Today's equivalent to Beethoven

[Preston]

...there are many highly intelligent people but they are not all geniuses, nor do they all have the capacity to be so.

All so true.

[Sorrano]

We also have the curse, if you will, of too many distractions in today's world. It is too easy for even the most intelligent and gifted to be caught up in so many mundane pursuits. Those that do stand out from the rest of their peers are those who also have the capacity to overcome the inherent distractions. One might consider that Beethoven's deafness was a blessing in that it forced him to concentrate mainly on the gift of composition and to forget the gift of performing, hence it limited the temptations to be distracted by other things.

But the question remains, are there geniuses out there today that are actively changing our music world as did Beethoven? The environment we live in is much different today and the education (particularly, music) is far greater. It's a difficult question.

[Quijote]

Wow, Phillip - you're really beating me about the head and shoulders today aren't you!

No, not really, just being rigourous. Let us continue your "game" (i.e. find an equivalent to Beethoven today). Well, not exactly today, but here is an idea to run with (and I quote from Richard Taruskin, his BBC Inaugural Proms Lecture at the Royal College of Music, London, August 1996) :

"When, at the dawn of the third millenium, we use the word Stravinsky, we no longer merely name a person. We mean a collection of ideas embodied in, or rather construed out of, a certain body of highly valued musical and literary texts that acquired enormous authority in twentieth-century musical culture [...]. Stravinskian ideas have been so influential that one could almost say that twentieth-century European and Euro-American musical culture has been created in the image of Stravinsky [to such an extent that] the meanings and values [have] fundamentally structured our behaviour as twentieth-century musicians, music lovers, and human beings."

Sounds rather familiar, I feel.

[Quijote]

[...] You teach "free composition"? Would that be free improvisation in the vein of Derek Bailey, or intuitive music in the 'vain' of Stockhausen?

Neither. Why only the two options you give? Is "free composition" limited to the veins you cite (free improvisatory Bailey or intuitive [whatever that may mean] Stockhausen)? No, the "free composition" I have to teach this term is more in the "vein" of 20 given bars with piano and two other intruments, which the students then have to complete for another 20 bars or so "in the same style". The styles range from early classical to late Romantic, but with "Pastiche" one has a fairly wide margin.

[Quijote]

I should add that this new course (new for me, as a syllabus) is for the competitive exams expected of prospective secondary (high school) teachers here in France. The aim of the course is to imbibe prospective teachers with the necessary harmonic vocabulary and instrumental technique that they would be expected to apply in arranging / composing works suitable for secondary level orchestras / choirs / ensembles.

[Quijote]

I have much material at hand for this course, including the "I've Never Been in Love Before" song (see forum elsewhere) that offers a rich harmonic resource. Nah, source material is not the problem; its pedagogic application is. But that is my job.

[Quijote]

But I am off forum, here. Stravinsky, then: as "influential" as Beethoven? I suppose to an extent we owe the HIP (historically informed performance) movement to him. On certain CDs it strikes me as the "hysterically informed performance" practice.

[Sorrano]

For that matter, we may be too close in time to really judge the global influences of those who were our peers in the very near past.

[Quijote]

Yes Sorrano. With hindsight we are always on the side of the angels, are we not? Still, just to play (and extend) the game, where are the "equivalents today" in terms of Bach? Or Haydn? Is there a Dickens alive today? A Goya? A Keats? An Einstein? A Pasteur? A Kant (unlike the cant of this thread), a Descartes? Who can say? So, if I read Ed C correctly, Beethoven is the summa, period. I'm bored now, I shall not revisit this thread.

[jamesofedinburgh]

You're not telling me anything I didn't already know. But what I meant by "educated" was:

1. able to read and write - not to PhD standard, but a huge advance on hundred and hundreds of years when nobody but the tiny minority could;

2. understand cause and effect - even if that simply means what creates babies. This has hugely influenced the western standard of living;

3. able to travel, experience the world as others do;

4. know your world better through nightly news services on television;

5. keep a job by being able to speak fluently, understand technology and use thinking processes.

So, we are not as doomed as you might think. Everywhere about us is living proof of higher living standards achieved through a broad, general education. We would, of course, like it to be better but it's free!! What else do you generally get for nothing, Peter??!!
And I think it would be improved if EVERYBODY actually had to PAY for it!! (Controversy!)

Write to PhD level? In my view, that would be regressive, not progressive. Never read anything worse in my life than the garbage churned out by most of the academic press on any subject you please - take your pick. Obtuse language, lengthy sentences, abstraction totally disconnected to meaning, extreme arrogance, contentious and ill-tempered debating about the most minute points - sometimes it seems that universities are mild prisons where some of the most potentially dangerous people in society are incarcerated where they can do as little harm as possible.

Cause and effect? Children develop this knowledge about age 2 and then it becomes consistent as they grow older. There is no reason to think this wasn't know in ancient Egypt - push the stones before the mortar sets and the pyramid will fall down. I think you mean 'scientific method' that is relatively new, but that's not perfect either, as it encourages people to dismiss all evidence that does not fit with their preconceptions no less than religion. Scientism is an ideology.

One could go on at length, but at least people don't pay directly (they do so indirectly) for education.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Peter (09-10-2010, 02:08 PM)
I think we have to understand that the question starts from a false premise - how can there possibly be 'another' Beethoven, Mozart or anybody else come to that? We are all unique, born into a unique set of circumstances. The lives of Beethoven etc.. can and never will be replicated. Even if by some awful scientific expereiment they could clone Beethoven - he would not be Beethoven and would not write music that we know as 'Beethovian' because all the other circumstances of his life have gone forever.

Of course, Peter, it is axiomatic that we are “all unique” etc etc and so, in this narrow sense, there can never “be 'another' Beethoven, Mozart or anybody else come to that”.

But djmomo asked us “Who is the modern day equivalent to Beethoven?” from which I think it is clear he/she seeks a (serious) composer who has made, or is making, as big an ‘impact’ in our times as Beethoven (or Mozart, come to that) did in his.

In my view, the question is a very interesting one although I do agree with Philip that it was diminished by too many “exclusive caveats” and “narrow definition[s]”.

So, here, I shall comment on what I take to be the central thrust of the original question and ignore the caveats and definitions.

I start from where I left off in my earlier posting (09-10-2010, 01:50 PM): statistically speaking there will have been hundreds or even thousands of ‘Beethovens’ or ‘Mozarts’ born since their time and many of these will be alive today. By which I mean people with the ‘equivalent’ innate ability (genius, if you prefer) to ‘do something’ (including writing music) having the same ‘impact’ today as the music of Beethoven.

So, where have they all gone?

First, we can whittle down the numbers substantially by eliminating:

virtually all females (the reasons? potentially a separate thread);
virtually all those born into deprived circumstances;
virtually all those not included above but who were born into alien cultures (alien in the sense that music accessible to our ears did and does not form part of their cultures).

This will have brought the numbers down dramatically but there will still (I would guess) be dozens of potential Beethovens left, even today.

So, where have the rest gone?

I believe this question can be addressed in two broad ways:

from first principles;
from the narrower perspective of education (formal and informal).

The first interests me personally far more but I guess is not appropriate to this forum. This brings us to education.

I entirely agree with Peter who has railed about the general standard of formal education in the UK (and there is no reason to think that it does not apply to many – most? – western countries). Equally, I agree with Bonn that there are just as many bright, lively, curious kids around as ever, a lucky few of whom meet the sort of teachers that Bonn herself seems to have been.

A statistically significant number of these very bright kids will have had considerable exposure to the Arts, whether at school or elsewhere, albeit at a far less intense level than that experienced by either Beethoven or Mozart.

But, I would argue, every age has its own horizons and places towards which the brightest are inexorably drawn. Astronomy, mathematics, philosophy for the Greeks; the visual arts during the Renaissance; physics, biology over the last hundred years or so; and so on. And, today, I would include finance in this list (with all the consequences that we are now experiencing).

Today, if you are really (frighteningly) bright (estimated IQ of Mozart of 165, remember) and don’t allow yourself to be influenced too much by your primary and secondary education, you migrate towards:

finance if you want to make money (or, as a second choice, corporate business, the law, accountancy possibly, or the media if you are spineless);
fundamental science or microbiology or nanotechnology etc if you want to be at the very frontier of knowledge, a boundary where everything is up for grabs in ways not seen since 1927, the Solvay Conference, and the argument between Einstein and his supporters and Bohr and his.

If you have a mind that could live in either of these worlds, composing (serious) music doesn’t even feature on your radar; where’s the fame (or money)?

The hundred+ years from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries in (what is now) Germany and, in particular, in Vienna drew some of the best to music where there was patronage and fame. Today, the only possible contender for fame or money in the (serious) Arts is architecture (but the opportunities here are few and far between) or literature (but this is destroyed by the economics of the publishing industry).

Today, Beethoven would be a physicist at CERN; Mozart would be dealing in arcane derivatives in New York or the City of London. The opportunities in both are huge; the mental demands severe enough to challenge even the brightest of minds; the potential rewards immense. Look there for your Beethovens.

Euan

CERN? There is little or no opportunity for individual effort, the science is collective. Too much is at stake, especially in financial terms, to let anyone do anything without the potentially dead hand of collaboration.

At least you didn't say Beethoven would be trading derivatives, one would like to think he had too much integrity for that! I don't think Mozart would have taken to it either as it is not creative, it's a highly clever game that is based on scams. I remember reading about LTCM and how a fund manager, refusing to buy into the nonsense, said the fund would eventually fail - he was berated by several Nobel Prizewinners and the Wall Street brass that signed up to work at LTCM. It turns out he was fully right.

Never mind. There probably aren't and may never be another Beethoven or Mozart, but at least they existed.

[Bonn1770]

I think that there are a fair amount of people living today who have the genetic potential to be great composers but who simply never get on that life track. Mozart was not lucky merely to have so much musical potential but in also finding himself in the perfect position were that talent could be recognized and nurtured.

But you have today a great deal of people who match or come close to matching the great composers in technical ability but aren't as talented artistically. These people tend to want to be composers (they are also often musicologists) and, being in control of the institutions that train classical musicians, tend to discourage any sort of popular element in modern compositions out of knowledge that they themselves could never achieve that sort of success. A modern Beethoven is institutionally impossible.

One test for the vitality of an art form is how powerless its critics are. The less power critics and academicians have over an art form, the more vital that art form is. For instance, films and novels which are mercilessly trashed by critics can continue--and often do--to go on to find popular success. If the critics were correct in their estimation then such works are quickly forgotten. If they were wrong, then it doesn't matter because the works in question found success. If they were especially wrong, then multiple generations finding value in those works will make those critics look foolish. If a modern classical music compositions is savaged by critics and academicians, it stands no chance of finding popular success. Which orchestra will want to program what has been deemed a dud?

As said, a modern Beethoven is institutionally impossible. For it to be possible there must be the strong chance of a living composer despised by critics and academics finding success in performance avenues. Thus, classical music is not a vital art form but merely a splendid artistic tradition with a fixed cannon.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Got it in one, as they say in golf. The people in charge of composition in conservatories are talentless however much technical proficiency they may possess. The most talented (and lucky) may go into film music though that is going to go the way of electronic music production due to this being cheaper. (Still, they can write the programs.) It is institutionally impossible to create and sustain a living musical culture of serious music. I think it died after the second world war.

Furthermore, Beethoven was a very boisterous man, and at other times a very angry man, and at other times very depressed....he would almost certainly have been psychiatrised by some imbecile dispensing pills. Social workers would have said 'Put that manuscript down and empty your chamber pot'.

As to the wonderful stories of Beethoven frightening the cows in a farmer's field by bellowing his music on long walks - they would have filed a report with the police, complained of property trespassing, ridden their pathetic little sense of 'entitlement' to make sure that it didn't happen again or, indeed, ever.

No - we are in a world where most everyone is terrified to stand out as different because if you cannot cope with the world, or are seen to be unable to do so, you either lose your work and property, or you become the prey of the professionals (and sometimes worse the 'well wishers') who are supposed to 'make you better'.

Such is life! Perhaps someday the world will say no to Prozac, people will be able to accept that life is fluctuation rather than some illusion of perpetual stability (ending in death! rather a bummer that) and who knows creativity will flourish.

Where it has flourished in the past century is in the popular arts - where, as you state, the critics have much less influence. I don't think 'Sympathy for the Devil' is the equal of a Beethoven symphony (!), however, I think the song is superior to almost all of the avant garde music produced in the 1960s. They caught something there - mood, emotion, what have you - and created a musical means to express it. Same applies to 'American Pie' or 'Stairway to Heaven' - magnificent within their sphere, and far superior to the sterile conservatory crap that (until recently) was the staple of Arts Council commissions.

(Although, in the case of the latter 2 songs, they are perhaps heard a tad too much

[Bonn1827]

Do I detect cynicism about 'the conservatory' - itself a rather misleading use of nomenclature!!

Composing film for music has been around for nearly 100 years, but I would prefer to see art music incorporated into film - the way Woody Allen uses Gershwin, Kern and Porter as a complement to his visual images.

[Chris]

Composing film for music has been around for nearly 100 years, but I would prefer to see art music incorporated into film - the way Woody Allen uses Gershwin, Kern and Porter as a complement to his visual images.

I usually find this distracting, myself.