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“Recently there was given the overture to Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, and all impartial musicians and music lovers were in perfect agreement that never was anyth

“Recently there was given the overture to Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, and all impartial musicians and music lovers were in perfect agreement that never was anything as incoherent, shrill, chaotic and ear-splitting produced in music. The most piercing dissonances clash in a really atrocious harmony, and a few puny ideas only increase the disagreeable and deafening effect.” (August von Kotzebue, Der Freimütige, Vienna, September 11, 1806) “Beethoven’s compositions more and more assume the character of studied eccentricity. He does not write much now, but most of what he produces is so impenetrably obscure in design and so full of unaccountable and often repulsive harmonies, that he puzzles the critic as much as he perplexes the performer.” (The Harmonicon, London, April 1824) “Beethoven mystified his passages by a new treatment of the resolution of discords, which can only be described in words by the term, ‘resolution by ellipsis,’ or the omission of the chord upon which the discordant notes should descend.... Many of his passages also appear confused and unintelligible, by a singular freedom in the use of diatonic discords or discords of transition; many instances appear of passages by contrary motion, each carrying their harmonies with them.” (Musical World, London, March 1836) Source: Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time by Nicolas Slonimsky (1953)

Nemrod67 4y ago
There is a case to be made for the cyclical nature of criticism, though we have to keep in mind the possibility of a cycle being really bad too... (as we surely forgot a lot of them already).
buchoo 4y ago
You are quoting critics negatively assessing a popular composer, whereas the article talks about how music now praised by critics largely fails to engage the public. (Note that Fidelio did indeed receive an unenthusiastic reception in 1806 and only became successful when performed after a thorough revision in 1814.)
coldtea 4y ago
Yeah, so? The quotations, are critics close to the "release" date of the work. Let's say it was "jarring" back then as a fresh listen. In our case, it's been 60+ years, and in some cases 80 or 100 from unlistenable "contemporary classical" music and listeners didn't come around as they did with Beethoven.
- Aidevah 4y ago
  Resistance to Beethoven's music continued well into the 20th century. From Charles Rosen's "Critical Entertainments": >The difficulty of understanding Beethoven is well known: even at the end of the nineteenth century the late works were still contested, and the most famous piano teacher in Vienna, Leschetizky, advised his pupil Artur Schnabel not to play the last sonatas. In fact, I doubt if the enemies of contemporary music would sit through the Grosse Fuge if they did not know that Beethoven wrote it. Even as recently as the 1930s and 1940s, chamber music societies in smaller American cities would threaten to cancel concerts by the Budapest Quartet if they insisted on playing a late Beethoven quartet.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    In any case, that would rather prove that Beethoven could also write unlistenable/unlikable pieces that never fully "caught on" - not that modern works are "undeservingly" thought as such. And in Beethoven's case we also know that he did churn out perfectly catchy stuff a plenty, even for the most "untrained" listener.
    - Aidevah 4y ago
      I think your objection, together with the author of the review, rests on the assumption that throughout history there have always existed a mass audience that consumes and supports literate music. It's better to think this mass consumption as an aberration brought about by the enlightenment and has already run its course. Earlier in the same essay Charles Rosen explained it thus: >There is some truth to these attacks, of course, but they all overlook the essentially artificial nature of a system that makes music depend principally on the listener. The life of music is based not so much on those who want to listen, but on those who want to play and sing. Public concerts are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of mankind, dating largely from the latter half of the eighteenth century. They were a way of enabling musicians to make a living doing what they like to do after much of the patronage of church and court had been withdrawn. Musicians need and want an audience from time to time, but the public concert is only a small part of the making of music, not the whole of it: playing for a few friends, playing with other musicians, and even playing for oneself still provide the foundation of musical life. Making the public concert the economic basis of music has somewhat obscured the reason that music exists. Of course, musicians being answerable to noone but themselves is a dangerous state of affairs which led to what the common man considers to be unlistenable music in the 20th century and beyond. Richard Taruskin delivered a scathing criticism of this in his essay "The Poietic Fallacy" in the collection "The Dangers of Music and other Utopian Essays". So the question is not "why is modern classical music so unlistenable" but rather "why does 19th century music have such a large audience".
deleted 4y ago
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Nemrod67 4y ago

There is a case to be made for the cyclical nature of criticism, though we have to keep in mind the possibility of a cycle being really bad too... (as we surely forgot a lot of them already).

buchoo 4y ago

You are quoting critics negatively assessing a popular composer, whereas the article talks about how music now praised by critics largely fails to engage the public. (Note that Fidelio did indeed receive an unenthusiastic reception in 1806 and only became successful when performed after a thorough revision in 1814.)

coldtea 4y ago

Yeah, so? The quotations, are critics close to the "release" date of the work. Let's say it was "jarring" back then as a fresh listen. In our case, it's been 60+ years, and in some cases 80 or 100 from unlistenable "contemporary classical" music and listeners didn't come around as they did with Beethoven.

Aidevah 4y ago
Resistance to Beethoven's music continued well into the 20th century. From Charles Rosen's "Critical Entertainments": >The difficulty of understanding Beethoven is well known: even at the end of the nineteenth century the late works were still contested, and the most famous piano teacher in Vienna, Leschetizky, advised his pupil Artur Schnabel not to play the last sonatas. In fact, I doubt if the enemies of contemporary music would sit through the Grosse Fuge if they did not know that Beethoven wrote it. Even as recently as the 1930s and 1940s, chamber music societies in smaller American cities would threaten to cancel concerts by the Budapest Quartet if they insisted on playing a late Beethoven quartet.
- coldtea 4y ago
  In any case, that would rather prove that Beethoven could also write unlistenable/unlikable pieces that never fully "caught on" - not that modern works are "undeservingly" thought as such. And in Beethoven's case we also know that he did churn out perfectly catchy stuff a plenty, even for the most "untrained" listener.
  - Aidevah 4y ago
    I think your objection, together with the author of the review, rests on the assumption that throughout history there have always existed a mass audience that consumes and supports literate music. It's better to think this mass consumption as an aberration brought about by the enlightenment and has already run its course. Earlier in the same essay Charles Rosen explained it thus: >There is some truth to these attacks, of course, but they all overlook the essentially artificial nature of a system that makes music depend principally on the listener. The life of music is based not so much on those who want to listen, but on those who want to play and sing. Public concerts are a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of mankind, dating largely from the latter half of the eighteenth century. They were a way of enabling musicians to make a living doing what they like to do after much of the patronage of church and court had been withdrawn. Musicians need and want an audience from time to time, but the public concert is only a small part of the making of music, not the whole of it: playing for a few friends, playing with other musicians, and even playing for oneself still provide the foundation of musical life. Making the public concert the economic basis of music has somewhat obscured the reason that music exists. Of course, musicians being answerable to noone but themselves is a dangerous state of affairs which led to what the common man considers to be unlistenable music in the 20th century and beyond. Richard Taruskin delivered a scathing criticism of this in his essay "The Poietic Fallacy" in the collection "The Dangers of Music and other Utopian Essays". So the question is not "why is modern classical music so unlistenable" but rather "why does 19th century music have such a large audience".

deleted 4y ago

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