I’ve repeatedly said things about classical music that drive komponisto up the wall. Should I refrain from criticizing Schoenberg because it upsets him?
Well, a matter of fact...
There’s a difference between criticism and taking potshots. If you wanted to write a post explaining in detail why you think Schoenberg’s music is flawed, that might be one thing (provided it was on-topic). By contrast, merely stating a negative opinion (repeatedly, as you note) in an authoritative tone that suggests it is akin to a widely-accepted fact (particularly when you have no authority in the matter), after you have already been called on it, is just a form of aggressive behavior that I don’t think should be welcomed.
It might be that Schoenberg is good music to people with specialized musical training. I have said that his music is bad, but I don’t have high confidence that it is “bad” in an absolute, moral realist sense.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century. And I regard that as bad. The elite forgot that they need us. We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
So we abandoned them; and their art shriveled without us. Everybody defected. Game over.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century
What makes you so confident that the pursuit of “quality” was being abandoned? The fact that you don’t find it appealing?
Mere novelty could have been accomplished by much cheaper means than those employed by composers in the “Schoenbergian” tradition, whose music tends to be very precisely and delicately constructed. Contrast, for example, Milton Babbitt (whose works are often so intricate that they take me several hearings to “get”) with John Cage (who was capable of “composing” the most trivial case of a piece of music—one with no sound at all). Cage is arguably an example of the extreme case of pure novelty-seeking (though I think people are too hard on him -- 4′33″ is not his only work); but this sort of thing is completely divorced from what the mainstream of “post-tonal” composers were going for.
We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
Where does this attitude come from? There is no conspiracy going on. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Schoenberg, or—still less—preventing you from listening to Mozart. The public funding of advanced music in the U.S. is negligible to nonexistent. I defy you to explain how the existence of a few people (of whose existence you are barely even aware) pursuing this esoteric line of work could possibily result in negative utility for you.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
What makes you so sure? What about cosmology, or high-energy physics? String theory? Pure mathematics?
The point here is that you want to have the sort of culture where advanced creative achievement—formidabilty, awesomeness—in all domains is encouraged and rewarded, not suppressed. (Tsyoku Naritai!) A culture that would place limitations on the permissible complexity of musical thought is not one in which we should want to live.
(And beware the treacherous weapon of populism; it’s easy enough when you think you’re on the side of the masses—but the time may come when they show up at your own gates with their torches and pitchforks...)
Well, a matter of fact...
There’s a difference between criticism and taking potshots. If you wanted to write a post explaining in detail why you think Schoenberg’s music is flawed, that might be one thing (provided it was on-topic). By contrast, merely stating a negative opinion (repeatedly, as you note) in an authoritative tone that suggests it is akin to a widely-accepted fact (particularly when you have no authority in the matter), after you have already been called on it, is just a form of aggressive behavior that I don’t think should be welcomed.
It might be that Schoenberg is good music to people with specialized musical training. I have said that his music is bad, but I don’t have high confidence that it is “bad” in an absolute, moral realist sense.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century. And I regard that as bad. The elite forgot that they need us. We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
So we abandoned them; and their art shriveled without us. Everybody defected. Game over.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
What makes you so confident that the pursuit of “quality” was being abandoned? The fact that you don’t find it appealing?
Mere novelty could have been accomplished by much cheaper means than those employed by composers in the “Schoenbergian” tradition, whose music tends to be very precisely and delicately constructed. Contrast, for example, Milton Babbitt (whose works are often so intricate that they take me several hearings to “get”) with John Cage (who was capable of “composing” the most trivial case of a piece of music—one with no sound at all). Cage is arguably an example of the extreme case of pure novelty-seeking (though I think people are too hard on him -- 4′33″ is not his only work); but this sort of thing is completely divorced from what the mainstream of “post-tonal” composers were going for.
Where does this attitude come from? There is no conspiracy going on. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Schoenberg, or—still less—preventing you from listening to Mozart. The public funding of advanced music in the U.S. is negligible to nonexistent. I defy you to explain how the existence of a few people (of whose existence you are barely even aware) pursuing this esoteric line of work could possibily result in negative utility for you.
What makes you so sure? What about cosmology, or high-energy physics? String theory? Pure mathematics?
The point here is that you want to have the sort of culture where advanced creative achievement—formidabilty, awesomeness—in all domains is encouraged and rewarded, not suppressed. (Tsyoku Naritai!) A culture that would place limitations on the permissible complexity of musical thought is not one in which we should want to live.
(And beware the treacherous weapon of populism; it’s easy enough when you think you’re on the side of the masses—but the time may come when they show up at your own gates with their torches and pitchforks...)