries some sort of structure, wouldn't one say? Criticism is not necessarily a matter of praise or condemnation, or even a matter of judgements located between those poles, but of looking at the appropriateness of the structure to the overall concept. A classic blues or a 1930s 32-bar song with an A-B-A repeated theme with a bridge in the middle represent musical archetypes which have been handed down to modern-day genres are relatively simple handed down archetypes that classical composers have developed into sonata and variation forms; the harmonic and linear/contrapuntal elaborations of those forms have ebbed and flowed in prominence according to the values endowed into promoting them as expressions of different societies' needs to express in terms of music - even as these principles have undergone change or modification, as when CPE Bach and his contemporaries came to find the emphasis on contrapuntal elaboration that had preoccupied his dad and his (and the previous) generation had run its course (pro tem, as it happened!) or when Schoenberg and his school came to acknowledge that something had to replace the strong structures that had underpinned long-form composition once the hierarchy of keys had been transcended. Why? One might suggest that the creation of form in music, along with its perception, as in all the arts, is hard-wired into the human mind, even when operating on subconscious levels, and the mindset makes use of whatever is to hand for as long as it is capable of yielding fresh ideas that are the stuff of progress, rather than being stuck in the already known.

If the composer is allowed or encouraged to be self-critical in how he or she builds his or her structures, why can't we be equally critical of the results in that same spirit of encouragement or questioning? Or are we too thick to be capable of perceiving the work in its inner workings, and to be moved (or not) by how the moving parts together add up to the whole? Manufactured chocolate on the other hand is a much more recent invention!

[Richard Barrett]

I've never understood criticism of structure of music. It seems to me a bit like criticising the shape of a piece of chocolate. It's not that significant a feature

No, it really is that significant, unless the "taste" of music is all you're interested in, but you must be aware that music is far more than just an agreeable sensation like eating chocolate. My father, who was not very interested in music but as they say "liked the sound it made", once described his impression of Beethoven's symphonies to me in terms of big tunes with less interesting bits in between. If that's all you want from music then Addinsell is indeed just as good as Rachmaninov, but you don't have to be much of a connoisseur to appreciate not only Rachmaninov's "big tunes" but also the way he develops and contextualises them over a more extended timescale.

Colin Matthews wasn't attempting to copy Holst's style. He spoke of "the challenge of trying to write a new movement for The Planets without attempting to impersonate Holst". That seems quite clear.