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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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In Reply to: Art and music: can non-intellectuals appreciate post-19th century music posted by tinear on March 11, 2011 at 10:59:41:
"You don't need to "understand" Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin to pleasurably listen (of course, the more you know, the more it is intriguing). The dullest adult, the clearest-eyed child can close their eyes and be swept away."
Is that really true for everyone, or only mostly true for people raised in environments where their childhood music exposure is to european/western music. I somehow doubt the truth of your statement for people raised in non-european cultures without exposure to western music. That makes me suspect that pleasurable listening to Bach, Mozart etc is a learned response and has more to do with familiarity than with some innate quality of the music.
I'd say that view is supported by the difficulty and lack of enjoyment many westerners have with non-european based musics such as some traditional asian, arabic, and aftrican musics. We don't "get it" or find listening pleasurable but people from those cultures, raised with exposure to those musics rather than western music, have no trouble enjoying that music.
"Perhaps there isn't an easy answer, after all, as to whether or not "classical" music is dying. If indeed it is diminishing in popularity, perhaps it is only the "post-modern" part that is so?"
I don't see how you can suggest that the popularity of "post-modern" classical music is diminishing. It was never popular. Most listeners to classical music never bothered to become familiar with it and therefore never learned to enjoy it. If anything, I'd hazard a guess that the popularity of some "post-modern" classical is actually increasing slightly as some of the language of that music filters in to places like movie theme music and the general public becomes a little more familiar with it in a diluted form, though my suggestion that its popularity is increasing slightly is certainly not meant to suggest that it has become much more popular.
"…once the representational barrier is exploded, so is public attachment…"
The frequency and distribution of most human likes/dislikes, traits, and characteristics are reasonably accurately defined statistically by a bell curve. What is popular is popular because most people like it—in fact "popular" implies being generally liked. Still, there are always interests that aren't popular, and people who pursue them. There's nothing surprising in the fact that there are limits to what is popular in any art form. I'd suggest that genuine appreciation, rather than mere liking, is dependent upon some sort of familiarity and understanding and that the response of most people to the music of Bach, Mozart, and the popular classical composers is more one of liking rather than appreciating. How many of the people who respond in the way you described in your opening paragraph actually own and regularly listen to recordings of that music (and which pieces, at that), and how many actually attend live performances of that music. Sure, many people respond the way you suggest when they hear that music but do they actively seek that music out when they want to listen to music or do they choose more popular music of some kind? I'd suggest fewer actively seek it out than choose more popular music.
Perhaps you should also consider asking can non-intellectuals, or at least anyone who isn't prepared to put some time and effort into becoming reasonably familiar with the music, really appreciate (rather than merely "like") 19th century and earlier music? In fact I'd even suggest that the incidence of "liking" diminishes once we start looking at 17th century music and earlier. Looked at that way, is the response of the public as a whole all that much different to post 19th century music than it is to 19th century and earlier music?
I'd suggest the 19th century and last quarter of the 18th plus first quarter of the 20th are possibly a special case—the musical language of that late classical/romantic romantic era has in many ways become a major part of our modern musical vernacular, influencing film music, musicals, and even a lot of popular music. The actual music of that period is not the music most people in the west actually listen to when they choose to listen to music of their choice but they like it, rather than appreciate it, when they do hear it because that's the musical sound they hear in film scores and any popular music with a string/orchestral backing, plus the harmonic structure is similar to that of much popular music.
David Aiken
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Follow Ups
- RE: Art and music: can non-intellectuals appreciate post-19th century music - David Aiken 15:36:08 03/11/11 (3)
- No longer - rbolaw 16:32:03 03/11/11 (2)
- RE: No longer - David Aiken 23:05:02 03/11/11 (1)
- And it works in reverse, too - k-k-k-kenny 17:50:32 03/12/11 (0)
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