Rok2kid, That would be my ineloquent way of referring to the fact that as those composers evolved through late Romantic chromaticism and serial techniques, their compositional strategies were more or less guided by adherence to certain principles of composition. Things like Schoenberg and Webern's use of only a single tone row in a given composition.
Arnettpartners, I think you are right about early imprinting. My mom was a violinist, pianist, and organist. My first musical memories as kid are of her playing Maunuel De Falla's music downstairs as I went to sleep. She hated anything anything before Beethoven and after Mahler, but she did give me an early start on appreciation for the classics. |
Frogman, your commentary is very insightful. We've all heard Duke's "good & bad" take on the hierarchy of musical genres and it's a good maxim to keep in the back of one's mind. It becomes a very slippery slope when we start proclaiming this or that the cultural apogee. A meaningful artistic practice can't be a static set of principles, it has to be a living art that morphs and changes. Otherwise we end up with an ossified, ready for the museum art form.
For a moment, let's think about a few of classical music's attributes and why they represent the highest attainment of Western civilization in our minds. Obviously, giving musical form to the quest for spiritual understanding is a primary reason. The link between mathematics and music is another aspect. Counterpoint between music and the increasing complexity of human thought in the sciences, other art forms, and philosophy is another reason. Ok, it's obvious where this train of thought leads.
Problem is, this unending focus on the noble can lead to a place of static creativity. Like Mozart complaining in the movie "Amadeus," "I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes! Old dead legends! Why must we go on forever writing about gods and legends?" We know the noble retort of Baron von Sweiten to this sentiment, but the complaint is valid. Think of the state of visual arts in France right before the Impressionists. Since 1648, the French Academy had controlled the development of art and directed its expression of noble themes. By the mid 19th century, we had artists of supreme technical virtuosity in the service of centuries old themes completely dominating the official artistic landscape. An artistic revolt got started, gained traction, and has never relented in its constant pushing against the constraints of conventional taste.
Schubert's recounting of a soldier's toughness reminds us that life gains meaning in things other than rarefied contemplation. The exuberant energy of youthful passions given expression in musical forms other than classical music art are important to maintaining living art forms. Frogman's friend who was obsessed with James Brown's music wasn't dumbing down in my book, just focusing on something different. Think playing James Brown's music is easy? Ask a classical musician to play in his band and generate some steamy funk. It reminds me of the tension between the Jazz and Classical students in a university. The Jazz students give props to the Classical students for their technical chops and skills, but deride them for their lack of ability to express a full range of emotion, lack of improvisational skills, and limitations of rhythmic expression.
I don't know where today's diversity of expressive means will lead. In spite of the general level of cultural stupidity that dominates popular culture, I'm not ready succumb to resignation that the best is behind us.
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Well stated analysis of the differences in personal approaches to listening and learning Frogman! Music for me is an amateurs passion, visual art is where I make my living. Frogman's comments regarding people's different degrees of receptiveness to education as enhancement to the musical arts also holds true for visual art. Some viewers want the whole background on a work of art, others think a visual work of art that can't stand on its own without explanation is work without merit. A problem (or maybe not, depending on your perspective) with the later emotion only based relationship with art is that it leaves today's art viewer and too a lesser degree, a listener, without any grounding in why art looks the way it does today or why art music sounds the way it does. Understanding how the arts got to the place they are today requires a lot of background learning, it's not an intuitive process. This leaves an awful lot of people on the outside looking in when it comes to art & music appreciation. As someone working within an academic environment, I find many contemporary artists and musicians want to pull off a near impossible balancing act. On one hand, they profess to want to broaden the appeal of contemporary art and music to a greater, non-specialist audience. But even though post-modern philosophy rejects the idea of the independent originator, they still secretly cling to the lure of the artist as an avante garde originator. An impossible to reconcile conundrum. Ananda Coomaraswmy, the philosopher and one time curator of Asian Art at the Boston Museum of Art once opined that in some sense, it's all been downhill for the arts since the Gothic times. That was the last time Western society shared a common musical and visual arts language throughout the entire spectrum of society. Everyone meet in the cathedral and understood the language of the service, the symbolism of the stained glass windows, etc. Once the arts became a status symbol of conspicuous consumption by the wealthy during the Renaissance, the division of social classes and associated consumptions of different art forms started to accelerate and that hasn't abated five hundred plus years later. |
Schubert, I think I understand your perspective, but just as relativism is the potential downfall of morality, so is absolutism of values the fossilization of aesthetic practice. In my mind, insisting that base emotions are unworthy inspirations for great art is to consign art to a place of precious near irrelevance. Without the base emotions that inspired Van's Brown Eyed Girl we wouldn't have much of Shakespeare and the plots in many great novels, the art of Egon von Schiele, many Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, some of Monet's paintings and many of the great operas and ballets that are part of our heritage. I don't agree that nothing good comes of being a soldier but I do agree that nothing good has made need of soldiers. Again, innumerable great works of literature, opera, painting, theatre, and film use that dark side of mankind as artistic inspiration.
Rok2id, nothing wrong with people having less than fully informed opinions about art forms they are a fan of. The survival of "elevated" forms of art depend entirely on the sustained interest of the dilettante. We just have to remember Moynihan's adage "everyone is entitled to his own opinions, just not his own facts." |
Rok2id, I would love to hear their perspective. I work within a very large University art department with practitioners of many art forms, so I obviously have great respect for the opinions of professional musicians and educators. As educators, we have to find ways to communicate with each other across our particular specialities and hopefully instill love and knowledge of the arts in both students who are arts majors as well as students who are taking arts courses because of graduation requirements. I'm not sure what level of expertise qualifies someone to be worthy of public commentary in your mind, but if educators were to suggest that students keep their mouths shut and their less than fully informed opinions to themselves until they had reached a predetermined level of artistic maturity, we'd not be doing a very good job of educating them by today's standards. I fail to see why adults attempting to educate themselves about an art form should also be relegated to the silent corner unless they pre-qualify as an expert opinion. It's just art we're talking about here, not as if we are risking spreading bad advice about how a disease is spread. I would also advise a slight tempering of reverence for the opinions of art professionals as oracles of absolute truth. I've worked with many artists and known a few composers, people who have been in history and textbooks for decades. They were and are subject to prejudices, biases, and irrational exuberances in spite of having great erudition in their specialty. No disrespect meant to Frogman and Learsfool, just making a general point. |
Learsfool, I agree with your thoughts regarding the reluctance of certain types of listeners to educate themselves. It is baffling, but the longer I live, the more I am amazed at the profound differences among humans in the way we process information, relate each other, and prioritize values. In America, we are generating humans who increasingly value the individual's raw and unformed subjective response to aesthetic stimuli above informed and educated insight. I know this sounds like the griping of an old man who's shaking his fist at the younger generation. However, decades of education and cultural values that has emphasized self-esteem and self-empowerment has skewed many peoples sense of need for education regarding the arts. Unlike Brownsfan, I suspect the majority of people DO feel that when it comes to aesthetics and art, one opinion is as good as another. |
Rok2id, I agree with you to a point. However, I do not agree that someone without knowledge of an artistic creation's historical context and means of creation enjoys a work as fully or hears music the same as someone with more informed knowledge. That's not being elitist, just basic truth it would seem to me. Take this as an example. Listen to the opening few minutes of J.S. Bach's "A Musical Offering." Now, listen to the same Ricercar after reading the brief one page explanation of a crab canon and while listening along with the animated film that illustrates the evolution of the canon. http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/651794581/j-s-bach-canon-cancrizans-the-crab-canon Is lack of this knowledge going to stop you from enjoying the composition, of course not. But it defies logic to say one hears it the same way after learning more about Bach's incredible compositional genius. |
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Every time one picks up a copy of a classical music magazine and looks at the industry ads for new releases, you cannot help but notice how soloists have to have both talent and physical charms in today's competitive market. It's not just female performers who are subject to rising standards for appearance, male performer's appearance standards are also affected. Conductors don't seem to be so critically judged on appearance, but it doesn't hurt your career to look like Hogwood or Karajan. I suppose the growing pressure on classical artists to be hyper-attractive is an inevitable consequence to living in such image conscious times (as well as a diminishing market for classical music.) |
