/lit/ - Literature

>>13197747
>Wolf
>Strauss
>Mahler
The holy based /litmu/ trinity.

>>13197747
Want to explain why you think so?

>>13197790
>Want to explain why you think so?
i'm unable to criticize music. would like to get started with some recommendations.

>>13197767
Actual /lit/mu's more like
>Hoffmann
>Berlioz
>Wagner
and for an obvious 'reason'
>Cellini
>Constable
>Delacroix
could be a cccorresponding /lit/art.

>>13197825
>>Hoffmann
>>Berlioz
Shit composers.

>>13197932
Well Hoffmann's more on the /lit/ side of the equation, obviously- his writing on music's interesting, and the way he uses it in his fiction perhaps unparalleled; the opinion on Berlioz's abilities as a composer's more moot, but neither Mahler nor etc. can compete with his hilarious and thoroughly /lit/ autobiography.
I'm considering practice here, not my personal tastes.

>>13197767
>Wolf
Good taste. Sad he ended like Nietzsche

It's really extraordinary that an artist can do both maximalist and minimalist so well, like if Chopin and Liszt were the same person they would be the absolute master of the middle Romantics and Brahms would have to eat shit. A few German and Austrian writers can compete but we can agree that Kafka does the short literary piece better than Alfred Doblin but he does the epic much better than some of Kafka's more bloated longer work etc

>>13198071
Fair enough.

>>13197747
wagner beat him to it

>>13197747
nobody is in serious competition with pic related for greatest musician

>Ravel
>吉松
>Uhh Stravinsky..I guess?

>inb4 fire truck

Pic related is essential /classicalit/
Also:
2>3>6>8>1>5>9>4>7
Prove me wrong

Mahler
Shostakovich
Wagner
Peak music

>>13199514
It's actually
2>9>Das Lied von der Erde>8>6>1>4>5

>>13199999
Quints of truth. Bow down you plebs, accept this superior opinion as a gift.

>>13199534
> Shostakovich
Maybe if he hadn't been forced to write regressive music under Stalin. It pains me to think about what he could've done had he been given free reign to write whatever he wanted.

>>13200096
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlMHjo7Jwhk

>>13199006
nah, not really
i don't think so
no. nope. just no.
good, for sure, but greatest? no.

>>13201276
Johann Sebastian Bach is attributed with the following remark:
"[Handel] is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach."
Upon hearing the above statement, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have exclaimed:
"Truly, I would say the same myself if I were permitted to put in a word"
Ludwig van Beethoven is said to have exclaimed,
"Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived... I would uncover my head and kneel down on his tomb."

>>13201276
Upon hearing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from Messiah, Joseph Haydn is said to have "wept like a child" and exclaimed:
"He is the master of us all."

>>13200115
Yup, shit's boring. If your favourite composer of the 20th century is Shostakovich, you missed the point of 20th century music.

>>13201324
>the point of 20th century music.
there was no point, it was an implosion, and the art form is now dead

>>13201324
>Yup, shit's boring

>>13201333
You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. While different composers and schools of thought may have operated via different means or methodologies, there was absolutely a driving ethos that propelled all of 20th century classical music - namely that the high romanticism that appeared at the start of the century was the logical conclusion of tonal music, that strides had already been made into modality, atonality or post-tonality to great effect (e.g. Wagner; Debussy) and that composers could not retread the footsteps of their progenitors. This is the case in music before or after 1945, dodecaphonic music vs music that freely used post-tonal components, early electroacoustic music, minimalism... any trend or school of thought in classical music operated under the knowledge that tonal music was dead or at least needed to exist in an utterly different context to what previously existed.

Listen to what your pal Shostakovich wrote before he was forced to write nationalist crap - he could have easily had a career as subversive or experimental as Schönberg. He got there eventually in his late quartets, but only after wasting 50 years of his career on writing nonsense for the Party.

Luckily he was extremely talented, and even though he had to write in an outdated mode, still managed to make music that is compositionally impressive, even if it was dull by comparison to everything else that was going on.

>the art form is now dead
This doesn't have anything to do with it.

>>13201382
>- he could have easily had a career as subversive or experimental as Schönberg
Im aware he could have written awful trash nobody wants to listen to. Nobody will remember any of the 20th century composers when they look back on the West from future centuries.

>>13197747

Why did turn-of-the-century people, especially jewish intellectuals, have those stupid glasses, is my big question.

>>13201396
If you can't appreciate Schönberg you are really in no position to air your opinions about 20th century classical music. The fact that it's already persisted for over a hundred years and is a staple of any classical musician's education is proof enough that it's thought-provoking and beautiful. His music will undoubtedly be held above Shostakovich's, who did nothing new by comparison.

Let me guess, you're another /pol/ transplant, right? Stop pretending you have any semblance of culture or education and go back to your shithole.

>>13201421
Again, nobody will remember Schonberg, there is nothing beautiful about his work other than some early more conventional pieces.

>>13197747
Mahler: favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a composer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Wagner and Bruckner. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have composed myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.

>>13197747
>the complete fulfillment of the human aesthetic ambition?
um, fucking no? he's arguably the greatest composer of all time, but that's going way too far. very childish take.

>>13201427
> what key is this in? i don't like it
> guhhh

Do you at least know how to play an instrument, anon, or are you coming up with these hot takes by listening to "Best of Classical Music" playlists on YouTube with your laptop speakers?

>>13201441
yes, very childish

>>13201292
That's nice retard, but anyone with a soul can see that all three of those omposers you listed are far superior to Handel, especially Mozart. They're overly affectionate for him because he was like a father figure, they have an excuse. You don't.

>>13201487
>I know more about music than Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn
ok

>>13201441
in what way does he leave you unsatisfied?

>>13201495
You're so intellectually out of your depth that you're desperately strawmanning. Disqualified.

>>13201539
at least im not imputing unsubstantiated motives to dead people whose quotes are directly contradicting my claims

>>13201545
It's not hard to grasp, you're just stupid. It's not "unsubstantiated motives", it's common sense.
Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven built on what Handel did and clearly surpassed him. It's the natural cycle of art. They grew up revering him, in Mozart and Beethoven's cases they even learned from him personally and were quite close, obviously they're not going to swagger out and declare themselves his superior, they're going to flatter his memory. Use your head, if you can.

>>13201539
You're so unathletically out of breath that you're desperately ventilating.

>>13201556
>and clearly surpassed him
No they didn't.

>>13201563
Yeah I know you're eager to drag the argument into the subjective where nobody can ever win. Most people would say Mozart and Beethoven for sure surpassed Handel, Bach is a little more questionable.

>>13201569
Bach is the only one of the three with a reasonable claim to equalling Handel. Also why did Beethoven not say that about Bach then, who he admired greatly, why did he name Handel the greatest?

>>13201556
Beethoven was born 11 years after Handel died and Mozart was 3 at the time.

>>13201421

>/pol/ is a shithole

You can always identify a stupid person when he expresses this sentiment.

>>13201572
Yeah you're just out of your depth here in every way.
>Also why did Beethoven not say that about Bach then, who he admired greatly, why did he name Handel the greatest?
What the fuck does this have to do with anything? First of all, Bach came AFTER Beethoven. Second, nobody said Bach was the greatest. I clearly said he was the inferior of Mozart and Beethoven.

>>13201577
... Beethoven was younger than Mozart you blithering fucking tard.

>>13201580
>Bach came AFTER Beethoven.
I will not be responding to you any further

>>13201583
yes that is what the post says, that he's 14 years younger

>>13201584
I'm playing chess, I was thinking about Brahms. But take your wins where you can, I'm more interested in actual discussion than gotchas.

>>13201591
>confusing Bach and Brahms
You shouldn't be posting at all

>>13201591
https://lichess.org/PM7M19Cj

>>13201593
I'm sure. Bask in it. You need it more than me.

>>13201276
>>13201292
cool, but still, no

>>13199999 >>13199514
Are we rating Mahler's symphonies?
6>5>2>4>1>>9>>3>7>8

>>13201601
>being wrong only further proves my superiority
top faggot

>>13201591
>>13201594
Want to play me? I’m also playing while browsing lit

>>13201671
https://lichess.org/74feo1E5

>>13201671
sure, link me

>>13201652
No, owning when I made a minor gaffe that anyone who isn't insecure would understand vs you rejoicing like you won the Superbowl proves my superiority.

>>13201692
You dont even know who Bach is you are completely incapable of discussing this topic

>>13201700
I very much do, I just mix him up with Brahms a lot.

TOP TIER
>Mahler
>Bach
>Beethoven
>Webern
>Stravinsky

GREAT TIER
>Mozart
>Schoenberg
>Ravel
>Boulez
>Frescobaldi
>Berg

GOOD TIER
>Bartók
>Schumann
>Haydn
>Scarlatti, D.
>Varèse
>Ives
>Wagner
>Berlioz
>Messiaen
>Wolf

AVERAGE/MEDIOCRE TIER
>Shosty
>Sibelius
>Strauss
>Debussy
>Prokofiev
>Korngold
>Copland
>Brahms
>Handel
>Schubert
>Verdi
>Tchaikovsky
>Chopin
>Liszt

BAD TASTE TIER
>Rachmaninoff
>Whitacre
>Higdon
>Medtner

>>13202003
horrible taste.

>>13202003
>Schönberg
Enjoy your ear cancer, dude

>>13201619
9>6>4>5>7>2>3>8>1
none of them are great though. mahler is a meme.

>Bach
>Chopin
>Debussy

Now everyone get their trash list off my board

>>13202014
authoritative opinion coming through

>>13197747
>Muhluh
literally autistic jewish screeching: the composer

>>13202005
>butthurt rach fan
awwww booboo

>>13202006
Looks like someone can't grasp the Germanic tradition.

btw 1 and 3 are the only questionable Mahler symphonies, the others are an education in structure and motivic economy.

>>13202042
>Schönberg
>Germanic

>>13202050
In musical tradition, yes. Similarly, Elgar is of the Germanic tradition, albeit presenting a rather paler version of it.

>>13201427
70 IQ post.
>nobody will remember Schoenberg
Factually and objectively incorrect.
>muh beauty
lol

>>13202050
If you don't think Schoenberg is a part of German tradition and the logical continuation of it, you are literally uneducated and probably don't even play an instrument and can't read sheet music.

You all need to take the mysticpill.

>that SEETHING retard who thinks nobody will remember le icky 20th century classical music and lumps the whole century into his le ugly not musics :'((( box

>it's /lit/ talking about classical music episode
jimmies status: rustled

>>13202265
/lit/ has decent taste in books and they understand the value of classics but when it comes to music it clearly shows they have literally zero knowledge about it, the history, aesthetics; they don't even play a fucking instrument.

>>13202272
Would he still be good without syphilis?

>>13202283
Probably not, much like Schumann and Schubert.

>>13202245
for me, it's the sixth!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a-F2YCqzb4

>>13202319
Great choice, I would have to say 7>4>9 for me personally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-riazUvJE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQabCdxJ6DM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nue8eSG-8sI

>>13202272
90% of posters don't like classical at all, they just want something to prove their racist views are justified

>>13200096
>>13201324
I just like how loud and fast his music is. It's full of energy and power.
It makes me smile and laugh.

>>13202365
Neoclassicism is full of nostalgia and irony, so it's bound to be fun.

>>13201704
>i'm not stupid, i'm just very retarded

>>13201428
You’re a cunt, I hate you so fucking much.

>>13202543
seething

HELLO? don’t any of you losers listen to Holst???

>>13201578

I think you can identify stupidity in anyone who refutes it.

>>13202563
He's a meme composer, although a good orchestrator

>>13201578
fuckin retard

See, my thing with Philosophy is that you have to take time to spend and learn about imaginary and transient ‘terms’ which by their very nature are obsolete by the time another thinker or philosopher comes around to reinvent them.

The good thing about, say, Economics or mathematics, is that these are fields which are based on reality. Fields whose findings do not ‘go away’ at the whim of an interpretation.

I think that’s the reason I appreciate these so much more than any other fields. :3

>>13201578

Your parents should be killed for the crime of having given birth to you, vermin. I don't consider you human.

>>13197747
>any literature about classical music would also be appreciated
In search of lost time

>>13202698
That’s a big Eh from me. For real though how does a normie into classical? I listen but know nothing.

>>13201604
Traced to here, and I agree. Pick up a history of Handel, however- his life was extraordinary. That rec'd, I prefer even Telamann's Water Music. Etc.

Why should I care about this? I want to, but I can't find a why.

>>13203658
there are nice moocs on music theory or at least a good enough rundown on some pieces, you'll also find plenty of conductors and musicians discussing and analyzing music on youtube, there are also great musical biographies like Gardiner's Bach: music in the castle of heaven that I can't recommend enough. Music was studied plenty of time by philosophers so you could also check it out (Nietzsche of course, Schopenhauer also have a nice account of it, Roger Scruton's book is nice too but technical, Adorno is also mentioned a lot but I haven't read him yet)
Evidently this isn't enough and that is where I am standing now, the next step would be to dig deeper into musical theory, being able to read music scores and possibly music composition (reading stuff like Schoenberg's books)

>>13203759
>Why should I care about this? I want to, but I can't find a why.
care about what

Charles Rosen's The Classical Style has been recommended here before and it is one of the best books on the classical masters Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.

I cannot personally recommend Adorno's writings on music, for beginners or anyone, really. It's not that he is overly theoretical or technical, he isn't either of those things. His problem is that he engages orgiastically in "dancing about architecture" but he is very insecure about it. To that end he uses an extremely pedantic and idiosyncratic jargon-laden vocabulary as armour and it doesn't make for fun or enlightening reading.

>>13203759
About classical music? Well if you aren't a complete brainlet and pleb then you will care.

Is this is good starting place for a pleb?

>>13204135
What I've read of Taruskin is very good. I don't think it's really necessary to do all that much reading to begin with, the important thing for a beginner is to listen as widely as he can and find for himself general areas of interest which he can then explore more deeply. But a good history, as Taruskin provides, cannot go amiss I suppose.

>>13204146
Which composers should I start with?

>>13197747
>Late Romanticism
>Good

Absolute shit tier taste

>>13204940
Modernism isn't romanticism.

>>13197747
This is what you want OP. An essential on Mahler, though considered outdated.

>>13197796
start learning it, learn how to play, learn how to hear, learn its language, otherwise you are criticizing the subjective "feels". Critics who cannot tell the difference between a tonic and dominant chord are like blind criticizing painting.

>>13205242
>Gustav Mahler (German: [ˈmaːlɐ]; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian late-Romantic composer

Schubert
Borodin
Ravel

>>13202240
Everything after Verklärte Nacht is just experimental atonal wankery without any sense for aesthetic presentation.

>>13206056
Connoisseur

Ravel, Stravinsky, Bach, Vivaldi, Rossini gang (bring it snobs)

>>13202003
>underrating mozart

>>13201427
>nothing beautiful about his work other than some early more conventional pieces.
His work is more intense and moving than that of most other composers. There's certainly some sort of beauty in it.

>>13206588
It's all so clinical. He'll be remembered for inventing the twelve-tone and the people it influenced, and maybe some of his earlier music, but nothing else.

>>13202578
>>13202651
>>13202663

>Orange man really, REALLY bad: The Posts™
>b-but /pol/ hates Trump now!

You just played yourselves. You're not quite as bad as the OP.

>>13206770
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvbZOOhEGFg

>>13207178
>some subversive jew praises another subversive jew
absolutely novel phenomenon we have here

>>13199006
Objectively, I don't know. He "borrowed" a great deal, yet selection and arrangement is half of what composition is. Personally, I find that anyone who doesn't "get" the deeply consoling and majestic effect of his best and most characteristic music isn't much of a person. That /mu/ also has an inordinately low opinion of Debussy and Haydn is suggestive of the same coldness there: This site's permissive ethos attracts an awful lot of Iagos and Edmunds along with the Falstaffs and Lucios, and as fascinating as their badness is to anyone with an interest in all things forensic, they're worthless when it comes to recommendation.

>>13207191
go back

>>13206031
>Wikipedia
Read a book.
>>13206091
You clearly don't study music or read about it at all and probably don't even read sheet music or play an instrument, so consider your shitty opinion discarded.

>>13204484
Again, just start listening. If something catches your ear, make a note of the composer and start exploring them. You'll naturally move onto composers in their orbit, as it were, and you'll keep discovering more and more that way.

If you need to systematise it, by all means do, but do it on your own terms, don't get trapped in the idea that there is a universal right way to start.

>>13199999
4 > Das Lied > 2 > 8 > 3
While I've heard the others many times I don't yet feel qualified to rank them.

>>13207178
This is a great explanation of it. Soullets don’t understand that Schoenberg is just as, if not more, emotionally intense than any romantic.

>>13208198
People who can't even read sheet music sure have a lot to say about Schoenberg.

>>13208315
Music so compelling (nothing made since even comes close in that regard) will inspire a lot of commentary. I don’t see the Robles with your concern unless you want to boil all musical discussion down to an autistic formalism.

>>13207206
>Wah, wah, you're not a musician
This is precisely the clinicalness that I was referring to.

>>13208910
have a hard time with words, eh?

>>13208912
Clinicalness is a word, you pedantic faggot. I never cease to be amazed; each time I think I've found the most fragile ego on this website, someone like yourself emerges.

>>13209861
not my point lol laugh out loud kek

>>13208910
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe only education should you a right to be an authority on a particular topic; you're clearly hurt because I don't appreciate your subjectivism and relativism, but that's just the way it is, buddy. Pick up an instrument and a book or keep quiet because you clearly aren't an active music-maker. Art music isn't for the people who can only mindlessly listen.

>>13205515
What if i don’t want to be a critic and just want to listen to some good music.
Then can you recommend some?

>>13210626
give you a right*

>>13206091
he composed at least 6 tonal opuses after verklarte nacht including gurrelider (arguably the greatest essay in western tonal system) before 3 pieces for piano so you clearly don't what what you are talking about

>>13210626
Stupid line of thought. When I was at RAM I played piano at a pretty high level, I don't think that gives me the right to shit on the opinions of people who aren't as good at the piano as me. I doubt you are, so shall I ignore you as an uneducated swine who can't improvise a fugue?
It's music not maths, there is no 'correct' opinion

>>13210679

>>13210702
No. I should have pointed out that mindlessly playing =/= necessarily understanding music. There are no correct opinions, yes, but there is a historical and aesthetic context to be understood and there's an obvious connection between not understanding something and being spiteful towards it; an obvious and common example is hating on composers like Schoenberg when these people have almost either no musical education or no conquered context.

>>13202030

>>13210736
And let me add that I'm not hating on opinions, I'm hating on obvious negativism towards innovative figures who knew FAR more and had much more feeling than any of the spiteful cretins.

>An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, Sir Joshua
>Reynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be
>produced by severe thought, and a long continued intercourse
>with the best models of composition. This is mentioned not with
>so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced
>reader from judging for himself; but merely to temper the
>rashness of decision, and to suggest that if poetry be a subject on
>which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be
>erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.

>>13210736
I love Schoenberg's music and I still think you're an idiot.

>>13210768
Your subjective perception doesn't matter and I don't about your feelings towards me; negativism, relativism and subjectivism needs to fuck off in place of education.

>>13209998
What, you thought I misunderstood your formalist nonsense from the post before? You assumed that I've never played an instrument or studied music before. Let me assume the opposite of you. You must be a Principal Seat cello virtuoso with LACO. Or perhaps, you are an "autodidact" lelelelel.

>>13210863
>You assumed that I've never played an instrument
not me lmaoooooooooolol

>>13210820
>relativism and subjectivism needs to fuck off in place of education.
So do tell which Conservatoire you studied at which taught you this kind of approach? Generally the only musicians who think this 'my way or the highway' stuff are the HIP autists and fuck them.
Or, possibly, are you someone who doesn't know much about music, but likes using classical as a stick to hit people with?

>>13210679
He churned out so much incrementally dissimilar shit after 1908 that its easy to overlook his compositions between 1899 and then. And no, Gurrelider is a masterpiece, let alone beter than Verklarte Nacht lmao.

>>13210922
*Is not a masterpiece

>>13210879
This guy >>13207206 >>13210736, then.

>>13197747
>the complete fulfillment of the human aesthetic ambition

That's a big goal. Very hard to reach. Unless you are talking about Coca-Cola®.

>>13210626
Wait, are you the Benjaminwanker from the art thread a couple weeks ago?

>>13210964
pepsi for life
look up the blindfold tests marketing fags

>>13210894
Conservatoire? These institutions don't preach such views or teach them at all.
I literally study music, so try again.

>>13210992
No

>>13211013
Stop defending your credentials and start talking about music. It's almost as if you don't know anything about Schoenberg and so you'll call people idiots and hide behind sheet music autism in order to avoiding having to actually discuss his work.

What pieces got you guys into atonal or rather, twelve tone?

I feel like what that YouTube Hebrew said further up in is thread is true, about the music arguably being more intense/emotional, I think that's exactly its weakness though. I don't get the lovely feelings of suspense and release for example, and I feel like the constant expressiveness of it satiates me in a bad, numbing way.
None of the notes are exciting and "unexpected" when they all are.

Just my problems not actually letting me enjoy it.

>>13211003
The truest mark of being born with great qualities, is being born without envy. The only thing like Coca-Cola® is Coca-Cola® itself.

>>13211013
Listen here... It'll be okay.
People are allowed to not enjoy the things you enjoy...

>>13211043
>So do tell which Conservatoire you studied at
>Stop defending your credentials

>>13211111
I'm not responsible for what other people ask you. I'm simply advising you to talk about music in this thread about music.

>>13211069
>What pieces got you guys into atonal or rather, twelve tone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEcVQH_sC3s

>>13211111
Checked.
Nobody in this thread actually likes Shoeburyness or Mahabharata. Just the usual internet dick swinging where people try to show how smart they are

>>13205515
Wrong.
>Stravinsky made the point
thus: 'Theory in musical compositions is
hindsight. It doesn’t exist. There are compositions
from which it is deduced. Or, if
this isn’t quite true, it has a by-product existence
that is powerless to create or even
justify. Nevertheless, composition involves
a deep intuition for theory.’
Listening does, too. Either you have an innate intuition for musical (harmonic, rhythmic, melodic) 'tension', for lack of a better term, or you don't, and may consequently only acquire it through years and years of listening and playing music, if ever.

>>13211069
I think for me rather than any one piece it has been more in coming over a long period of time to recognise that beyond the superficial qualities of Schoenberg there is the aesthetic groundwork that comes from Brahms and Beethoven and Mozart and Bach. When you get past the superficial shock of his dissonance, then you can open yourself to the profound shock of his conservatism.

Of course, this isn't as surprising when you consider that Schoenberg was not favoured by the succeeding generation. Webern was championed by Boulez in the 1950s for precisely the reason that, more completely than any other composer working with the 12 tone method, he had dissolved the bond between it and the Late Romantic style. I think Webern saw the need to disentangle technique from tradition. He completely avoids the complications of Schoenberg's dense contrapuntal style. There is no motivic development in 12 tone Webern, only the four pure permutations of the row. He is very transparent and, I think, easier to understand than Schoenberg.

>>13201428
absolutely correct

For me, it's Monteverdi.

>>13197747
No, that would be Beethoven.

>>13211085
It was Laozi tier and it was proclaimed by late-stage capitalism

>>13197747
thot-enabling cuck desu