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).
And it leads us to the question what beauty is (unanswerable).  Behind your
statement simply lies a whole Weltbild, a whole way of looking at art and
through art at life and obviously our Weltbilder do not coincide for me the
following sentence is true:  I think music must NOT contain an essential
core of beauty to be music.

>>It is art: art wants to express and sometimes it wants to express things
>>which are not beautiful, things like anger, grief, ugliness, crime,
>>jealousy etc.
>
>So novels, movies, paintings, sculptures, etc.  that deal with these issues
>must themselves be ugly too? I don't buy that.  Just as I don't believe
>music has to be ugly to portray the unattractive components of human
>existence.

Yes, a movie like Schindler's List has to be ugly, too, because it deals
with an ugly subject.  - The problem is that our mind tends to consider
artistically satisfying things as not ugly even then they are.

>>Then the music must not be beautiful.
>
>See above.  It's interesting: I've seen this claimed over and over again,
>yet I've never seen anything approaching a compelling (if not convincing)
>argument.  Modern music lovers use this idea all the time as if it was some
>sort of self-evident truth.  I don't believe it is.

Well, Dave, I obviously CANNOT convince you since your Weltbild is
different from mine.  But I think there are examples for my statement:
Berg's Wozzeck deals with a corrupt and ugly world and (well, to my ears)
this music is not beautiful.  It HAS to be dissonant because it tells of
a dissonant world.  Of course Beethoven could not write like Berg because
he lived in a time where the artistic expression was limited by certain
aesthetics.  I have no doubt that he would have written like Berg if he had
had the permission (and remember, some of his late quartets were considered
VERY dissonant, disturbing and ugly by his contemporaries).

>>I do not want to find Tosca's screaming at the end of Puccini's opera
>>beautiful: it has to be ugly, terrifying.
>
>There are many types of beauty.  Would you want this sung by someone with
>an ugly voice?

Yes, Maria Callas.  Her voice is not always ugly but to me it is never
beautiful.  And she is not afraid to sound ugly:  listen to her Lady
Macbeth.  This is a great artist to me.

>>And, yes, modern music cannot sound like Mendelssohn because we do live in
>>different, less harmonic, much more disturbing times.
>
>I don't buy this either, sorry.  Death, suffering, anger, grief, ugliness,
>crime, jealousy, hate, betrayal, etc.  all existed back then in good
>measure.  I think it's just an excuse for artists without an aesthetic
>sense, and there do seem to be plenty of those.  Life was miserable back
>in Mendelssohn time as well, yet their art rose above it.  This century
>we've often decided to wallow in it.  I have no interest in immersing
>myself in ugliness, I get enough of it in my everyday life.  I need
>art that is striving to reach beyond the mundane, to elevate the human
>condition.  Not only is this requirement nebulous, it's damn difficult
>to fulfill.  But that's no excuse.

Mendelssohn lived in a time where the artistic expression was limited by
the Classic aesthetics.  Goethe ruled over everything.  He was extremely
afraid of ugly things, even refused to attend funerals.  It was a kind of
artistic and aesthetic revolution by the Romantiker to pick subjects that
show the night life of life.  And from here art became more and more free
to use all its means, even the ugly ones.  - 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...

>>That is why Lloyd-Webber is so disappointing: because the music is too
>>smooth and "beautiful" to be true.
>
>Millions disagree, including me, though I know that's de rigueur in
>classical music circles.  His music is exactly what it needs to be for
>what it is, and that's why it's so successful.

I think his music is shallow because it contains nothing of our dissonant
world.  (And popularity was never a good measure for artistic success...)

>For music to have any meaning for me (and I suspect for most classical
>music lovers), it must have a strong aesthetic component.  It's what drew
>most of us to this music in the first place, and why so many of us feel
>betrayed by modern styles.  This is not to say that music must be all about
>beauty.  ...

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 realize I might be opening up old wounds here, but that is not my
>intention.  As I have stated before, I think we all perceive music so
>differently, it's a wonder we can agree on it at all, much less discuss
>it semi-rationally.  I just rail at the idea that "music of our time"
>shouldn't be beautiful, or that music that is beautiful is by definition
>old-fashioned or backward-looking.  This is just my take, and I don't
>propose it as a universal dictum, and I don't believe my personal
>definition of beauty should be everyones.  I just truly do not understand
>this seeking out and glorification of ugliness.

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.  I HATE ugly things, you know.  But art has the
right to show ugly things by ugly means.

Robert