Temporary title

[Barbirollians]

I don't believe for a moment I am " trolling " . As I recall it Aracdes Project in his first post on here appeared and called me completely arrogant . I may be mistaken in my belief that there is an element of Emperor's New Clothes about the lauding of music such as Lachenmann's but it is a belief honestly held and not directed at any individual member of this forum .

My reference to Harry Potter was intended to be light-hearted I am sorry if it has led to some posts in crazed mode .

back to the topic I do find it hard to understand a dislike of Mozart . He remains for me the greatest of all composers - his works have infinite variety and far from tinkling prettiness plumb the deepest depths of human emotion . Sometimes the slow movement of K271 may seem much more moving than the darkest performance of Mahler 6 for example .

He is the most human of all composers and I am so sorry others do not hear it in his works .

[Flosshilde]

I tend to reserve 'argument' for a reasoned, reasonable exposition of a case (with footnotes where applicable). Argumentation. Otherwise, it's a squabble, quarrel or bickering...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnTmBjk-M0c

[Richard Barrett]

I may be mistaken in my belief that there is an element of Emperor's New Clothes about the lauding of music such as Lachenmann's but it is a belief honestly held

But why on earth would you hold such a bizarre belief? For the third time I would like to ask you what evidence you have that this belief corresponds to reality in any way.

[jean]

I'd put in a Picasso dove if I knew how...

He did several versions. I like this one:

[anamnesis]

Again I wonder whether you have the slightest shred of evidence for this.

Maybe we can break it down to the question what the meaning of music (art in general) is in our life? If someone looks for pleasing, calming, relaxing, cosiness and so on he must be annoyed by music that doesn't offer those qualities. When "a-tonality" (Schönberg didn't like this nonsense word at all) was "discovered" the composers not only broke with tradition (in fact they preserve western music tradition, but I think it's not the place to discuss Adorno's philosophy of new music...), but stole us intentionally "the voice that rocks the cradle". Our mothers didn't sing Pierrot Lunaire, and our music boxes didn't play Stockhausen or Ligeti. From Palestrina's diatonism to Beethoven's "Große Fuge" to Reger's chromatism: The cling to "the voice that rocks the cradle" is not totally lost. For this reason feelings/affects like angst, uncertainty and existential homelessness need(ed) a new language, a "non-mother-tongue", so to speak.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I may be mistaken in my belief that there is an element of Emperor's New Clothes about the lauding of music such as Lachenmann's but it is a belief honestly held and not directed at any individual member of this forum .

For goodness' sake, Barbi - how can an "honestly held belief" that Lachenmann is a conman, fooling everybody (except yourself; the one innocent voice in the crowd) not be taken as "directed" at quite a few of us on the Forum? If nothing else, it insults amcluesent, Thropplenoggin, Anton Gould, seabright and Hitch, all of whom made quite clear that they shared your low opinion of the work.

My reference to Harry Potter was intended to be light-hearted I am sorry if it has led to some posts in crazed mode

Such was my intention, too. But what you describe as "crazed mode" (from you, of all people!) has not been in response to the Rowling reference - some of us object to your persistent and unsubstantiated claims that many people who claim to enjoy the Music that you despise don't really do so. That you can believe that there are more people who do this than who do so about, for example Mozart really is "crazed" - an intense need to have the world as you would wish it to be.

back to the topic I do find it hard to understand a dislike of Mozart . He remains for me the greatest of all composers - his works have infinite variety and far from tinkling prettiness plumb the deepest depths of human emotion . Sometimes the slow movement of K271 may seem much more moving than the darkest performance of Mahler 6 for example .

He is the most human of all composers and I am so sorry others do not hear it in his works .

To conclude on a more conciliatory note, I largely agree with this (I wouldn't say he was "the greatest of all", and I can understand that others might not share my enthusiasm) - Mozart's Music is amongst the most intellectual, spiritual, physical and emotional experiences that I know; something that has grown with me, intensifying in its effect throughout my life. It is only in the spirit of sharing this overwhelming sense of joy that I would ever consider "converting a Mozart sceptic".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

our music boxes didn't play Stockhausen

They could do now :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR_wG0MYNoA

(piano transcription of the original for Music Boxes, not available on youTube )

Good post, amamnesis - the hostility many people feel towards some Music written since, say, 1950 is often understandable, and you've put your finger on why a lot of this might be. What I find curious is the need that a few of these peole have not merely to "rubbish" the Music, but also to attack the people who do find it deeply moving and rewarding. They never have any evidence for their huge (and hugley insulting) claims and fail to see that it is ridiculous to imagine that the audiences who turn up at Huddersfield each and every year, part with their money simply in order to "look good" to somebody else!

[Barbirollians]

But why on earth would you hold such a bizarre belief? For the third time I would like to ask you what evidence you have that this belief corresponds to reality in any way.

Anecdotally , some have admitted it to me. I don't understand why you regard " swimming with the tide " as being a bizarre belief - it happens in all walks of life.

[Barbirollians]

For goodness' sake, Barbi - how can an "honestly held belief" that Lachenmann is a conman, fooling everybody (except yourself; the one innocent voice in the crowd) not be taken as "directed" at quite a few of us on the Forum? If nothing else, it insults amcluesent, Thropplenoggin, Anton Gould, seabright and Hitch, all of whom made quite clear that they shared your low opinion of the work.


Such was my intention, too. But what you describe as "crazed mode" (from you, of all people!) has not been in response to the Rowling reference - some of us object to your persistent and unsubstantiated claims that many people who claim to enjoy the Music that you despise don't really do so. That you can believe that there are more people who do this than who do so about, for example Mozart really is "crazed" - an intense need to have the world as you would wish it to be.


To conclude on a more conciliatory note, I largely agree with this (I wouldn't say he was "the greatest of all", and I can understand that others might not share my enthusiasm) - Mozart's Music is amongst the most intellectual, spiritual, physical and emotional experiences that I know; something that has grown with me, intensifying in its effect throughout my life. It is only in the spirit of sharing this overwhelming sense of joy that I would ever consider "converting a Mozart sceptic".

1 That is not what I said so please do not caricature it . My point was that I doubted that anyone really enjoyed it on a sonic level but more on an intellectual level and that it was likelt if you did not enjoy it on an intellectual level you didn't actually like it at all. Richard Barrett's point is a good one that some people like the sound of such noise but I am afraid where I differ from you entirely is that you refute the possibility that a number of people profess to like that music when in fact they don't and they do not like to be condescended to and therefore swim with the tide.

2 I don't think Lachenmann is a conman - I just think what i have heard is dreadful and he has , judging by that Durer analogy an extraordinary high opinion of himself . He is the emperor not the tailor.

3 The problem you identify is forumites taking an opinion about a musical work personally - I did not direct any personal abuse unlike others - and it is that which i think Beef oven correctly describes as crazed mode

[Richard Barrett]

Anecdotally, some have admitted it to me

Is that the best you can do?

[anamnesis]

What I find curious is the need that a few of these peole have not merely to "rubbish" the Music, but also to attack the people who do find it deeply moving and rewarding. They never have any evidence for their huge (and hugley insulting) claims and fail to see that it is ridiculous to imagine that the audiences who turn up at Huddersfield each and every year, part with their money simply in order to "look good" to somebody else!

I think there is a bunch of possible reasons. First, we are all very happy with our intellect and nobody complains about the lack of intelligence. :-) Joke aside, I think there is a tendency to mark everything we don't like and/or don't understand as emphemeral, not important, even unnatural or sick (the dangerous side of this kind of ignorance...), and so we come to the conclusion that people who like that must be stupid, or they are clueless posers who only want to be members of an exclusive circle of the hip avantgarde. Of course such silly people exist. They are the same silly people who listen to Classic F* and think they belong to the intellectual upper-class because they know the "most beautiful, calming and relaxing 8 bars of Für Elise". :-)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

1 My point was that I doubted that anyone really enjoyed it on a sonic level

Put aside such doubts - I love the sound of Lachenmann's Music, and have done since I first heard it twelve years ago.

but more on an intellectual level and that it was like lt if you did not enjoy it on an intellectual level you didn't actually like it at all.

Not my own intention/suggestion - my own position is rather that as suggested by RB: if a piece moves me, gets under my skin, won't leave me for days, I want to know more about it. I want to hear it again and again, and to discover as much about how the composer (and performers) created the effects the work has on me. This is true of my response to Mozart, to Dunstable, to Mahler etc etc etc as it is to Lachenmann and Ferneyhough ... and, occasionally, to Music I dislike.

Richard Barrett's point is a good one that some people like the sound of such noise but I am afraid where I differ from you entirely is that you refute the possibility that a number of people profess to like that music when in fact they don't and they do not like to be condescended to and therefore swim with the tide.

I don't entirely refute such a possibility - rather I believe that such a phenomenon is no more apparent in New Music circles than it is in those of Opera, Ballet, Chamber Music, Theatre, Jazz, Orchestral Concerts, Chamber Music ... or any other type of "public" cultural event.

2 I don't think Lachenmann is a conman - I just think what i have heard is dreadful ... He is the emperor not the tailor.

Ahh! I think I'm beginning to understand what you meant by the ENC: you believe that Lachenmann is himself a victim of a false belief? But that implies that you believe that all of us who adore this Music (including the many professional performers who devote their skills to its presentation) have likewise been taken in by this "tailor"? Nott, Barenboim, Rattle, Levine, Rosen? And that only amateurs (= "those who love something without profiting financially from it") see "behind" its false facade? If this is a correct understanding of your reference, then might it not be considered just a smidgeon "arrogant" in itself?

judging by that Durer analogy an extraordinary high opinion of himself

As I said on the Bamberg Prom Thread, there was no such "analogy": Lachenmann was talking to a group of schoolchildren about the Music of Stockhausen and others, not his own Music (getting him to discuss his own work is very difficult; many people have tried and failed). When some of them described Stockhausen's Music as "ugly", he did what any good teacher would do: he challenged and got them to refine for themselves their own ideas about what is "beautiful". He did this by showing them a "beautiful" picture of what might be considered an "ugly" woman; in so doing, he led them to realize that narrow ideas of "beauty" (a photograph of a young, "beautiful" woman) limit their experience. It was a lesson praising Durer, not linking himself with him. (I would gladly draw analogies between Lachenmann and Durer; he doesn't and didn't.)

3 The problem you identify is forumites taking an opinion about a musical work personally - I did not direct any personal abuse unlike others - and it is that which i think Beef oven correctly describes as crazed mode

As most people who use the ENC cliché to ridicule those who enjoy work that they do not, it is hardly surprising when they take such references "personally".

[Barbirollians]

Is that the best you can do?

What do you expect ? a detailed academic study - which some admit this and others deny it but the researchers find their denials incredible ?

People swim with the tide - if you believe that all those who profess to enjoy music like that of Lachenmann do then what is your evidence for that ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

People swim with the tide

What "tide"?

[Richard Barrett]

My point was that I doubted that anyone really enjoyed it on a sonic level but more on an intellectual level

'Where "thinking" is an obstacle to "feeling", both are underdeveloped.' (Helmut Lachenmann, "Bedingungen des Materials", 1978)

As for Lachenmann having a high opinion of himself, he is in fact a charming and generous-minded individual; as for his being the "emperor", I have seen him lecture on Beethoven and Webern with such eloquence and incisiveness that I remembered almost every word. He is indeed more steeped in the tradition represented (for example) by those names than very many other composers whose music sounds much more "traditional", and his music is a creative response to that tradition rather than an unquestioning continuation of it. Not that any of these remarks will or should convince anyone who isn't attracted by the sound of his music to suddenly become attracted to it. As I've said before, it doesn't appeal to me particularly. But if it's to be criticised, surely it deserves comparable terms to those one might use in discussing Mozart, rather than the language of ignorant disdain. It's the latter I and others find objectionable, not the fact that you don't enjoy the music.