On the nature of music.

[Sorrano]

As I recall and maybe incorrectly, the madrigals and other secular forms that were highly popular (as performed and popularized by the troubadours) did in effect create a dramatic shift from the sacred to the secular that became a large part of what we term as classical music of the 18th and 19th Centuries. They are, in my opinion, a part of the overall equation; one influences the other and vice versa.

With regards to Peter's point, maybe I misunderstood, but I felt that he was saying that the concept that the dead masters are listened to now by more than listen to the living composers (not referring to popular music this time) gives a qualitative criteria to the music under scrutiny. (That goes along, as well, with the connectivity issue.)

My question is how do you define quality with regards to this curve that you propose? As an avid fan of 20th and 21st Century music, as well as pretty much any other period, I do not see this curve in the same way that others may perceive it. Does modern music reflect a degradation of art or is it simply another form, an evolution?

[Enrique]

It is highly probable that the same question was asked in every stage of the history of music. For example for Goethe the music of Beethoven was certainly a degradation of the old forms. But you have mentioned another point that should be taken into consideration. While there has always been a mutual influence between popular music and serious music in the past, this connection between the two no longer exists. If my ignorance is not too great, the last time popular music influenced classical music was during the twenties, when jazz began to make furor in Europe. And latter on the music of Bach had a certain influence in jazz composers.

On the other hand, in the same way as the instrumental, secular music of the Middle Ages gave birth to the music we now call classical, maybe the classical music of the future will have its germs in the popular music of the present. But I seriously doubt it, because this music shows no sign of evolution or true innovation.

[Peter]

As I recall and maybe incorrectly, the madrigals and other secular forms that were highly popular (as performed and popularized by the troubadours) did in effect create a dramatic shift from the sacred to the secular that became a large part of what we term as classical music of the 18th and 19th Centuries. They are, in my opinion, a part of the overall equation; one influences the other and vice versa.

With regards to Peter's point, maybe I misunderstood, but I felt that he was saying that the concept that the dead masters are listened to now by more than listen to the living composers (not referring to popular music this time) gives a qualitative criteria to the music under scrutiny. (That goes along, as well, with the connectivity issue.)

My question is how do you define quality with regards to this curve that you propose? As an avid fan of 20th and 21st Century music, as well as pretty much any other period, I do not see this curve in the same way that others may perceive it. Does modern music reflect a degradation of art or is it simply another form, an evolution?

I respect your opinion and liking for contemporary music, but can you name a composer born after 1950 whose work has had the impact of an Eroica or the Rite of Spring or whose name is as familiar as Beethoven or Stravinsky? Much of contemporary music fades into oblivion pretty quickly, often after a first performance. This is also true of previous eras but posterity has sifted the finest out of the past - we are too close to our own era to see it in its true long term context.

We can look back at 5th century BC Athens and state quite categorically that was the high point of their culture in terms of art and philosophy - they couldn't have known that the 4th and 3rd century BC would later be seen as a decline or that their achievements would not be matched again for another 1000 years with the Renaissance.

[Quijote]

But this kind of deterioration is also present in the fine arts. For example classical greek sculpture if more distant from our sensibility than hellenistic sculpture.

Yes, quite right.

However, I can't help wondering this: people from other cultures have learned to love Western classical music. How did this happen?

I can't answer that question. Do "we" appreciate music from other cultures? Personally yes (classical sitar music), but I listen to it without really understanding how it 'works' (hence 'acousmatically'). Ethnomusicology has done a lot to introduce European audiences to music from other cultures. Do the Japanese listen to "our" music in a similar fashion, I wonder? I mean: do "they" hear "our" music as we hear "theirs" : something "exotic"?

However I think medieval music has been made obsolete by 18th and 19th century music.

I suppose by the same argument 20th/21st music has made 18/19th music obsolete?

If we cannot engage with Perotin, or Desprez or Palestrina for that matter, it is because we know something better, more valuable.

Not sure about 'better' or 'more valuable', but certainly more 'immediate'.

Music evolves. And evolution, during a certain lapse of time, is improvement. All these things I believe are true. But I do not know how to arrive at a conclusion starting from them. Let it be the job of somebody smarter of wiser than me.

I'm not smarter or wiser, but I find it dubious to suggest that musical evolution is a continuous line of improvement. What exactly is improved?

[Quijote]

I can just imagine Beethoven having a good old laugh at us - 'the works meaning? 'Use your ears' he would have answered. It's easy to use the Eroica as an example because of its revolutionary and Napoleonic associations or the Missa with religious symbolism, but was does the 2nd or the 4th symphony mean? I think this need for 'meaning' is a very 20th century requirement - often to justify a load of rubbish.

There is of course a distinction to be made between 'extramusical meaning' (programme) and structural 'meaning' (what Adorno [I've been reading him recently!] calls 'truth content'). Maybe the search for 'meaning' is a result of musicology, a discipline that started (roughly) in the late half of the 19th century and of course continues to this day. But surely it must be said that music does 'signify' something ('means' something), for if not music would be nothing more than a sonic kaleidoscope.
I think part of the problem resides in our way of talking about music, that music in certain ways is a 'language' (therefore we expect signification), but it does not fully correspond to that notion. I think it was Schoenberg who said that music - as a language - 'says what it has to say' musically.

As to the original impact of a work, well that implies that after only one performance the effect is lessened, but we know that isn't always the case - often it takes many hearings to fully appreciate a piece.

That is true, for us, today, with access to CDs and so on and repeat hearings. Didn't quite catch that passage? Take your CD control and skip back a few bars and listen to it again, and again, and again ... This was not the case before recording technology, and the privileged few who attended the premières and subsequent performances of any Beethoven works had to make do. Or purchase a piano reduction (of a symphony) or be proficient enough to play the sonatas when published.
But that was not my original point. My point was that to our 21st century ears we cannot possibly 'connect' with the impact many of B's works had on contemporary listeners. The 'historical immediacy' of many of his symphonies is lost to us, I maintain.

[Peter]

There is of course a distinction to be made between 'extramusical meaning' (programme) and structural 'meaning' (what Adorno [I've been reading him recently!] calls 'truth content'). Maybe the search for 'meaning' is a result of musicology, a discipline that started (roughly) in the late half of the 19th century and of course continues to this day. But surely it must be said that music does 'signify' something ('means' something), for if not music would be nothing more than a sonic kaleidoscope.
I think part of the problem resides in our way of talking about music, that music in certain ways is a 'language' (therefore we expect signification), but it does not fully correspond to that notion. I think it was Schoenberg who said that music - as a language - 'says what it has to say' musically.

Yes but we also come across the problem that the same work can mean different things to different people - so where does the 'meaning' actually lie?
Music obviously arouses feelings and emotions but these are also conditional on our own changing moods - if you've just been told something dreadful, then listening to Beethoven's 2nd or 4th symphonies isn't really going to cheer you up very much, in fact they'd probably irritate the hell out of you - you'd be better off having a good old wallow with Tchaikovsky 6th, last movement!

[Peter]

But that was not my original point. My point was that to our 21st century ears we cannot possibly 'connect' with the impact many of B's works had on contemporary listeners. The 'historical immediacy' of many of his symphonies is lost to us, I maintain.

Possibly, but it is really that different to someone coming to Beethoven for the first time say in their fifties? You and I may have heard the symphonies so many times that after a few drinks we can even imagine we wrote them ourselves, but the effect on someone hearing the Eroica for the first time, especially if they know very little classical music can't be that different to an early 19th century listener who also perhaps knew little music?
I well remember as a teenager being baffled by Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Beethoven's Grosse Fugue - so I think it has less to do with historical immediacy than our own exposure to Classical music.

[Quijote]

Yes but we also come across the problem that the same work can mean different things to different people - so where does the 'meaning' actually lie?

I think you might be confusing the term 'meaning' here. I agree of course that each person's subjective response to a given work may vary enormously (e.g. I might find an LvB sonata movement incredibly erotic, and you find the same sonata melancholic), but in terms of structural meaning (its motivic relationships, harmonic arch, its structural 'narrative', for want of a better term...) I would imagine we are on the same wavelength.

Music obviously arouses feelings and emotions but these are also conditional on our own changing moods - if you've just been told something dreadful, then listening to Beethoven's 2nd or 4th symphonies isn't really going to cheer you up very much, in fact they'd probably irritate the hell out of you - you'd be better off having a good old wallow with Tchaikovsky 6th, last movement!

Can't agree with you there, I'm afraid. A shrink once told me that the worse thing to do when feeling 'down' was to put on music that put you even more down. I'd go for LvB 8th.

[Quijote]

Possibly, but it is really that different to someone coming to Beethoven for the first time say in their fifties? You and I may have heard the symphonies so many times that after a few drinks we can even imagine we wrote them ourselves, but the effect on someone hearing the Eroica for the first time, especially if they know very little classical music can't be that different to an early 19th century listener who also perhaps knew little music? [...]

Possibly, but coming to LvB symphonies in one's 50s after exposure say, to jazz, rock&roll, pop, film music and so on would have conditioned our ears to an extent that the 'historical immediacy' of LvB would be seriously diluted, to say the least. That's just a personal reflection. What do you think?

[Sorrano]

Can't agree with you there, I'm afraid. A shrink once told me that the worse thing to do when feeling 'down' was to put on music that put you even more down. I'd go for LvB 8th.[/QUOTE]

My personal favorite in those types of mood swings is the 2nd movement of LvB's 5th as it (to me, at least) lifts my spirits and gives me encouragement to forge ahead.

[Quijote]

My personal favorite in those types of mood swings is the 2nd movement of LvB's 5th as it (to me, at least) lifts my spirits and gives me encouragement to forge ahead.

See what I mean? I find that movement so achingly melancholic and resigned I can almost not bear to listen to it, beautiful as it is.

[Sorrano]

See what I mean? I find that movement so achingly melancholic and resigned I can almost not bear to listen to it, beautiful as it is.

Now I can't get that melody out of my head! But that is okay, I can think of many, many worse themes that could be there!