WHAT DO YOU MEAN BEETHOVEN WASN'T SO GREAT???"

[crgildart]

OK, we have this handful of all time greatest composers/musicians that seems to have been the same for centuries.

Beethoven, Motzart, Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner, Debussey, Tchaicovsky, Haydn, Vivaldi, etc

Is there anyone from the 1900s on that you'd put ahead of those classical artists? Sousa??? Lennon and McCartney? TuPac? Rogers and Hammerstein? Andrew Lloyd Weber? It just seems odd that the who's who of composers and song writers hasn't changed in 300 years. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Jerez]

Not necessarily ahead of, but certainly great:
Cage, Glass, Porter, Copland, Barber And then there are Jazz composers Hancock, Jarrett, Coltrane, Gershwin, Davis, Monk and a bunch more I can't think of because I'm just a music hack.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

in high school days actually had a very stupid drunken argument that some how ended up being physical on this same topic.
I was for Mozart , he was for Jimi Hendricks.

 

[scott43]

in high school days actually had a very stupid drunken argument that some how ended up being physical on this same topic.
I was for Mozart , he was for Jimi Hendricks.

Heh...

 

[crgildart]

Frank Zappa. Dr Dre

 

[scott43]

I mean..Rachmaninov, Shostikovitch, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ravel..early 1900's mostly..still great. I don't particularly like most of the Russian stuff..but they are great. They're different genres later..different styles..music evolves..I always find these types of comparisons difficult and fruitless. More about what you like.. I'll stick to the Baroque myself..

 

[crgildart]

I mean..Rachmaninov, Shostikovitch, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ravel..early 1900's mostly..still great. I don't particularly like most of the Russian stuff..but they are great. They're different genres later..different styles..music evolves..I always find these types of comparisons difficult and fruitless. More about what you like.. I'll stick to the Baroque myself..

But why nothing from the eras before them? Perhaps because it wasn't written down in any form so lost??

 

[Andy Mink]

I can listen to this guy for hours. And have.

 

[scott43]

#1 Desert Island CD for me is Bach's Brandenburg Concertos..

 

[crgildart]

Berlioz Symphanie Fantastique is pretty good stuff IMHO.

 

[fatbob]

Copeland, Glass, Eno, Simon, Dre, Yorke/Greenwood, the whole set up around Beyonce, Albini even

Don't think you have to be "better than" to be a meaningful and enduring contributor to the world's musical heritage

 

[cantunamunch]

Anyone here watch 12tone?

 

[Ogg]

Frank Zappa.

The most amazing think about Zappa was he could compose and arrange in pretty much any genre but still be distinctly Zappa.

 

[Mendieta]

And then there are Jazz composers Hancock, Jarrett, Coltrane, Gershwin, Davis, Monk and a bunch more

Stravinsky,

Stravinsky and Jazz are so interrelated ...

Kurrent Music. A Collaborative Music Blog

What's in common is in "modern" composers from 100 years ago challenging the classical rules of harmony. The fundamental difference, as stated above, is that jazz is primarily improvisational. When you play jazz you are composing on the fly, which is extremely difficult, and explains why jazz musicians can play pretty much anything else in popular music, without breaking a sweat

Jazz music sheets are fun: mostly a bunch of chord changes. And even those are indicative, to some extent . Part of what is entailed in playing jazz is in understanding what is fundamental to the harmony of a piece, what can be reharmonized, etc. Fascinating stuff.

FWIW: I play some jazz now and then but I am not a "jazz musician".

 

[Posaune]

The great composers of "classical" music were able to infuse their music with both the intellectual and the emotional side of the human experience at the same time. A great example is the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. Its beautiful, slow, evocative melody has a real "hook" that you can hear in your head all day long, but if you listen deeper into the music you'll find that it seethes with underlying melodies and harmonies running along under the overlay of the main theme. You could spend weeks hearing everything in it.

Modern composers have it a lot tougher. People have been at composition for a long time and to come up with something that isn't a retread is hard. Also, there aren't the moneyed classes willing to pay for intellectually stimulating music today that there were pre-20th century, and in our more democratic world, the common folk pay the piper. So the great composers of today tend to compose for film, TV, and pop recordings. Economically there just isn't the demand for intellectual music anymore.

 

[David Chaus]

I personally would add Gershwin and Dizzy Gillespie.

Also keep in mind we seem to be focused on “Western great music” so this overlooks compositions from the rest of the world, like Babatunde Olantunji, or layered and complex music from India such at that from Zakair Hussein. I mentioned Dizzy Gillespie because of his influence of incorporating Afro Cuban music into contemporary jazz, in addition to his masterful playing.

 

[Andy Mink]

Anyone here watch 12tone?

I'll never listen to that song the same way again! Very interesting. I played French horn for 13 years but was never a "musician". Never learned chords etc. I just read the notes, pushed the valves, and hoped for the best.

 

[crgildart]

I personally would add Gershwin and Dizzy Gillespie.

Also keep in mind we seem to be focused on “Western great music” so this overlooks compositions from the rest of the world, like Babatunde Olantunji, or layered and complex music from India such at that from Zakair Hussein. I mentioned Dizzy Gillespie because of his influence of incorporating Afro Cuban music into contemporary jazz, in addition to his masterful playing.

True. but a lot of my favorite work from Dizzy were covers.. Lots of those big bands did eachother's stuff with variations and tweaks here and there. Salt Peanuts, The Mooch, etc..

 

[Posaune]

True. but a lot of my favorite work from Dizzy were covers.. Lots of those big bands did eachother's stuff with variations and tweaks here and there. Salt Peanuts, The Mooch, etc..

The art in jazz is usually not in the composition, it's in the performance. Jazz at its best is an improvisor's art, not a composer's. Sure, Ellington and many others wrote wonderful stuff, but none of their compositions hold a candle to those of the great 19th century composers. The 20th century had audio recording, so by focusing on improv which could be captured on record (Bach and Beethoven were both killer improvisers, but we have no way to hear what it sounded like) it became a way to differentiate from the past, so compositions created the frame for the artwork rather than the focus of the art.

The modern jazz world is where all of the greatest musicians of today congregate, IMHO.

 

[RuleMiHa]

As a violist I love Bach, Beethoven and Mozart because they wrote decent viola parts. As the daughter of someone who grew up listening to 1950’s jazz because, according to my father, everything after Miles Davis’ 1961 Birth of the Cool was “crap”, I love Bepop Jazz. As a 40 ish reasonably social human being I also appreciate contemporary music and enjoy many genres depending on the situation.

I feel like each type conveys it’s own message and serves it’s own purpose and there is no real way to compare them. I would never give up the feeling that I got at a college party when certain songs came on (Atomic Dog) and the whole room started barking. Late night existential conversations (and other less intellectual activities) to Theolonius Monk would not have been improved had Mozart been playing. The intricacy of the Bach fugues are amazing and the Brandenburgs are some of my favorites and to play those in concert is one of the best feelings ever.

They are all definitely great in their own way and I enjoy them all. I even find backwater blues fascinating, which is a genre which came before blues and bluegrass music split so it sounds like both a country and r&b song at the same time. There is enough space for all in the music lexicon. Even if I think the new stuff is weird, it eventually grows on me.