Sung composers that you just "don't get"

[X. Trapnel]

I've been following this thread with great interest since the beginning and am wondering whether the issue is not so much not getting a particular composer as not getting the reputation. The difference is significant insofar as extramusical demands and expectations often contribute to the latter which many unsung composers do not fulfill regardless of the stand-alone quality of their music. Do a greater degree than matters of taste, the culture politics of reputation can be analyzed with regard to the sung and unsung.

[kolaboy]

To say you "don't get" Boulez is to say you don't understand him (as in "I don't get that joke").

So the discussion then becomes one of the musical language used by Boulez and the musical language understood by any particular listener. Personally, I have reservations about criticising what I don't understand if my lack of comprehension might be due to insufficient effort on my part to understand it (rather than it just being unintelligible nonsense).

But that, I think, is a subject for a different forum.

Ummm, Gauk... allow me to simplify my language a bit - to avoid any further confusion.

I GET Boulez. I know what he's up to (I read books). I just do not LIKE Boulez in the same way that I do not like the taste of buttermilk, or the fragrance of death (I get those too, BTW). What I find to be repellent I do not choose to embrace. Doesn't mean that it is intrinsically bad, just that it is not an avenue that I choose to pursue - given the brevity of an average of 85 or so years of life upon this tattered globe. Should I be blessed with the longevity of a Methuselah I might devote an afternoon to his language, but given the unlikelihood of this, I shall, with all politeness, defer. This is a personal choice dictated by personal taste. If any enjoy this particular composers by-product, well then God bless you, and depart in peace. But I would implore you - for the sake of comity - do not cast aspersions on a individual's intellect simply because he may not choose embrace your particular teddy bear.

Now, let's all be happy. It's springtime, and the sun has got his hat on (hip hip hip hurray).

[Alan Howe]

Good post. I too know enough about Boulez to have an inkling what he might be up to, but I have come to the conclusion that, if I can't manage later Schoenberg, I'm very unlikely to grasp Boulez. And then for me the aversion factor kicks in. Why, I ask myself, should I spend any time at all on music (let's concede that it's music for the sake of argument) that is so impenetrable to the average listener which I count myself as? After all, there's so much more to discover - and rediscover in my own existing collection! Knowing that Boulez was an iconoclast as a younger man - with serialism having been adopted as the sole acceptable method of composition - I also find I have a philosophical objection to his compositions, i.e. a rejection of his musical totalitarianism.

Anyway, I think Boulez has had his day. We have moved beyond musical modernism into a postmodern world in which composers employ a pick and mix approach according to their compositional tastes. There's no way back. Which has left open the door for composers who deliberately compose in continuity with the past - but which has left the musical world in general in flux and without moorings.

In comparison with all this, 'not getting' particular composers that fit UC's stated remit seems a relatively straightforward task. It involves time, effort - and possibly a Damascus Road experience...

[jerfilm]

Having collected, listened to and studied "Classical" music for about 70 years, here's my humble take.  Many, many friends over the years, having been coerced into listening to something I thought was stunning, have said, "Well, I just don't understand(or sometimes the word is "appreciate") classical music".  My response has always been the same - you don't have to understand it, it's a question of whether you like what you hear or not.   If you like it, you probably appreciate it.  You may not understand it, but so what?

I don't Like Boulez and his ilk.  I've asked numerous "knowledgeable" friends to explain to me how to understand it.  Almost to a person, they don't even try.   Usually accompanied by that "Uncultered Boob" look.  Which simply reinforces my already biased opinion......  I neither envy them nor disparage their tastes.  They have theirs, I have mine.   Although I have noted that almost without exception, they always stick around for the Beethoven, or Bruckner or Brahms or whoevers works closes the program.  Something I probably would not do if the Boulez were the final work on the program.  But of course, the knowledgeable music director ain't about to build his program THAT way.......

J

[Alan Howe]

My response has always been the same - you don't have to understand it, it's a question of whether you like what you hear or not. If you like it, you probably appreciate it.  You may not understand it, but so what?

I have often 'not liked' a piece of music I have heard for the first time. That was definitely true with regard to The Rite of Spring, which I now enjoy listening to immensely - but I had to do a lot of listening to 'get' the idiom and I'm glad I did. Mind you, I wouldn't play it to someone unfamiliar with classical music - any more than I would Act 1 of Parsifal or Bruckner 9.

[thalbergmad]

I don't Like Boulez and his ilk.  I've asked numerous "knowledgeable" friends to explain to me how to understand it.  Almost to a person, they don't even try.   

I was once told that I am not intelligent enough to appreciate Boulez and others like him.

I will happily remain blissfully dim witted.

Thal

[Gauk]

Having collected, listened to and studied "Classical" music for about 70 years, here's my humble take.  Many, many friends over the years, having been coerced into listening to something I thought was stunning, have said, "Well, I just don't understand(or sometimes the word is "appreciate") classical music".  My response has always been the same - you don't have to understand it, it's a question of whether you like what you hear or not.   If you like it, you probably appreciate it.  You may not understand it, but so what?

Well, this is a good question. Firstly, I would say there is a skill set for appreciating music that many people do not have. Listening to music by Schumann involves a different class of mental activity than listening to popular music. People who say they "don't appreciate classical music" are listening to it in the wrong way; for instance, they expect rhythm to be pointed out in the most obvious, crude way, with a constant drum track. They can be lost without this sort of ever-present signpost. It can for them be like someone unable to read opening a novel.

Secondly, there are different levels of understanding of music. There is a technical level of understanding that a composer or musicologist needs, where you can write things like "towards the end of the development the composer employs a shifting series of chords based on piling up fourths, while carefully avoiding the dominant". The average listener does not need this. But a good listener DOES have another level of understanding, which operates at a non-linguistic level, in which you follow what is going on, even if you lack the vocabulary to express it.

And it is this, I think, that allows us to form judgements about pieces. If you listen to a piece and find it a really satisfying musical experience, this may be because you have understood the composer's argument intuitively. Alternatively, either (a) you didn't understand the work sufficiently - maybe you will on repeated hearing - or (b) there simply wasn't anything interesting to understand.

[mariusberg]

While having a good time with the music of some of the aforementioned composers like Reger, Messiaen and Boulez I have but a very limited interest for Mahler, Britten and Bartok. And I still haven't learned to like Schubert, he's so... full of feelings. What's the cynic's way to Schubert?

[eschiss1]

(I may as well add Stravinsky as well as Offenbach - and the Stravinsky I -do- get is more pieces like Apollon musagete, with its saddening finale, the Debussy-memorial Symphonies of Wind Instruments... and sometimes the Symphony in C and Symphony in 3 movements too, sometimes... , or some of the very intriguing late pieces, late the Piano Movements and the Huxley Variations... but the Rite, Petrouchka, most of the neoclassical work- mostly dull to my ears, so far, I think, and much too much rhythm and pseudo-counterpoint rather than counterpoint, then rhythm to prevent monotony (or other things; I know there are many other approaches, I know Brahms was unquestioned king of the hemiola, etc. ... but!...) in my opinion.)

[Alan Howe]

I can see why Brahms would say that, so different was his concept of the symphony from that of Bruckner. Personally, I'll take both...

[kolaboy]

Yet he held some degree of regard for him. He DID show up at Bruckner's funeral - even if he didn't actually go inside the church... 

[Gauk]

One thing that might help the approach to Bruckner is reading Robert Simpson's chapter on Bruckner's symphonies in the two-volume study "The Symphony" (ed. Simpson, publ. David & Charles).

[JimL]

Yet he held some degree of regard for him. He DID show up at Bruckner's funeral - even if he didn't actually go inside the church... 

The story has it that as the procession left the church, he walked away muttering something along the lines of "Soon it will be my turn".

[Karl.Miller]

I don't find any pleasure in the bulk of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Bach, and most of the standard repertoire. I still find great value in Brahms, CPE Bach, and much of the music written since 1900. For me, Mahler is moving at times, but undisciplined and self-indulgent...Bruckner, Reger and others of that ilk, a bore. Rachmaninoff is a "God" for me.

For me, there is a difference in what I like and what I respect. After several semesters of counterpoint, and playing quite a bit of his music, I have great respect for the music of JS Bach, yet I will almost never listen to it. I can admire the genius of Webern, but will never choose to listen to anything other than Im Sommerwind, the Quartet movement and the Passacaglia.

It seems to me that we don't have to like something to appreciate it. Nor, do I believe that I have to "like" everything I listen to. I think of many plays and novels that convey to me very disturbing ideas. Likewise, I can appreciate a painting that I find troubling. For me there is a great danger in thinking that we must "enjoy" things for them to have value. I am fond of this quote from Koussevitzky, "From the beginning of the twentieth century, music, once the privilege of the 'initiated' became accessible to wide layers of society, bring about a 'mass initiation' of listeners into the sphere of musical art. This spreading of music to the masses, at too rapid a pace, resulted in a profound misconception of music as a means of 'entertainment' and 'enjoyment' to be passively consumed by the listener. Music must be listened to creatively. Only active love can lead to the understanding of art and of its lasting value."

I am also reminded of Copland's book, on listening to music. Copland spoke of the various levels of listening and how we should strive to learn to listen to music on its own terms. I have come to the conclusion that it is a noble goal, which few will take the time to reach.

That said, I hope to God that I never have to hear anything written by Haydn the rest of my life!

Karl

[Mark Thomas]

It seems to me that we don't have to like something to appreciate it. Nor, do I believe that I have to "like" everything I listen to.

I couldn't agree more. Indeed, I think your whole post, Karl, is a breath of fresh air, although I don't share your likes/dislikes!