Rapper Rach

[tompilk]

Hi. been thinking about this for a while. As all the famous musicians were writing music that was fasionable at the time, do you think liszt, chopin etc would listen to modern electronic music and "pop music", as it is the popular music of today?
So should we be seeing this modern music as a step forward, or it it backwards?
Do you think that they would find it too un-emotional and not an actual piece of music but noise?
Anyway, it would be interesting to know what Rachmaninov would listen to if he was around today...
Tom

[ramseytheii]

Hi. been thinking about this for a while. As all the famous musicians were writing music that was fasionable at the time, do you think liszt, chopin etc would listen to modern electronic music and "pop music", as it is the popular music of today?
So should we be seeing this modern music as a step forward, or it it backwards?
Do you think that they would find it too un-emotional and not an actual piece of music but noise?
Anyway, it would be interesting to know what Rachmaninov would listen to if he was around today...
Tom

Probably he would listen to Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, Godowsky, Scriabin, Medtner, etc, and be amazed by the advanced recording technologies - the complete symphonic works of these compsoers without leaving your living room.  Rachmaninoff didn't like popular music, and famously dismissed Gershwin from the piano at a party, demanding Horowitz play instead.

Walter Ramsey

[mephisto]

Hi. been thinking about this for a while. As all the famous musicians were writing music that was fasionable at the time
Tom

This is not true.

[nicco]

This is not true.

I always thought the music that liszt, chopin etc wrote was considered pop-music at their time compared to what we call pop music.

[zheer]

I always thought the music that liszt, chopin etc wrote was considered pop-music at their time compared to what we call pop music.

  Their was pop music during the growing popularity of classical music.

[jas]

I always thought the music that liszt, chopin etc wrote was considered pop-music at their time compared to what we call pop music.

Their contemporaries who really wrote "pop" music (Herz, Hünten, Moscheles, Thalberg, etc.) have all but sunk into obscurity. Pop music is and always has been ephemeral. Chopin and Liszt were popular with the general public, but they didn't deliberately write crowd pleasers like a lot of the others did. Well, Liszt wrote some, before he stopped touring and became a "serious" composer.
Not all composers were fashionable during their time, though. Bach and Mozart have gone the opposite way to Herz etc., for example.

I don't think they would listen to pop stuff. Or maybe I prefer to think they wouldn't...

Jas

[gonzalo]

Nowadays it seems people only listen to songs... I think Rachmaninov would like to listen to instrumental music.

[counterpoint]

Beethoven rocks...

[moi_not_toi]

I consider it a fall backwards.

First you have Bach: He didn't even know what a piano was, but made do with what he could get.

Then you have Beethoven: He was showing everybody what a great instrument it was.

Then there's Liszt: He took everything that Beethoven did and turned it upside down. He made it more of an emotion than a concert.

Then there's the Modernists: They took the old rules and threw them in the dustbin. By this time so many people had stopped playing piano that the selling of sheet music wasn't enough to keep them afloat.

Now there's us: We're all about being cheap, so we use the cheapest instrument we have: the voice. People today have no appreciation of the old ways, because they find it boring. They would rather hear someone tell them how to feel than get involved in something that makes them think.

Such a pity.

[steve_m]

d

[counterpoint]

The modernists arrive, take all these rules and throw them "in the dustbin", thinking that, somehow, this would be better.

No, I don't think so.

Every generation of composers did search for some new terrain. That doesn't mean, the old terrain is not good enough, but it's known land, it is there and will be there. But it's in human nature to search for new terrains, new dimensions, the unexpected. This will not devalue the traditional value, but giving more possibilities for the next generation. There is no "fallback", there is a widening of the view and the possibilities.

[steve_m]

g

[counterpoint]

Look at the works of the late romantic composers. The rules, they still used, but widened the the extremest limits, got obsolet at some point, because if you use the rules or you don't use the rules, there's no noticeably difference. That's the point, where the Basis of all former rules, the classical cadenza, was thrown away by quite a lot composers (Debussy, Scriabin, Strawinksy, Schönberg etc.). Thats music history. Don't cry for the good old times, they never will come back. They never existed.

[prometheus]

These people were products of their time. It if silly to argue what they would have become in our time since they would not be able to exist out of their own time.

And if you clone Beethoven or Mozart they would probaby be ordinary people. They may not even excell in music, or anything else for that matter.

[tompilk]

These people were products of their time. It if silly to argue what they would have become in our time since they would not be able to exist out of their own time.

And if you clone Beethoven or Mozart they would probaby be ordinary people. They may not even excell in music, or anything else for that matter.

ever heard of a hypothetical situation?
Tom

[jas]

First you have Bach: He didn't even know what a piano was, but made do with what he could get.

Bach didn't just "make do with what he could get". He was one of the best harpisichordists and organists in Europe. And he did know what a piano was, he played Silbermann's pianos when he visited Frederick the Great. He didn't think much of them (thought they were too hard to play and too weak in the treble), but when Silbermann later improved his pianos, Bach approved them. He still preferred the harpsichord etc, but there are arguments for some of his later unspecified keyboard works having been written for the early piano.

I don't really agree with the rest of your post, either. It's simplistic to the point of untrue. The piano's evolution, socially and mechanically, is far more complex than that.

Jas

[lisztisforkids]

Hi. been thinking about this for a while. As all the famous musicians were writing music that was fasionable at the time, do you think liszt, chopin etc would listen to modern electronic music and "pop music", as it is the popular music of today?

  Doubtfull in my opinion.. Back in the old days of Chopin and Liszt there were only 2 types of music, folk music, and classical music.  Same as today..

[moi_not_toi]

Bach didn't just "make do with what he could get". He was one of the best harpisichordists and organists in Europe. And he did know what a piano was, he played Silbermann's pianos when he visited Frederick the Great. He didn't think much of them (thought they were too hard to play and too weak in the treble), but when Silbermann later improved his pianos, Bach approved them. He still preferred the harpsichord etc, but there are arguments for some of his later unspecified keyboard works having been written for the early piano.

I don't really agree with the rest of your post, either. It's simplistic to the point of untrue. The piano's evolution, socially and mechanically, is far more complex than that.

Jas

you like Brittney Spears, don't you.

besides. He had to walk miles and miles to the nearest organ.
He made do with what he could get, otherwise, he wouldn't be an organist, would he? 

[jas]

you like Brittney Spears, don't you.

besides. He had to walk miles and miles to the nearest organ.
He made do with what he could get, otherwise, he wouldn't be an organist, would he? 

You clearly haven't a clue what you're on about. And no, I don't like Britney Spears. What a weird way to try to insult someone.