I don't like Stockhausen Klavierstücke because...

[counterpoint]

A little random poll - just for fun   

[retrouvailles]

Why is that the title? Why not something like "What do you think of the Stockhausen Klavierstücke?" Not everyone here dislikes them, I would expect.

[counterpoint]

Not everyone here dislikes them, I would expect.

For that reason there's an option "I like them" 

[retrouvailles]

But there are so many other options that refer to not liking them!

[indutrial]

LOL LOL LMFAOROTF MODERN MUSIK SUXXXX MODERN MUSIK SUXXXX HAHAHAHAHAHA

In all seriousness, I've always appreciated the intellectual rigor and the cosmic difficulty of interpreting Stockhausen's music, but I've never really been able to lose myself in his music. Every piece I've seen by him looks near-impossible to pull off, when you add together all of the dynamics and such...

[retrouvailles]

That's almost exactly how I feel.

[pies]

a

[ahinton]

I don't like 88 street because of..
a) the irrational hatred of modern music that at least half of the people here have
b) threads like this one
c) counterpoint
d) all of the above

I pick D

Did anyone actually force you to become and remain a member?

Anyway, doesn't category 4. rather generate its own redundancy in that, simply by reading it, the reader will have heard of this music?...

Best,

Alistair

[quantum]

I like them.  I like the overall sound and character that comes across.

[retrouvailles]

And for the record, they are not in C major.

[danny elfboy]

There's nothing irrational in disliking modern music, it just happens.
Music must strike a chord in us and if doesn't, it doesn't.
It has nothing to do with how "hard" a piece us or the level of instruction of one person.
I have said before that "art" is about the end product and what it trasmits and not the means.
So I just find it ridicolous when people think you must know and appreciate the mean in order to appreciate the product, to the level that they claim you must be a musician, composer or teacher yourself in order to appreciate certain piece of music.
Personally I consider whatever modernist philosophy (be it musical or otherwise) nothing but contradictory pseudo-intellectuallism that missess its mark. I don't agree with anything this dogma thinks about the nature of originality, innovation, time, sociality, history and what not.
That's just me though and I support those who are interested in this music. What though I just can't stand is when modernist philosophies (and their fans) start claiming that their products (music, books, pictures, sculptures) are inherently superior, more innovative and interesting than anything else which should be considered obsolete and outdated.
Of course this is a nonsense which doesn't even deserve a thoughtfull reply.

[indutrial]

I don't like 88 street because of..
a) the irrational hatred of modern music that at least half of the people here have
b) threads like this one
c) counterpoint
d) all of the above

I pick D

Until I just read the OP's name I thought you had some strange kind of issue with musical counterpoint in general and that somehow this was the forum's fault.

I definitely agree on A and B, which are pretty much the same reason since either one usually leads to the other. It's because this forum is rife with single-minded and immature performers whose view of music is painfully dependent on anxiety about what the audience thinks and what the conservative professor recommend. Hence, all of those dangerous moderns must be treated with discretion or ignored outright.

Less and less do I ever see musicians trying to come up with truly unique repertoires (which is akin to being part-performer and part-music-historian). I'm a non-music alumnus of a school with an amazing music library and I probably utilize more of the materials there then most of the music students who "study" at the school. And I'm NOT tooting my own horn here, because I'm at best a semi-formal music history enthusiast. It's probably a sign of the direction almost all liberal arts have gone in past years. Now that colleges are all about making money and packing classrooms with pretty much whomever can clear checks, the campuses are filled with dumbasses who approach everything like overanxious, subservient high-schoolers and it's harder to find the people who really take the subjects seriously and are not just trying to job their way through earning a degree so they can go sell insurance or assistant manage at their uncle's consulting firm.

Musicians at schools are no better, and it usually doesn't take long for your average trumpet player, pianist, or bassoonist to become remarkably jaded about a course of study that's supposed to be enlightening and exciting. Sooner or later, it's just about putting on recitals that they think teacher will find satisfactory and won't offend the non-musicians and friends who come to watch the recital. Art clears the f**k so entertainment can shoulder its way forward.

Sorry to rant a little, but this site has been getting less and less "interesting" in the past few months and I'm seeing it as totally indicative of what's going on in the larger world of mass academia and all of its shortcomings.

[counterpoint]

And for the record, they are not in C major.

 

Is it so hard to distinguish a serious statement from a joke...? 

[danny elfboy]

Until I just read the OP's name I thought you had some strange kind of issue with musical counterpoint in general and that somehow this was the forum's fault.

I definitely agree on A and B, which are pretty much the same reason since either one usually leads to the other. It's because this forum is rife with single-minded and immature performers whose view of music is painfully dependent on anxiety about what the audience thinks and what the conservative professor recommend. Hence, all of those dangerous moderns must be treated with discretion or ignored outright.

That's just not true and you're being unjust and too biased in your judgement.
Do you have any idea of what it was like the musical accademy world in the 70's, 80's and 90's? Modern music was the dogma that all teachers shoved down their student throat.
Those who wanted to deal with different music were hostricized, insulted or banned.

If nothing there have been in the early 2000 a reaction of students against the DICTATORSHIP and REGIMEN of modernist arts. Right now is just a matter of personality and individual choices. No music is superior or inferior, better or worse per se. Some find that music interesting and should indeed get involved with it, some just feels nothing even after years of forced listening and there's no reason why should force themselves something which is just not in their chords.

[indutrial]

Personally I consider whatever modernist philosophy (be it musical or otherwise) nothing but contradictory pseudo-intellectuallism that missess its mark. I don't agree with anything this dogma thinks about the nature of originality, innovation, time, sociality, history and what not.
That's just me though and I support those who are interested in this music. What though I just can't stand is when modernist philosophies (and their fans) start claiming that their products (music, books, pictures, sculptures) are inherently superior, more innovative and interesting than anything else which should be considered obsolete and outdated.
Of course this is a nonsense which doesn't even deserve a thoughtfull reply.

Nobody's really claiming modernism's superiority over anything here. While I agree that some people can be insufferably smug in their espousal of modernist notions, that is not often the case. I've found on this site that the half-educated conservative musicians are usually the first to start spouting immature nonsense, casting stones, and harping on about "psuedo-intellectualism" and crap like that in lieu of actually allowing a discussion to flower in anyway. Because of that, any conversation on something like Sorabji makes everyone groan in anticipation of the pie-fight that inevitably wells up. Composers like Cage and Stockhausen get ridiculed and oversimlified with god-awfully foolish threads like this one. On top of that, tons of worthy modern composers largely get ignored or snubbed while we have to listen to endless banter and mindless bullshitting about Beethoven-this and Chopin-that by dogmatic old-fashioned players who can't even say anything worthwhile about the few composers they do know about.

[retrouvailles]

At least the option for liking them is currently leading...

[indutrial]

If nothing there have been in the early 2000 a reaction of students against the DICTATORSHIP and REGIMEN of modernist arts.

Yes, it's called annoying, spoiled brats crying for what's easy instead of, well, working within the challenges of a world that is moving faster and harder than ever before. Instead of practicing 6-7 hours a day and studying theory, they want to have time to call all of their friends, play Warcraft, and go partying at night. It's the same reason that Shakespeare classes pack up fast and Pynchon classes have less than a dozen kids. The Cliff Notes for Shakespeare are easier to find and most the plays are made into movies. I wouldn't call this a revolutionary reaction anymore than you could call what the hippies did in the late 1960s a true revolutionary reaction.

Whether kids entering conservatory like it or not, composers have and always will work on a different wavelength than the composers that existed one or two hundred years before. Since very few of the performers want to write anything, then tough sh*t, you learn what's being written by the composers who are operating in your time and space. Or...you play what everyone else is playing, you never stand out, and you play shitty jazz at a restaurant gig until you decide to quit music.

The best modernist artists and musicians never set out to destroy anything from the past. Many, in fact, helped us better understand it. Problem is, too many people are living in the past and want to destroy the present and don't give a crap about the future.

[indutrial]

At least the option for liking them is currently leading...

Well...it's sort of tied with 3 votes from within the SIX sub-categories for not liking the piece.

[counterpoint]

These pieces are not played very often. There must be a cause for it and that's what the poll is about.

It seems always okay to say "I don't like Mozart", "I don't like Bach", but what's the problem with "I don't like Stockhausen"?

[retrouvailles]

The reasons why they aren't played often is because they are very difficult and many people neglect to put this type of modern music in their repertoire (for various reasons). If they were a bit easier, they would probably be played a bit more, for they have quite a bit of respect in certain musical circles. It's not like no one likes or respects these pieces and that's the reason why no one plays them.

I don't have a problem with people not liking his music (as long as there is a legitimate reason), but you shouldn't create a topic entitled "I don't like Stockhausen etc". It's just as bad as creating a topic entitled "I don't like Mozart etc". This topic, I believe, was created just to further perpetuate this forum's general problem with modern music, and that is a shame. Like I said, if this topic would have been entitled "What do you think of Stockhausen etc", I would have no problem with it.

[danny elfboy]

The best modernist artists and musicians never set out to destroy anything from the past. Many, in fact, helped us better understand it. Problem is, too many people are living in the past and want to destroy the present and don't give a crap about the future.

First you said that that nobody's was claiming modernism superioty but that's what you're doing in fact right now. By claiming that these irrelevant and untrue concepts of past, present and future (applied to art) find their best expression in modernism, you're indeed giving modernism a role that it doesn't have, a role that it itself has given unwarrantly to itself. Modernism is nothing but a mean, a mean which can be considerd one of the many artistic tools we have available in our toolbox. It is nothing more and nothing less.
Modernism is just a phylosophy, which started in literature and politics and only later influenced arts. Since there are millions of philosophies and modernism is just one of them and completely questionable, modernism IS NOT THE FUTURE and is not any more modern than any other kind of music. Modernism as an independent phylosophy with its bias, concepts and dogmas doesn't have any right to claim any role as the "music of the future" or "the new universal wave" or what not. Whatever modernism believes to be is just self-referential and an egocentric lie.

So students fighting against the dictatorship of modernism was a beautiful act of emancipation from a little small philosophy which doesn't have any right to claim what people should and shouldn't listen and what composers should and shouldn't compose.

You're claimed that usually are conservatives (and I'm not a conservative) that cast stones and spout immature nonsense, but that's actually what you're doing here with your words and hostile attitude. You're indeed showing you expect people to necessarily consider modernist music as the future, as the new wave, as the new truth, as the innovation that everyone should follow, while it is none of these thing. It is just a mean to create music which is as worth and actual as any other kind of mean, and in fact having most of its political reason-d'etre in the 1940 it is as outdated as romanticism or rock n roll. But that indeed points out that there's no chronological sense in music. Genres and style are nothing but tools in your toolbox. What must be "modern" and "actual" is the content ... the style/genre/kind of sound/mean has absolutely nothing to do with it and anyone who is not completely brainwashed by a cult-like dogma should understand this. There's to much beautiful music to make in whatever style, too much beautiful content to express artistically using whatever mean to really waste our potential with meaningless concepts like time and chronology, nothing but artifically limits we don't need at all.

[bob3.1415926]

To be honest, I think it's mainly the younger members of this forum who don't like modern music. I didn't like it when I was a teenager. Now I do, but only because I decided to give it a go. It wasn't instantaneous. I found it hard for a while, as I struggled to see there was a difference between random notes and what I was hearing. I learned what the difference was however, although I'm still not quite there with some serialist stuff (which ironically is the furthest removed musical genre from random notes).
It isn't instantly accessible, and it is much further removed from the pop drivel we are constantly bombarded with on tv. I know that some people instantly love it. My girlfriend for example fell in love with Stravinsky as a child, and by the time she was a teenager had moved on to Hindemith and Schnittke. This isn't typical though. Most people I know who like modern stuff have had go through a period of not liking it, and learned to see the beauty. That's part of the reward. In some ways it's like magic eye puzzles.
However when people make comments like 'it is awful and just random notes,' I see that as an embarrassing statement by them. I always happily admitted (pre-liking modern stuff) that I was ignorant, rather than blame the composers.

[danny elfboy]

Most people I know who like modern stuff have had go through a period of not liking it, and learned to see the beauty. That's part of the reward. In some ways it's like magic eye puzzles.
However when people make comments like 'it is awful and just random notes,' I see that as an embarrassing statement by them. I always happily admitted (pre-liking modern stuff) that I was ignorant, rather than blame the composers.

You're forgetting certain option there
You're saying that for one if you like it you must have seriously thought and pondered about it and listened to it, that if you don't like it you must surely have never heard it or seriously thought about it, that if you don't like it must be because you're ignorant and it's not the composer fault.

You're forgetting the people who have seriously listened to it and researched and analyzed the philosophy this music comes from, more thoroughly than many people who are fan of this genre. You're also forgetting that you must not be ignorant at all but the music just doesn't strike any chord of any kind intellectual or instinctive for you.

It's not a crime not to like something and I find it very hypocritical to claim that must always be the fault of the listener. I'm not claiming that it's the fault of the author either but just that there's must be a sinergy between the author and the listener, and often there's none and it's no one fault.

Besides whatever piece of art which needs someone to have studied and understood the technique and compositive means behind it in order to be able to appreciate it, has already failed completely. Art is about using complex techniques to express universal content that everyone can relate to, and the "secrets" of the techniques and the means are something that only the artist should know. No serious art expect the audience to have a knowledge about the techniques used to create it. To expect someone to be able to appreciate an artistic work only after having studied a giant book explaining it and its technical characteristics is just ridicolous and anti-artistical by it very nature.

There's a group online of people who don't particularly appreciate modernist music and just fight for their right to compose whatever they want and have it accepted as worthy by the accademical world imprisoned in its ivory tower away from the real world and anything removely living.

These people are composers, musicologists, performers, orchestra members, teachers, musical theorists, music reviewers, philosophers, artists, singers in other words people who are neither young and dismissive of the unknown and neither ignorant about this style and genre of music (because no mistake, this music is not the universal future, is not what music in the modern time naturally is and is supposed to be, this music is just one of the hundreds of genres and styles that exist out there, with its own characteristics and motivations ... like all the other styles and genres)

[bob3.1415926]

If you read my statement again, you will notice I made no sweeping comments about people. I accept that I am far from an expert, that is why everything I said was either about me or people I know. I passed no comment on people in general.
Please don't infer that my comments hold more widely than the field in which I stated them. I make no claim of this.

[mephisto]

I have only heard No. 5, and I do actually like it. Something about it makes it more interesting than say Boulez (imo).

Is Pollini the only famous pianist who plays Stockhausen?

[danny elfboy]

If you read my statement again, you will notice I made no sweeping comments about people. I accept that I am far from an expert, that is why everything I said was either about me or people I know. I passed no comment on people in general.
Please don't infer that my comments hold more widely than the field in which I stated them. I make no claim of this.

You said only young people don't like this genre and that people should be ashamed from calling this genre "awful" while I see nothing wrong, it's their right. You would not complain if people called rap or dark metal "awful music" and yet you complain if people this genre awful. If for them it is awful so be it, it's their right to feel and think so. But it's a wrong assumption that they should necessarily claim it's because they're ignorant. Not only because in many cases it is just not true but also because ignorance should have nothing to do with art, a person doesn't have to be knowledgeable about a technique to appreciate the art which is made through it. Lot of music I like is called awful by certain people and I don't get offended as long as I know it's what they feel and I think it's their right to say that.

[counterpoint]

I have only heard No. 5, and I do actually like it. Something about it makes it more interesting than say Boulez (imo).

Is Pollini the only famous pianist who plays Stockhausen?

You heard No.5?

As far as I know, Pollini recorded Klavierstück 10, it's the one with the gloves (for the glissandi). I have the printed sheet music and I wonder if he really plays what is written 

[bob3.1415926]

You said only young people don't like this genre and that people should be ashamed from calling this genre "awful" while I see nothing wrong, it's their right. You would not complain if people called rap or dark metal "awful music" and yet you complain if people this genre awful. If for them it is awful so be it, it's their right to feel and think so. But it's a wrong assumption that they should necessarily claim it's because they're ignorant. Not only because in many cases it is just not true but also because ignorance should have nothing to do with art, a person doesn't have to be knowledgeable about a technique to appreciate the art which is made through it. Lot of music I like is called awful by certain people and I don't get offended as long as I know it's what they feel and I think it's their right to say that.

You haven't read what I wrote. The only person I said was ignorant was former myself.

I complained about about saying 'it is awful and just random notes' my issue with this is that it is stating opinion as fact. People shouldn't do this. There is a big difference between the two.

I have never mentioned my opinion of rap or 'dark metal' as you call it. Please don't assume that you know anything of it.

I never said 'only young people don't like this genre' that would be a stupid thing to say. Most adults I know don't like this genre. I said 'I think it's mainly the younger members of this forum who don't like modern music' this is a very different statement to the one you're attributing to me.

Please read what I say carefully if you're going to comment on it.

[danny elfboy]

I never said 'only young people don't like this genre' that would be a stupid thing to say. Most adults I know don't like this genre. I said 'I think it's mainly the younger members of this forum who don't like modern music.

Which is not remotely true either.

[bob3.1415926]

Notice the words 'I think' at the start of that statement. Therefore unless you know what I am thinking better than I do, that statement is true.
I may well have got it wrong, but the only way that statement can not be true, is if I was deliberately lying. Which is not the case.
Like I said before, I choose my words carefully.

[danny elfboy]

Notice the words 'I think' at the start of that statement. Therefore unless you know what I am thinking better than I do, that statement is true.
I may well have got it wrong, but the only way that statement can not be true, is if I was deliberately lying. Which is not the case.
Like I said before, I choose my words carefully.

Oh I see. Okay ... sorry

[bob3.1415926]

That's ok. Sorry if I came off as aggressive. I just don't like being misquoted.

[indutrial]

You're claimed that usually are conservatives (and I'm not a conservative) that cast stones and spout immature nonsense, but that's actually what you're doing here with your words and hostile attitude. You're indeed showing you expect people to necessarily consider modernist music as the future, as the new wave, as the new truth, as the innovation that everyone should follow, while it is none of these thing.

I wish you would refrain from casting me as some kind of dogmatic -ism follower. If anything, you're the stick in the mud because of your paranoid-sounding, prickly diatribe about the "dictatorship" and what-have-you. When I speak of "modern", I'm simply speaking of the music being composed by our composers at this point in time. I'm not making some call to arms about ignoring the past and so forth. I'm just trying to make the point that this "ivory tower" crapola you're speaking of is a crock of bullshit and there's really no reason to for you to continue vilifying the so-called modernists for trying to take a new approach to teaching music. It's almost like bitching out a biology teacher for daring to include newer lectures about the human genome, even though that wouldn't have fit in with a curriculum 20 years ago. You also can't blame classical music for turning in on itself and becoming intellectually rigorous in the past 100 years anymore than you can blame general intellectual circles from becoming more introverted. The public has turned its back on serious education and academia, so academia has nothing to gain by lowering itself to accomodate.

This group online you speak of (judged only by your words) sounds like a bunch of wash-outs who are pining for a world that just plain doesn't exist anymore. In the real world, I know of plenty of great composers (like David Loeb, Jan Van Dijk, Nancy Van de Vate, Nancy Galbraith come to mind) who espouse a sort of timeless and genre-less approach to music. Loeb composes within very "modern" harmonic and rhythmic idioms but he is also heavily interested in baroque and early forms, so the work ultimately defies simple characterization. No matter what, he is taking a modern (in my definition) approach, since he is writing within our own space and time and here and there trying new things. On top of that, he simply keeps at work and doesn't waste his time worrying over any modernist vs. whatever duality. What I see as modern combines all of the old with all of the new and points towards things to come. Any lesser worldview towards genres is by my clock bitter, immature and bespeaks a musician who should either build a time machine and get f**king lost.

For the last time, I'm not arguing in favor of any "ism." That kind of modernism lost its momentum 60 years, and post-modernism is also a dead scene.

[soliloquy]

As music I prefer Bussotti, Boulez and Barraque (my personal "Three B's" lol).  That's not to say I dislike them, but there is better stuff out there.  I do, however, have immense respect for their ingenuity.  And you have to give props to anything that was written in the 50's or 60's that remains unreplicated; they still stand out.

[pies]

a

[mephisto]

You heard No.5?

As far as I know, Pollini recorded Klavierstück 10, it's the one with the gloves (for the glissandi). I have the printed sheet music and I wonder if he really plays what is written 

I don't think he has recorded any of them commercially. Or am I wrong? I have Pollini playing No. 5 from a live-recording at the Concertgebouw.

[arensky]

Is it so hard to distinguish a serious statement from a joke...? 

It wasn't for me 

[retrouvailles]

There is (was?) a video of Pollini playing Klavierstück X on youtube. I remember it quite well.

EDIT: Actually, I don't remember what number it was.

[teresa_b]

I voted for "they sound awful" but in addition, I would vote for "other" if I could.  Stockhausen made the idiotic statement that the events of 9/11 could be viewed as "Art" --I already didn't like his compositions, and since them I have not liked him, either.

Teresa

[retrouvailles]

Shame on you, counterpoint, for making this thread. You are only making the people on this forum who hate 20th century music (most people) hate it even more.

[pies]

a

[counterpoint]

Thanks pies, that is page 11 from Klavierstück 10. This page is not very interesting.

[counterpoint]

Shame on you, counterpoint, for making this thread. You are only making the people on this forum who hate 20th century music (most people) hate it even more.

 

btw. I have voted: "just impossible to play"

[indutrial]

Shame on you, counterpoint, for making this thread. You are only making the people on this forum who hate 20th century music (most people) hate it even more.

Seconded. This couldn't have been a more transparant stab at Stockhausen and twentieth century music, despite the paltry and insipid (almost P.C.-ish) "openness" of including an "I like it" option.

To Teresa:
Stockhausen's alleged statement about Sept. 11th was hashed together by some scumbag journalist who wanted to debase Stockhausen's character (much the way counterpoint is trying to debase his music) by taking an abstract discussion of "Lucifer's art" and somehow treating it to make it seem like Stockhausen was finding positive aesthetic merit in the terrorist attack. Read the original statements in context before you believe everything that's written in Wikipedia. Besides, even if he did say something horrible, the argument should be about his music. Wagner was an anti-semite, but that's going to make me hate Tristan und Isolde. Playwright August Strindberg despised women, but that won't cause me to use that as a reason to say that Miss Julie is a bad play.

[mephisto]

Wagner was an anti-semite, but that's going to make me hate Tristan und Isolde.

I thought your point was going to be the opposite. For instance my favourtie writer is Knut  WW. II.

[viking]

I assume he forgot the word "not" in that sentence somewhere.

[counterpoint]

--I already didn't like his compositions, and since them I have not liked him, either.

Teresa

Hi Teresa,

Stockhausen is not a bad guy, just a bit out of this world, for not to say "extraterrestrial".

https://de.youtube.com/watch?v=mrzi4YNhvig

[viking]

That was VERY interesting to watch...

[retrouvailles]

It's a shame that people don't think of him the way his students do.

"Could you tell me what the most beautiful sound you have ever heard is?"

"No..."

hahahaha I loved that.

But in all seriousness, this segment has to increase his respect in some people at least.

[hodi]

who cares for a musical piece that doesn't touch the heart and only speaks to the mind?
you can fill a hall with 4 professors, 20 students and a pianist plays piece by stockhausen.
ok they will clap at the end maybe. it is very complex, but what's the whole point? art, unlike math, need audience, it has no existence without audience. if it doesn't make you *feel* something than it's not even worth hearing.
so it's complex and lots of math and calculation and complex harmonies. so? it means nothing to me. maybe i'm stupid? no
i hear what makes me feel something GOOD.