Robert Peters wrote:
>Dave Lampson wrote:
>
>>Robert Peters wrote:
>>>I think music does not have to be beautiful.
>>
>>I think music must contain an essential core of beauty, or it's not music.
>
>Well, that leads us again to the question what music is (unanswerable).
I disagree that we are lead to the question. I also disagree that music
can't be defined. I've provided a good definition before. You may not
like it, but until I read a better definition, there it is. I perhaps
should have been more clear in my response, as I believe definitions of
music are, of necessity, completely personal. I can't consider sound that
does not have an essential core of beauty as music. I wasn't saying no one
else could. My definition of music is completely listener-centric: music
is what you listen to as music. Many dislike this definition, but so far
it's the only one I've found that's universally applicable. I may not
Think the music that someone listens to is music, but I can't deny that
it is music for them.
>And it leads us to the question what beauty is (unanswerable).
Actually, I don't think it does this either. We weren't (or at least I
wasn't) addressing degrees or definitions of beauty. I entered into the
discussion because of this idea:
>I think music must NOT contain an essential core of beauty to be music.
I don't believe we need a definition of beauty for this. All we have to
do is agree on what is beautiful and what is ugly. I thought we had done
that. You seemed to be claiming Ustvolskaya's music was good precisely
because it was ugly. I was agreeing at least implicitly that I too found
it ugly, and that's why I didn't consider it good music. I thought there
might be an interesting exchange on that basis.
>Yes, a movie like Schindler's List has to be ugly, too, because it deals
>with an ugly subject.
I suspect Spielberg might disagree there.
>- The problem is that our mind tends to consider artistically satisfying
>things as not ugly even then they are.
Perhaps now were getting to the core disconnect in this discussion. Maybe
we have different definitions of ugliness. To me Schindler's List was a
powerful movie only because of it's beautiful elements: the triumph of
human will even in the face of complete hopelessness. But that's getting
off-topic...
>For me art is totally free. For me art is satisfying when it reaches its
>own aim. When the aim is to show total terror and show it through the
>utmost dissonant it is satisfying for me.
I have to wonder how anyone would find terror satisfying in any context.
>... Of course Beethoven could not write like Berg because he lived in a
>time where the artistic expression was limited by certain aesthetics.
Just to clarify: I don't believe writing music with inherent beauty means
anyone has to write music like anyone else. To my mind, this is a red
herring.
>I have no doubt that he would have written like Berg if he had had the
>permission ...
I have every doubt he would have written like Berg. I think it would have
been nearly impossible for him to compose as anyone but himself.
>(and remember, some of his late quartets were considered VERY dissonant,
>disturbing and ugly by his contemporaries).
So was Mozart's "Dissonance" Quartet, and the music of Gesauldo, and the
music of Wagner, and the music of Monteverdi, etc. I'm sorry, but in the
context of this discussion, this is simply a canard. Just because some of
Beethoven's contemporaries were shocked by some of his music, didn't mean
it wasn't accepted and performed throughout Europe and that Beethoven was
not still considered the greatest living composer. In all places and in
all times we can find critics of any artist. It's just not relevant to
the conversation to drag the poor judgements of long-dead critics.
>Dave, your aesthetics as stated above by yourself are exactly the
>standards of Goethe. So you are in good company. But to me, sorry, it
>sounds a little bit old-fashioned. The world and the arts have changed...
Here I'm being accused of being a reactionary, which is not at all
surprising. This is a common slur against those who dare criticize
modern music, and all too often it sticks. I too cringe when I read the
uninformed, and therefore bigoted, diatribes of some, such as those of a
certain editor of a certain review publication who shall for the time being
remain nameless.:-)
But, and I could be wrong about this, I don't think it applies to me. I
don't read Goethe, and generally have little respect for philosophers. I
also don't just ascribe to an aesthetic associated with a particular time
period, as Robert implies. I find great beauty in the music of Hildegard
and the Beatles, Vivaldi and Miles Davis, Beethoven and Joni Mitchell,
Machaut and Dave Brubeck, Palestrina and Pink Floyd. What would Goethe
have to say about that? I doubt anything good, but who cares? I can even
see beauty in, and therefore the appeal of, opera, hip hop, country, etc.
even though I'm not interested in much of the music for stylistic reasons.
But there seems to be something fundamentally different with modern
classical music, and I believe it's often a lack of aesthetic. I don't
mean an abstract Goethe-ian construct, I mean something like a basic human
aesthetic.
>I do not glorify ugliness. I just think that for the modern composer and
>the modern artist in general it is no longer possible (and not desirable)
>to compose like Mozart.
This is a typical non sequitur (I intentionally skipped a bunch of others).
Who said anything about composing like Mozart? How about composing like
Vaughan Williams? Or how about composing like a 20th-century person not
completely overwhelmed by ugliness, suffering, and terror?
>I HATE ugly things, you know. But art has the right to show ugly things
>by ugly means.
And you say you enjoy that same art, even though you hate ugly things,
so I think I'm even more confused about what you look for in music than
before. This is one o the things that makes many of us so incredulous when
claims are made for enjoying a certain type of music.
Dave
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