If you've a few moments to spare....

[vinteuil]

I don't like the seemingly irresistible urge to evaluate things comparatively

But I don't think {every A} is equivalent to {every B}. Do you? Are there no comparative values?

I'm for the greatest diversity of music/literature/visual art for the enormous diversity of tastes which can enjoy them.

Me too.

The idea that particular kinds of art are morally better...

... is not an idea I would endorse. I think you seem to have introduced the idea of 'moral' superiority here.

the idea that people who like pop music and hate or are indifferent to classical can be brought round by some re-education programme seems equally odd.

I completely agree: patronising or insulting. (I remember sitting in on an Arts Council meeting where they were seriously considering the merits of doing little Showcases of Contemporary Dance in the intervals of Premier Football Matches, as an outreach to show the lower orders what they were missing: I intimated that those attending ROH Covent Garden would be baffled if their Opera intervals were invaded by football specialists showing Them what They were missing...)

If you only listen to Bottesini thinking how much worse this is than Bach, then you're not giving yourself the best chance of hearing what is individual about Bottesini.

Wise words.

[barber olly]

As I would imagine many of us with the CD buying habit receive almost daily suggestions from Amazon. I have had ones headlined with Overtures with mostly symphonies and other orchestral items listed but very few overtures. Today I had a list of young male artists and boy bands. Now I had checked out a few rock albums from the sixties and seventies but I fail to see any connection with what i received.

[PatrickOD]

Patrick - but do you really think that K Jenkins - A Boe - A Rieu - are actually good for anyone?

I was addressing myself to that precise question when I said 'Yes'. Flossilde has confirmed that reply by referring to his partner's mother's enjoyment of Katherine Jenkins. If I had been asked if I thought any of the above were actually good, I might, or might not, have given a different answer. It's not just a question of taste, or of relative merit, it's a question of respect, imo, for other people's preferences and what they enjoy. I repeat, who am I to tell people what they should enjoy?

[Flosshilde]

My original comment was relating to the fact that they are included, by Amazon, under the heading 'classical', when they do not perform classical music, or only in bowdlerised forms.

& I think there's a difference between respecting others' enjoyment of good music well performed, in whatever genre, and not respecting their enjoyment of something that's just plain bad.

However, the list does have some very good buys - a set of Mahler's complete works, including 'Blumine', all (I think) the lieder, Song of the Earth, & Das Klagende Liede - very good value, as long as one likes Rattle (about half the symphonies). Lots of other bargains

[aeolium]

& that has **** all to do with it. We're not talking about different genres - KJ et al purports to be a classical singer, singing opera. She's just no good at it. She might be great doing pop music, or popular ballads. There is something immoral about the way in which she debases the genre she is promoted in.

Why does it have ***** all to do with it? O course we're talking about different genres - KJ does not purport to be a classical singer (as a check of her albums would indicate) and she has never sung opera in an opera house. She is promoted as classical crossover so there's no question of her debasing the genre she is promoted in. But rather than getting stuck on a discussion about KJ, I was more interested in why people want to rubbish other genres, whether pop or classical crossover, rather than enjoy the music and the performers that they are keen on.

Isn't this what the people who promote KJ, the Divis etc claim to be trying to do?

No. If it were, then you can bet that she would be on Breakfast or Essential Classics.

[aeolium]

I repeat, who am I to tell people what they should enjoy?

And that is the crux of it, PatrickOD. Yet there do seem to be large numbers of puritans who wish to criticise people for enjoying what they enjoy, and wish to change their tastes.

[vinteuil]

... wish to change their tastes.

... isn't it the role of all teachers, ultimately, to "change the tastes" of those they address?

[Flosshilde]

Her website does put a pretty strong emphasis on classical music - “I think I am just one of a wide range of people making classical music accessible", & referring to her classical background.

No. If it were, then you can bet that she would be on Breakfast or Essential Classics.

Remember - you saw it here first

[aeolium]

... isn't it the role of all teachers, ultimately, to "change the tastes" of those they address?

No, I don't think so - I would say rather to give their pupils the tools (knowledge, awareness of where to find things) to be able to make their own choices, not to direct them along the lines of the teacher's own tastes. Still, I don't speak from experience of teaching, and there must be teachers out there who can give a different view.

[vinteuil]

aeolium - I know what you mean - but equally I wd maintain that there is an A which is greater than B - the teacher knows this - the student does not - part of the teacher's role is to give the student the tools, knowledge, awareness to 'discover' that A is - indeed - greater than B.

Or are you a "relativist absolutist" - do you deny that anything is better than anything else?

[aeolium]

aeolium - I know what you mean - but equally I wd maintain that there is an A which is greater than B - the teacher knows this - the student does not - part of the teacher's role is to give the student the tools, knowledge, awareness to 'discover' that A is - indeed - greater than B.

Or are you a "relativist absolutist" - do you deny that anything is better than anything else?

I think that sort of teaching leads to a sort of Leavisite canon of approved great works with the rest in various degrees of outer darkness. It assumes that hierarchies are unvarying throughout time and across culture which I just don't think is true - how does Beethoven's music compare with Chinese opera, or African traditional music for instance?

I do believe that in art nothing can be shown objectively to be better than anything else, because it depends so much on perception and there can never be agreement about the qualities by which A can be shown to be 'greater' than B. You might give examples of how this view leads to absurd evaluations, such as a child's recorder solo being compared with the Missa Solemnis. Yet to the father of the child (who does not know the Missa Solemnis) that solo may indeed be 'better' - as it might in cultures where simplicity in music was valued over complexity.

[vinteuil]

... then why value anything?

Or why should anyone think that it's worth putting in effort to appreciate that there is a value in X?

If everything can be deemed to have equal value - a counsel of despair...

[Nick Armstrong]

Been thinking a lot about this today, where work has permitted, and it's a difficult one to pin down.

I don't think it helps to compare things which need to be evaluated by different criteria - comparing the objective value or quality of Missa Solemnis with the subjective reaction of a parent to their child's recorder solo ('better'? 'worse'?) doesn't seem to get us very far.

I just know that I totally disagree that "nothing can be shown objectively to be better than anything else" - and yet I do think also that one needs to avoid

a sort of Leavisite canon of approved great works with the rest in various degrees of outer darkness. It assumes that hierarchies are unvarying throughout time and across culture ... how does Beethoven's music compare with Chinese opera, or African traditional music for instance?

Short of that, though, attributing equal value to everything does seem to me to doom 'culture' or 'art' (or whatever phrase one wants to use) to a slide downwards to the accessible, the easy, the superficially sentimental... I want to find an analogy with nutrition: to say all art is of equal value seems to me as odd as saying that bubble gum has the same nutritional value as a good balanced meal. Are we saying that children shouldn't be taught the difference? It's not about being proscriptive necessarily, just making people aware that there are rewards, benefits, positive consequences to embracing things which may be more complicated, less instantly gratifying, than a bag of sweets (and perhaps avoiding an excess of the latter).

Thoughts in progress. Limited brain cells available again. But important questions, these.

[aeolium]

... then why value anything?

Or why should anyone think that it's worth putting in effort to appreciate that there is a value in X?

If everything can be deemed to have equal value - a counsel of despair...

Why value anything? Because it has value for you - which does not mean that it will have the same value for others. It is a subjective judgement.

Why compare everything, including things which it is not useful to compare?

The reason I abandoned the comparative approach was that it seemed such a fruitless way of looking at things. To say that 'A' is greater than 'B' does not illuminate either 'A' or 'B' in any meaningful way. And also the canonical, hierarchical way of evaluating art just seemed so wrong, so antithetical to the way people respond to books or music, as if there were a proper set of responses (positive for the great works, negative for the low stuff). It wasn't any use to me at all.

[EdgeleyRob]

However, I then noticed that there are 17,756 items to browse through.

Where's the Andre Rieu filter when you need it?.