Thread: Equally great composers outside the usual "top 20" canon

Originally Posted by MrTortoise

It is a shame that most classical music discussions begin with Bach and Handel and overlook the innovators from the Renaissance and Medieval periods, and even early Baroque. Gesualdo nor Tallis will ever make the list in popular opinion.

Originally Posted by emiellucifuge

The problem extends on both sides of the romantic era. I havent see many lists that rank Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez or Varese near the top which is arguably where they should be.

I think few people will deny that the Romantic era is overrepresented compared to the Medieval/Renaissance and post-WWII periods (both periods which music I adore) when it comes to the quite faulty, but in many ways unavoidable ideals of "greatness" and "significance" in Classical Music. Whatever these terms mean ultimately, and whether or not they actually count isn't the point of discussion here. The truth is that almost all classical listeners, when it comes to an objective discussion, have a hard time putting a great composer like Ligeti or even Monteverdi in the same league as the Viennese Four or the countless other composers of the classical canon. I can speak for myself, at least, that something just feels "right" when the composers that have been considered great for so long, from indisputable ones like Bach (which at the end, is disputable) to lesser minds such as Mendelssohn and Rachmaninov (sorry if any one disagrees), continue to top classical lists and charts like they are (and this is what disgusts me the most) "supposed" to. These "classic" names, whom we have seen recycled over and over again, just seem so difficult to remove from the "pantheon of gods" and replace with a great pre-Bach or post-Stravinsky composer such as Palestrina, no matter how much you or I like them.

So the question is - is the so-called "canon" (even if it's more of a mental boundary) too strict? Do some of these composers that have been honored over and over again for as long as we can remember deserve their place in the "world" of classical music more so than great composers from other periods that perhaps most people are less familiar with? Why is it that this canon continues to remain in place and seems so immutable to us - can this general perception be easily altered?

Finally - what other composers do you think could stand up to canonical names in terms of "greatness" even though they have been comparatively neglected due to unfamiliarity with their time period or other factors?

I hope that I have made my point clear.

A canon is always in a state of being formed and reformed. Its existence is in some sense an attempt to ossify taste but it will always be under a state of transformation itself. Fashion. Dickens was despised by 'serious' mid-20th C critics but is now greatly admired again.

With music the problem is even greater because the canon was formed at a specific time and with a specific kind of music in mind (basically Haydn and what followed). It was determined by fashion (to an even greater extent than normal) and limited knowledge and understanding of earlier music. Bach got added through revival (and probably largely because his keyboard works were used educationally and thanks to the success of his far flung sons). Yet Hasse, who had been even more admired than Handel, was forgotten. Is this justified? I've got some pretty great music written by Hasse.

The revivals of Vivaldi, Purcell and Monteverdi are now being followed by so many more as the popularity of the likes of Biber, Corelli and Zelenka surges. The canon will continue to change and become far less Romantic-centric in due course. Both modern and 'early' music will play a part in that change. That doesn't mean that Bach, Beethoven and Mozart will be toppled from their perches in the popular consciousness though. I'd have thought that Bach is probably in the greatest danger of those super-giants. While I'm sure he'll always be regarded as a great composer I suspect that he may come to appear less remarkable as greater knowledge and understanding of baroque music becomes widespread. Is Bach really better than Zelenka?

Okay, so here's a list of comparatively obscure greats -chosen on the basis of my supposition that their reps will increase in the future:

Josquin
Claudio Monteverdi
Heinrich Ignaz von Biber
Jan Dismas Zelenka
Giacomo Carissimi
Alessandro Stradella
Orlando Gibbons
Nicholas Gombert
Bach CPE
Antoine Charpentier
Luigi Boccherini
Marin Marais

Some of these are pretty big names already (Monteverdi, Boccherini) -but I think they'll continue to grow which is why they're included.

I guess for me the really obvious ones are Palestrina, Josquin and Ockeghem, maybe Dufay and Tallis. Then there's Rameau, Buxtehude, Schütz and Zelenka, all of whom are superior to the better known Vivaldi, if you ask me. But on the other hand...

Originally Posted by hocket

Is Bach really better than Zelenka?

Hell yes.

I'm sure that part of the problem with pre-Bach composers is that

(1) Most music written in the Renaissance and before is for "chamber chorus," i.e. 3-6 singers. Meaning the madrigals, masses, motets, and so on. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not a very popular genre in classical music.. we're most used to listening to voices with some type of accompaniment, that's all. I'm personally a big fan of the Italian Madrigal, with great composers such as Marenzio and de Rore.

(2) The instrumental pieces written around that time are simply outdated-sounding. True, Corelli and Frescobaldi were innovators in writing for violin and organ respectively, but why listen to them when you can hear Paganini or Bach, who and expanded the technique of those instruments so much farther?

(3) The fact that the tonal system had not been fully evolved yet may make the harmonies sound strange and vague to many people (especially pre-Renaissance).

(4) Most of the choral pieces are written in pretty dense, complex counterpoint. I find this type of counterpoint more difficult to listen to than say, Bach, because it is not broken up into 'subject entrances' and 'episodes.'

In summary, there are certain choral composers from the Renaissance that I believe are equally great as later composers (Rore, Des Prez, and so on) but will never get that sort of recognition simply because the music they wrote is a bit less listener-friendly on the whole. I don't know enough post WWII-music to pass judgment, but I certainly feel that two of the biggest 20th century musical experiments - minimalism and atonalism - were big mistakes.

Webernite wrote:

Is Bach really better than Zelenka?

Hell yes.

I'm not necessarily saying that I disagree, but I do think the question is worth asking. Just swallowing the spoon fed assumption that Bach (or anyone else) is some sort of super being seems to be a form of idolatry IMO. Personally, I don't really believe that there is some massive gulf between top quality craftsmen. To think otherwise strikes me as buying into the more ridiculous aspects of Romantic ideology.

Ravellian wrote:

The instrumental pieces written around that time are simply outdated-sounding. True, Corelli and Frescobaldi were innovators in writing for violin and organ respectively, but why listen to them when you can hear Paganini or Bach, who and expanded the technique of those instruments so much farther?

Innovation and originality are very Romantic values too. I'm not saying they don't have their place but they are hardly the only, and not necessarily the most important, ones. Paganini's music has always been regarded as pedestrian anyway so why would anyone want to listen to it unless they were a specialist musician (and even then I'm sure that violin technique has moved on a long way since then). It's just show-off music with little else to redeem it. Do you choose which TV show to watch by how difficult it was to make? I'd much rather listen to Corelli (or Locatelli, Biber, Tartini, Leclair, Viotti, Marini, Legrenzi etc. etc.) as it's much more appealing. I wouldn't personally view Paganini as of anything other than academic and historical interest.

Originally Posted by hocket

Paganini's music has always been regarded as pedestrian anyway so why would anyone want to listen to it unless they were a specialist musician (and even then I'm sure that violin technique has moved on a long way since then). I'd much rather listen to Corelli (or Locatelli, Biber, Tartini, Leclair, Viotti etc. etc.) as it's much more apprealing. I wouldn't personally view Paganini as of anything other than academic and historical interest.

Wrong, Paganini wrote a lot of appealing music and not only for violin but also for guitar/ guitar and violin. Romanza from his guitar sonata in A major is especially recommended to those that find his music one big virtuoso fetish - most of those people don't even know his works outside of caprices/concertos and are simply following crowd's uneducated opinion.

Aramis wrote:

Wrong, Paganini wrote a lot of appealing music and not only for violin but also for guitar/ guitar and violin. Romanza from his guitar sonata in A major is especially recommended to those that find his music one big virtuoso fetish - most of those people don't even know his works outside of caprices/concertos and are simply following crowd's uneducated opinion.

Fair enough. I'll take your word for it (and check it out some time). That doesn't affect my view that music does not necessarily become 'outdated' because something later 'expanded the technique of the instrument'.

Originally Posted by hocket

I'm not necessarily saying that I disagree, but I do think the question is worth asking. Just swallowing the spoon fed assumption that Bach (or anyone else) is some sort of super being seems to be a form of idolatry IMO. Personally, I don't really believe that there is some massive gulf between top quality craftsmen. To think otherwise strikes me as buying into the more ridiculous aspects of Romantic ideology.

I heartily agree with your criticisms of the Romantic view of music history. But to me it's still fairly obvious how much more consummate and polished Bach's creations were than Zelenka's.

So the question is - is the so-called "canon" (even if it's more of a mental boundary) too strict? Do some of these composers that have been honored over and over again for as long as we can remember deserve their place in the "world" of classical music more so than great composers from other periods that perhaps most people are less familiar with? Why is it that this canon continues to remain in place and seems so immutable to us - can this general perception be easily altered?

First question: How is the canon immutable? Bach only really gains the deserved recognition following Mendelssohn and other's efforts at rediscovery. Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, and Debussy are all recognized by most such idealized lists as ranking among the top 20 in spite of the fact that none of them has been dead for even a century. Wagner is commonly placed among the top 5 and Brahms not far behind... and yet in comparison to Bach, Mozart, Handel, Schubert, etc... they are both newcomers. We also find that Handel has grown in stature thanks to the rediscovery of his vast wealth of compositions that were long ignored. The same is true of Monteverdi. Medieval and Renaissance music is only now being really explored in any depth and considering its impact upon contemporary composers such as Part and the Minimalists I wouldn't be surprised if any number of composers of this era become more and more recognized.

My feeling is that the canon is not some finite list in which for every new composer added we must boot out an older one: "You want Bartok? Well Telemann has to go. You want Ligeti? Dump Gluick". Rather, it would seem that the canon continues to expand. Of course some newer artists will be lost in the process... those who do not continue to resonate with the audience and the later composers. Surely a list of the great composers of the 20th century might be far more vast than a list of the great composers of the classical era... but do we really believe that all of them will survive? And does it matter to us as listeners. Ultimately, it seems that those who resent the idea of a canon are simply those who find that their own tastes are not reinforced by the canon: "I think Brahms is the greatest composer ever... most canonical lists do not agree... thus the canon must be wrong." That's no different from the teen who cannot fathom that while he may surely love Lady Gaga or Snoop-Dog that doesn't mean that they produced the greatest music ever.

The canon of art that survives is something that exists outside of our individual tastes and opinions. It is a product of the collective opinions of those who have invested time and effort into the appreciation, preservation and promotion of a given art form. A canon is merely an idealized list of the artists within a given art form that have had the greatest impact (and continue to have an impact) and made the greatest contribution to a given art form. It serves as a suggested guide of artists worth exploring but ultimately we follow our own tastes. If Bach fell from the canon tomorrow that wouldn't stop me from listening to him. The fact that Gesualdo rarely makes such lists... nor Ellington... nor Muddy Waters... is not going to stop me from enjoying their music either. It is only those who politicize everything who fear that if their favored artists aren't recognized on such lists then the list must be skewed and must be eliminated.

It's hard to grasp how good each composer is unless you hear everything they write and that is rather difficult as it would take so long.

StlukesguildOhio wrote:

It is only those who politicize everything who fear that if their favored artists aren't recognized on such lists then the list must be skewed and must be eliminated.

I gues it's a good thing that no one has suggested that it should be eliminated then. In fairness Air did say that the canon 'seems so immutable' rather than that it actually is -there is a difference and I'm sure we all know what he means. Canons are notorious for seeming authoritarian and carved in stone -'blanched sarcophagi'. I'd suggest that it's actually naive to imagine that the canon isn't political (though I'd agree that it's desirable to strive for it not to be). It is an attempt to impose taste -to define and limit what is held to be 'good' and admirable (or as has often been observed about canons -a list of dead white males). It is (ideally) a useful educational tool, but shouldn't be given any more credence than that -make up your own mind.

Anyway, music's is particularly odd in having been a product of a very particular time and narrow taste. Initially nothing prior to 1700 was included -which contrasts fairly spectacularly with the canons of literature and visual arts as they were codified in the 18th-19th Cs. They had far greater awareness of older material and took account of the opinion and tastes of many ages, whilst the musical one only adopted contemporary tastes. The process of later material being added piecemeal, and older material being reassessed is normal but in music there is a much larger and longer process of the canon righting itself due to the complete failue to appreciate the vast expanse of music prior to 1700.

Medieval and Renaissance music is only now being really explored in any depth and considering its impact upon contemporary composers such as Part and the Minimalists I wouldn't be surprised if any number of composers of this era become more and more recognized.

They've made huge strides in the wider consciousness (and I'm certainly a big fan) but I do think Ravellian has a point that there is a limit to how far they are likely to progress ultimately. It is a very alien kind of music to what people are used to (and how popular really are Part etc. compared to Mozart or Beethoven?). OTOH maybe I'm being culture bound by not being able to imagine a world in which general tastes have shifted so far. Certainly things like Spem in Alium have helped to change perceptions, appearing in TV shows like the Tudors a few years back, and even snippets in Rufus Sewell's Aurelio Zen show a few weeks ago. I do wonder.

I'd add that a reason why it's more difficult to figure out what things from the c20th on to include in the canon is not only because it's closer to our own time, but also because of the sheer plurality of musical styles of the post WW2 era. I mean, at the end of the c19th, there were two big "schools" - that of Brahms and Wagner at opposite ends of the spectrum (although of course, being men of the same era, they probably had quite a few things in common). It was the so-called conservatives versus the progressives. Skip forward to today & we cannot boil down classical music to just two monolithic approaches. There are so many styles that each approach would probably require a canon to themselves. I suppose that there are certain "classics" of the last 65 years which were considered to be groundbreaking in their respective styles. Ones that I can think of are Terry Riley's "In C" which kicked off the minimalist movement, Varese's "Deserts" which was one of the first pieces of musique concrete, & Stockhausen's "Gesange der Junglinge" which was a major early electronic piece. There must be many others apart from that - my knowledge of this area is not exhaustive - but anyone can see that although the canon of the c19th had basically two stylistic streams, the era closer to our own time needs probably at least 10 (& even that would probably only be skimming the surface). We live in a world of complexity compared to earlier times (& this is not even talking about non-classical music, which has a similarly stunning variety)...

Andre... of course history always simplifies the past to make it easier to grasp as a whole when the reality is that the music scene in 1875 probably seemed just as complex and chaotic as it is today. You had the light operettas and waltzes of Johann Strauss and Offenbach, the music building upon native traditions outside of Germany/Italy/France/England including the Russians, Dvorak, Grieg, etc... French Impressionism, late Romanticism, the English efforts, the Spanish zarzuelas, Latin-American influences (Reynaldo Hahn) and North American influences, etc...

Stlukes could comment on this better than I can, but I agree that this canon (that I frankly find very elastic) cannot go back much farther than the Renaissance because of the very different musical languages. I find the same to hold true for painting. The visual language, or I suppose "meme" is a good word here, of painting from before the Renaissance just doesn't mean as much to me. The techniques simply weren't there, and even during the baroque period, paintings and drawings used conventions, figure proportion, etc., that don't communicate well with me, a 20th / 21st century guy.

For some reason this is not true for sculpture and architecture which almost any of us can relate to from ancient times onward - only painting and music have this time barrier for me somehow.

As for composers who should be in the canon, I think John Dowland will one day be applauded as the greatest song writer ever. Songs existed before him surely, but to me he seems to have done for the song what Bach did for counterpoint, refined it to near perfection. Also you may think I am joking when I say that Frank Zappa will one day be heralded as an innovator. But you should hear his serious orchestral and chamber work. It sounds like no one else. He may have been inspired by Varese, but I'd sooner listen to Zappa's complicated musical Rube Goldberg contraptions from his "Yellow Shark" recordings any day.

Let me also put Rautavaara on the list, if only because I am just getting to know his music and enjoying it very much, and so I am having a honeymoon period with his works and think they are the greatest thing since mitosis. Of course that could change next week.

Originally Posted by StlukesguildOhio

Andre... of course history always simplifies the past to make it easier to grasp as a whole when the reality is that the music scene in 1875 probably seemed just as complex and chaotic as it is today. You had the light operettas and waltzes of Johann Strauss and Offenbach, the music building upon native traditions outside of Germany/Italy/France/England including the Russians, Dvorak, Grieg, etc... French Impressionism, late Romanticism, the English efforts, the Spanish zarzuelas, Latin-American influences (Reynaldo Hahn) and North American influences, etc...

You make a good point. I suppose there has been plurality since the Renaissance. But what I was trying to put across was that people like Brahms & Wagner in the late c19th were the titans of their time. Do you seriously think that there are any such titans now (or in the last 65 years?). People like Wagner & Liszt influenced scores of composers in their time - they began to push tonality and the latter "invented" the symphonic poem. Everyone from Richard Strauss to Smetana to Debussy were influenced by them to a degree (Debussy even heard Liszt play in Rome, but he later disowned his love of Wagnerism). As for Brahms, he also had a huge influence on many composers, from Dvorak (who you mentioned, who was also influenced by Liszt & probably Wagner), to guys like Reger but even later "radicals" like Schoenberg were highly influenced by him.

I don't think we can say the same thing today. We can't simply boil down prevailing styles and trends to 2 or 3 or even half a dozen composers. I'm not going to begin to list the trends and styles that I know of, let alone the others (which members like some guy are more up on than me). I think that what we have now is one of the busiest times in classical music, but at the same time the canon can increasingly be said to be under threat by the fact that some of the styles in classical music have just as much to do with non Western or non classical traditions than strictly classical (take minimalism, for instance). Take the music of Frank Zappa, mentioned by Weston above. People like that from a non-classical background have increasingly gotten involved in composing serious music. & what of things like film scores? Many of the music composed for movies in the past are now becoming part of the canon. I just went to a concert which included Walton's score from Henry V, which is every bit as a Shakespearean classic as say the big hits of Nicolai, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Gounod or Prokofiev inspired by the same writer. The boundaries are increasingly blurring. This wasn't the case as much as now back in 1875. What do you think?