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Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

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Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#91

Post by drewcoo »

Jensson wrote: post #41
danielvaughn wrote: post #28

The comment thread on that page gets into Newton and Neumann, but I think artistic/scientific achievements are apples/oranges. Doesn't make sense to compare the two, because the standard of quality is so different. Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticul…

> Comparison is the thief of joy Comparing others is a source of joy, people love gossiping or just talking about who is better etc. Comparison is only a thief of joy when you compare yourself to others, but comparing Newton to Einstein etc is an endless source of fun, many people have enjoyed these discussions over the years.

> comparing others is a source of joy

We are a social species. And a pattern-sensing species. Enjoying comparing things, especially people, combines our defining traits.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#92

Post by drewcoo »

amazingman wrote: post #68
danielvaughn wrote: post #28

The comment thread on that page gets into Newton and Neumann, but I think artistic/scientific achievements are apples/oranges. Doesn't make sense to compare the two, because the standard of quality is so different. Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticul…

> Comparison is the thief of joy I've never loved this aphorism. Comparison is a crucial component of knowledge discovery. It would be more apt to say that ranking is the thief of joy.

I think that competing to better define joy-stealing is the thief of joy.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#93

Post by legitster »

danielvaughn wrote: post #28

The comment thread on that page gets into Newton and Neumann, but I think artistic/scientific achievements are apples/oranges. Doesn't make sense to compare the two, because the standard of quality is so different. Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticul…

> DaVinci painted so meticulously that his works have hundreds of layers of paint that are thinner than a strand of hair.

DaVinci had really bad technique and couldn't help but endlessly fiddle with his paintings. Many of his paintings never saw the light of day because he ruining them and never finished them.

The Last Supper that we know and love was actually a superior copy made by one of his proteges because his original fresco fell apart after a few years owing to his "innovative techniques" - he painted on dry plaster because he took way too long on it.

DaVinci was wonderfully imaginative and a very unique artist, but I don't think his reputation has been fully earned by his achievements.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#94

Post by justoreply »

legitster wrote: post #93
danielvaughn wrote: post #28

The comment thread on that page gets into Newton and Neumann, but I think artistic/scientific achievements are apples/oranges. Doesn't make sense to compare the two, because the standard of quality is so different. Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticul…

> DaVinci painted so meticulously that his works have hundreds of layers of paint that are thinner than a strand of hair. DaVinci had really bad technique and couldn't help but endlessly fiddle with his paintings. Many of his paintings never saw the light of day because he ruining them and never finished them. The Last Supper that we know and love was actually a superior copy made by one of his proteges because his o…

> he painted on dry plaster because he took way too long on it

that is not true: he new that he was not able to paint a normal fresco, so he tried a different technique, that didn't work out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)#Med...

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#95

Post by motoboi »

kleiba wrote: post #22
motoboi wrote: post #20

A great achiever (much more than Bach IMHO) was Émile Littrè, the French author of several massive works but better known as the author of Dictionnaire de la langue française.

"much more than Bach" though??

Not in geniality, but the article is not about that is about production achievements.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#96

Post by xattt »

drewcoo wrote: post #91
Jensson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comparison is the thief of joy Comparing others is a source of joy, people love gossiping or just talking about who is better etc. Comparison is only a thief of joy when you compare yourself to others, but comparing Newton to Einstein etc is an endless source of fun, many people have enjoyed these discussions over the years.

> comparing others is a source of joy We are a social species. And a pattern-sensing species. Enjoying comparing things, especially people, combines our defining traits.

Some activities are typically associated with folks that adopt toxic traits (gossip), while others who are fairly positive avoid them as it doesn’t contribute to overall well-being.

It’s a personal choice whether you are gossipy or not, but that decision is guided by subconscious factors.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#97

Post by atoav »

Jensson wrote: post #78
atoav wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but those are people who are nowhere near that level of excellence at all. Gossip for those people is often just a mechanism to increase their self esteem in front of bigger than life artists who truly changed the world. It is a bit like music lovers who have strong opinions about everything, while not being able to play a single note on any instrument. For them comparing the great musicians on that level makes…

> Yeah, but those are people who are nowhere near that level of excellence at all. Why does this matter? > That would be like comparing a masterfully built modern bridge to gothic cathedral. That sounds really fun! Those two are both massive structures that need to support a lot of weight, they are more similar than you might think. I can see a video looking into that getting many millions of views. I think you reall…

> Why does this matter?

I, as a practical person that does things have learned that very often that the layperson has a completely non-existent image of what any art or craft entails. They are then still allowed to have opinions, I just don't value them as much. My experience is also that the layperson is very often correct about their feelings, but rarely correct when they propose solutions to what they believe will fix it for them.

I agree that your proposed comparison would be interesting, and I whole-heartedly agree with your point about learning things feom discussions. However, we discussed comparing which is better, not how different things are made. I could imagine a ironic version of a "who is the best"-discussion to be quite entertaining, but we were talking about deadpan serious "who is better"-comparisons here.

Comparisons like these make sense if you compare similar things or if you try to compare them on the same merit, e.g. would an early top athlete in a sport be able to compete with a top athlete in the same sport today if they had the same training, material etc.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#98

Post by cesaref »

Sharlin wrote: post #55
cesaref wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Bach was relatively obscure till Mendelssohn promoted his music to a new generation? Anyhow, there are many many great composers from different genres, and if you consider the aim to be communication (rather than the quality of the music itself) who would argue against the Beatles, or Taylor Swift as the greatest achievers of all time in music?

Well, between Bach and Mendelssohn, baroque music had been out of fashion for a century. Mendelssohn revived interest in Bach's music. Doesn't mean Bach wasn't renowned in his own time.

Yes, that's a good point. It's hard to remember how long ago he was writing, until you think about stuff like the well tempered clavier, where being able to play in all keys on the same instrument is seen as a modern marvel. We are now so used to equal temperament that the compromised intervals sound normal to us, whilst they would have sounded wrong to them.

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#99

Post by polotics »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #86
gyomu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If earth suddenly had to be evacuated and I was limited to grabbing the ten best people to save, [Bill] Watterson would definitely be in there. There is a point where you stop rating people — you just rate them among the best. Can I say that Mozart is better than the Beatles? I can’t. I can just say that they both have gone above the cloud layer and are up there near the sun. They both are on that short list of thing…

The Beatles are vastly overrated and will die off with the boomers.

Can you quantify this assessment? What are the dimensions?

Re: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?

#100

Post by Tao3300 »

justanotherjoe wrote: post #69

isn't jesus the obvious answer? or is religion cheating?

Not cheating, but there isn't a good argument from the given criteria:

1. Quality of work.

2. How much better he was than his contemporaries.

3. How much he stayed the very best in subsequent centuries.

4. Quantity of work.

5. Peaks.

6. Consistency of work and achievement.

7. How many other problems he had to solve to succeed with his achievement.

8. Ending up so great that he could learn only from himself.

9. Never experiencing true defeat or setback.

There's a reasonable case to be made that Yeshua bin Yusuf was one of the more successful apocalyptic prophets in that time and place considering how much of his teaching comes down to us. I'd say there's a good case for checking off 1 and 2, but that's about it.

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