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When Beethoven Met Goethe

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Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#11

Post by xgk »

theoh wrote: post #9
xgk wrote: post #6

Beethoven would be making techno Why? Given that making techno, or modern pop music in general, is basically trivial. Just spin up Ableton, press a few buttons ... boom, 10 minutes later you've got a competitive techno-track that doesn't sound all that different (apart from mastering maybe) from what's being played in the clubs. There is no art left in pop-music -- trivial and generic. A genius would be horrified by…

Come on, art is not measured by how complex or technically intricate it is. It's a matter of feeling and atmosphere. Techno is a sensibility and a culture, not a celebration of individual masterpieces by "geniuses".

That is a controversial point and depends on your concept of art. There are conceptions of art where novelty is an integral part of the very definition of artwork.

I agree that pop-music is precisely about creating "feeling and atmosphere", but I would extend it by saying: "easily, quicly and widely accessible shared feeling and atmosphere". And it is precisely this requirement of easy/quick access to the shared feeling and atmosphere that makes it important for pop-music to be conventional, to be repetition of previous pop-music. Surprise is anti-thetical to the purpose of pop-music.

Pop-music is acoustic wall-paper that is intended reliably to create a certain atmosphere.

You can gauge the conventional nature of pop-music from the fact that you can reliably determine the genre (e.g. House/Techno, Rap, Metal, Folk etc) by sub-1-second snippets. All successful genres have signature sounds for enabling quick identification. You can think of this as an aural version of branding. This is very well-known by professional producers, musicians and music marketing.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#12

Post by xgk »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #10
xgk wrote: post #6

Beethoven would be making techno Why? Given that making techno, or modern pop music in general, is basically trivial. Just spin up Ableton, press a few buttons ... boom, 10 minutes later you've got a competitive techno-track that doesn't sound all that different (apart from mastering maybe) from what's being played in the clubs. There is no art left in pop-music -- trivial and generic. A genius would be horrified by…

Aphex Twin.

I wish you had elaborated this comment into something substantial that readers could learn from.

Here is an interesting comment that a classical composer -- possibly the most influential one in the 20th century through his students -- on Aphex Twin and similar artists:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/10/15/karlheinz-stock...

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#13

Post by almonj »

xgk wrote: post #6

Beethoven would be making techno Why? Given that making techno, or modern pop music in general, is basically trivial. Just spin up Ableton, press a few buttons ... boom, 10 minutes later you've got a competitive techno-track that doesn't sound all that different (apart from mastering maybe) from what's being played in the clubs. There is no art left in pop-music -- trivial and generic. A genius would be horrified by…

There is still plenty of room left in electronic music for new ideas and exciting masterpieces. Popular music is definitely especially vile today, but that does not make the musical form itself dead.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#14

Post by dkural »

G2kyd7 wrote: post #4

This was arguably the golden age of German culture. Even if Kant just passed away, you had philosophers such as Hegel in Berlin, Fichte, Schelling living at the same time and the younger Schopenhauer actually meeting with Goethe, although that did not turn out well. At that time, Romanticism was taking off in Germany, after the Weimarer Klassik around Goethe, Schiller and people such as Herder and Wieland was coming…

German culture was going strong until the purges under Fascism began - in philosophy, art, mathematics, physics & other sciences. One of the shocking aspects of the rising of Fascism was that it happened in an intellectually fertile environment with many reasonable people. It is tempting to try to spot a gradual decline in German culture, but that was not the case. It was on the rise until Hitler physically liquidated the intelligentsia.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#15

Post by xgk »

almonj wrote: post #13
xgk wrote: post #6

Beethoven would be making techno Why? Given that making techno, or modern pop music in general, is basically trivial. Just spin up Ableton, press a few buttons ... boom, 10 minutes later you've got a competitive techno-track that doesn't sound all that different (apart from mastering maybe) from what's being played in the clubs. There is no art left in pop-music -- trivial and generic. A genius would be horrified by…

There is still plenty of room left in electronic music for new ideas and exciting masterpieces. Popular music is definitely especially vile today, but that does not make the musical form itself dead.

I don't see pop-music as vile. For me it's a social tool. It gets me & friends into a certain shared mood: relax, unwind, get drunk, etc etc. But it's not artistic: pop-music is surprise-free, it's conventional, it doesn't make me think "wow, I've never though of this". Au contraire. And that's why it works for setting shared social moods. It could not serve its social function if it was too original, too intellectually demanding.

If it's Saturday night 2am "in the club" everybody's intoxicated the music needs to 'hit' everybody straightaway. Everybody needs to know when to raise their hands ... and that means it must be extremely predicable.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#16

Post by meri_dian »

If anyone is curious about Beethoven's life, I can recommend and excellent and relatively recently published biography: 'Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph', by Jan Swafford.

We see figures like Beethoven and Goethe as geniuses themselves, but the 18th century conception of 'genius' was not of a person, but of a sort of holy spirit that blessed an individual with great abilities, while remaining separate from that person.

So prior to Romantics of the 19th century taking hold of the concept of genius and re-purposing it into the one we're familiar with today, one would not speak of someone being a genius, but being graced with genius. Genius was not who they were, but something external to them that they possessed.

It's a subtle but interesting difference.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#17

Post by theoh »

xgk wrote: post #11
theoh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, art is not measured by how complex or technically intricate it is. It's a matter of feeling and atmosphere. Techno is a sensibility and a culture, not a celebration of individual masterpieces by "geniuses".

That is a controversial point and depends on your concept of art. There are conceptions of art where novelty is an integral part of the very definition of artwork. I agree that pop-music is precisely about creating "feeling and atmosphere", but I would extend it by saying: "easily, quicly and widely accessible shared feeling and atmosphere". And it is precisely this requirement of easy/quick access to the shared feel…

Easy and instant recognition is often a sign of triviality, accepted. But, like in written poetry, a command of the pop idiom is not enough to create a hit: there's got to be something convincing (and generally hard-to-pin-down) about the music or lyrics. There's an art to that which survives in any genre.

Even your demanding "genius" criterion can arguably be met by techno work like Autechre, in the same way that an exceptional architect might be encountered in any style or idiom of building. So I'm back-pedaling a bit on my previous remark (against genius) to suggest that any genre can be elevated by great practitioners. It's even a common mark of greatness to appreciate or at least not to be a snob about "lower" genres. The social conservatism of pop doesn't stop Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" from being culturally important, any more than the avant-garde chin-stroking of The Wire magazine guarantees artistic significance.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#18

Post by kbart »

dkural wrote: post #14
G2kyd7 wrote: post #4

This was arguably the golden age of German culture. Even if Kant just passed away, you had philosophers such as Hegel in Berlin, Fichte, Schelling living at the same time and the younger Schopenhauer actually meeting with Goethe, although that did not turn out well. At that time, Romanticism was taking off in Germany, after the Weimarer Klassik around Goethe, Schiller and people such as Herder and Wieland was coming…

German culture was going strong until the purges under Fascism began - in philosophy, art, mathematics, physics & other sciences. One of the shocking aspects of the rising of Fascism was that it happened in an intellectually fertile environment with many reasonable people. It is tempting to try to spot a gradual decline in German culture, but that was not the case. It was on the rise until Hitler physically liquidate…

There were too few intelligent people to make a difference and standing out would only mean personal sacrifice without much overall impact. Smart people usually know when it's better to stay silent.. Dangerous parallels can be drawn to today's situation in many leading countries.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#19

Post by differonzi »

dkural wrote: post #14
G2kyd7 wrote: post #4

This was arguably the golden age of German culture. Even if Kant just passed away, you had philosophers such as Hegel in Berlin, Fichte, Schelling living at the same time and the younger Schopenhauer actually meeting with Goethe, although that did not turn out well. At that time, Romanticism was taking off in Germany, after the Weimarer Klassik around Goethe, Schiller and people such as Herder and Wieland was coming…

German culture was going strong until the purges under Fascism began - in philosophy, art, mathematics, physics & other sciences. One of the shocking aspects of the rising of Fascism was that it happened in an intellectually fertile environment with many reasonable people. It is tempting to try to spot a gradual decline in German culture, but that was not the case. It was on the rise until Hitler physically liquidate…

It isn't entirely shocking. Intellectually fertile doesn't equal morally or ethically predictable. Well, maybe there are studies which link politics and IQ, but political leanings aren't always great predictors of ethics/morals in action.

Edit: And perhaps I'm misconstruing your statement, which seems to have more to do with the decline in German culture after the purges rather than what led to the purges.

Re: When Beethoven Met Goethe

#20

Post by G2kyd7 »

dkural wrote: post #14
G2kyd7 wrote: post #4

This was arguably the golden age of German culture. Even if Kant just passed away, you had philosophers such as Hegel in Berlin, Fichte, Schelling living at the same time and the younger Schopenhauer actually meeting with Goethe, although that did not turn out well. At that time, Romanticism was taking off in Germany, after the Weimarer Klassik around Goethe, Schiller and people such as Herder and Wieland was coming…

German culture was going strong until the purges under Fascism began - in philosophy, art, mathematics, physics & other sciences. One of the shocking aspects of the rising of Fascism was that it happened in an intellectually fertile environment with many reasonable people. It is tempting to try to spot a gradual decline in German culture, but that was not the case. It was on the rise until Hitler physically liquidate…

I wouldn't call it a decline at all, I only highlighted this area because it was particular strong in terms of significance and cultural output. You could argue that a golden age was followed by a silver age until 1933, as you mentioned.

Quite a few people argued since then that the rise of fascism was surprising because of the intellectual environment, but that it was a actually a pre-requisite for it to happen that way. If that is accurate or not, is a different matter but one could make a point that the "German question" combined with the propensity for total, systemic philosophical systems in German culture contributed to the uniqueness of what happened during 1933-45.

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