Stockhausen should definitely be in that first list.

 

Well, any publicity is good publicity ...

"(in the 60's / 70's) Some of the composers and critics vilified us to such a degree that we became famous. That was a great help. It propelled us right into the centre of the music world."

"I sort of have a solid hate faction. I find that reassuring."

- Philip Glass

 

I guess I'm a little behind but why Rachmaninoff?

 

It's distinctly possible I am mistaking my own internal confusion based on a few arguments I've seen in the past, for what is actually going on here. Specific comments were made at some point about how his music "isn't progressive," and/or about how it is "saccharine and artificial", and this roused those who firmly believe his music to be "genuinely heartfelt", "architecturally sound", ect. That seems like a good basis for controversy, but for some reason both parties often feel comfortable ignoring each other, possibly because they feel relatively secure in their positions.

 

What makes Mozart controversial? I would think not, but that there are the handfull of Mozart haters stirring the pot which does not make Mozart controversial, but does make for a peripheral controversy.

 

Controversy gets stirred, and Mozart gets discussed and fought over. It gets pretty bitter and I think others would agree with me saying that. Therefore Mozart is controversial.

 

I would think that Debussy's late works would also spark controversy.

 

There is certainly potential there, but there is so much agreement over the rest of him that we'd have to really narrow our focus.

 

Glazunov, if memory serves me correctly.

The thread "Is Alexander Glazunov a Great Composer" elicited some pretty passionate responses for or against (or somewhere in between) the notion of whether or not he should be considered a great composer. This great (or shall I say, immensely important) Russian did reasonably well on the poll, but the divide could not be anymore obvious. Here's the link of what I was talking about. SONNET CLV's well balanced response (last page) is superbly written and argued, putting the matter of accessing the value of music (and its composers) in keen perspective.
-->http://www.talkclassical.com/37848-alexander-glazunov-great-composer.html?highlight=glazunov

I agree with Clavichorder's first list for the most part. But I would place Rachmaninoff as among the least controversial of composers (and perhaps Bruckner). Philip Glass, however, I must ponder.

 

I don't think it's Mozart's music itself that arouses controversy - though of course some are bound to dislike it - but his reputation. It's hard being widely considered the musical incarnation of God and the creator of an endless string of perfect works which we should all adore by definition. People are bound to get a little reactive to such notions and exaggerate their dissent. It also doesn't help to have Tom Hulse giggling hideously in a pink wig. You may not take it seriously, but you'll never be able to forget it.

 

Bach and Beethoven have similar status yet they do not seem to cause a counterreaction to a similar extent.

 

Missing on that list include Miss Alma Deutscher, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Frank Zappa.

 

The vast majority of the controversy seems to be over the "greatness" of various composers' works. Shostakovich, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Bruckner, Liszt, and some others are considered great composers by many and decidedly lesser by some. Those differences lead to debates over just how good a particular composer was. The basic argument is along the lines of, "I don't enjoy this composer anywhere near as much as most other people do. S/he simply isn't that good." Generally posters leave out the implied, "The vast majority of listeners are clearly mistaken in their views." Those sorts of debates will always exist, and in my opinion, generate harmless controversy.

The "true" controversies seem to be ones where politics or modern music intervene. Wagner, Schoenberg, and Cage will likely always be controversial, and the debates get more than a wee bit heated.

 

You can make a distinction between controversial and polarizing. They overlap, but some composers attract wide ranges of opinions (the latter) without causes huge arguments (the former). E.g., Rachmaninoff seems to cause far less heat than Cage.

 

Exactly. Schumann's music seems to be very polarizing around here, but I haven't seen any arguments over it.

 

Actually Rach has made a comeback in recent years. He used to be quite the whipping boy. A repost from Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1954 edition: Rachmaninoff's music is "monotonous in texture ... consisting mainly of artificial and gushing tunes." His popular success is "not likely to last."

 

Well, "recent years." He was already held in the highest esteem in 1985 with the release of the Oxford Dictionary of Music, which says about him, "Rakhmaninov [sic] was one of the greatest of pianists, as is proved by his recordings not only of his own concs. but of other composers' mus., incl. sonatas with the violinst Kreisler...But it is as a composer that his name will live longest. He was the last of the colourful Russian masters of the 19th cent., with their characteristic gift for long and broad melodies imbued with a resigned melancholy which is never long absent."

 

He was the last of the colourful Russian masters of the 19th cent.

Something similar to this I heard a few years ago. He'd been mentioned as the last great Romantic composer. I don't remember exactly where I saw this, but it seems to be in line with the statements that he was too caught up in the past musically.

 

The hope of this thread is to spark more listening and exploration. Conversation comes after that, as it should be.

Most of my negative opinions were formed after listening with the possible exception of Schoenberg where my uninformed opinion was based on reputation alone.

The truth is I can enjoy even those composer's I generally dislike, if that makes any sense. I just don't enjoy them as much as other people seem to. I struggle to enjoy the teasing notes in early Mozart, the frenetic hyper paced shredding of some Mendelssohn, the soap opera music of Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony slow movement, the heavy rubato of Chopin or Scriabin, the seemingly aimless meandering of Delius, etc.

For those who like these composers this should not be an affront. Much of perception takes place within the brain, and my brain's billions of neurons connected in trillions of different ways triggering differing endorphin levels are perceiving a different piece from the one you are hearing.

So. am I to listen to some of these again? Then what?

Add Berlioz to the list. I've never gotten the appeal of Berlioz.

[Edit: I'm willing to take on a listening assignment for Chopin, Scriabin and Berlioz to help me "get" them.]

 

I struggle to enjoy the soap opera music of Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony slow movement

A noble fight! Struggle on! We have but one life to live, and though today we are the young and the restless, the dark shadows will lengthen as the world turns toward the edge of night, and the bold and the beautiful music of Rachmaninoff will be our guiding light through the days of our lives.

P.S. Apologies to those smart or lucky enough to have missed American daytime TV.

 

^^^Aw, c'mon! You didn't think...? Did you..? You've never watched...? Been living under a rock, have you?

 

Been living under a rock, have you?

I actually had a number of pet slugs. Interesting creatures they are.

 

Alma Deutscher is definitely controversial.

 

Any thoughts on Nielsen, one of the earliest exponents of progressive tonality?

Or

Richard Strauss? Many consider him among the greats, or at least brilliant. There are those who rank him higher for his operas than for his symphonic poems (and conversely). And there are those who have a rather lukewarm view of him overall for a variety of reasons.

 

Any thoughts on Nielsen, one of the earliest exponents of progressive tonality?

No opinion on Nielsen, but IMHO whether a multi-movement composition ends on the same tonal center or not (the latter case being 'progressive tonality') is not interesting in the least. Most of us do not have a perfect pitch, so I think that after several movements and modulations we don't really have the original key in our mind anyway when the piece ends. So I doubt it has much effect on the vast majority of classical music listeners.

 

Perhaps a better guide to controversy would be a list not of the composers, but of the TC posters who get so upset about them.

 

John Luther Adams? I recall "Become Ocean" being a polarizing work, at least.

 

Too many people here seem to be mistaking criticism and differences of opinion for controversy. It's only controversial if it incites arguments of some kind, or at least arouses significant disagreement. Regular criticisms or expressions that one doesn't like something aren't enough.

 

I don't find any music or composers controversial. Controversy is a concoction of the critics.

 

Where do we draw the line between differences of opinion and controversy? How strong or frequent do disagreements have to be to be considered controversy? And in what context, and among what group of people with opinions, do we assess this? Our views of who is or isn't controversial are certainly somewhat subjective.

The OP lists Brahms as controversial. I don't think he is, among people who actually know his music, even if a fair number of people don't personally care for him. Few dispute that he was one of the major figures in the history of music. Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, listed by the OP as less controversial, seems to me to be an example of a composer with more obvious weaknesses to balance against a passionate popular following, and thus much more vulnerable to animated disputes. But that's just my perspective. Yours may be different.

Best not to get hung up on defining controversy and who it applies to. Just get on with the arguing. Much more fun!

 

Realizing this conversation has evolved and I may risk being behind the proverbial curve, I would nevertheless be curious to hear what you consider to be Tchaikovsky's "obvious weaknesses...", Woodduck. I ask simply because I find Tchaikovsky, at least at his best, to have been one of the most unique and original of all the late 19th century composers, Russian or otherwise. That is not to say I don't find the quality of his output quite uneven because I am of the opinion it was. But at his best he was so fabulously colorful and full of invention, with a gift for melody few others possessed. Do you disagree?

As for controversial composers on the list, perhaps Kurtág? Did anyone mention him?

 

We need another list of composers whose controversy or lack there of is the most controversial.

 

Reminds me of the definition of a celebrity as someone who's famous for being famous.

Actually, though, your point isn't just whimsical. Controversy can be bogus - i.e., trumped up and based on falsehoods or insubstantial matters bloated out of proportion for ulterior motives. The popular media, knowing who butters their bread (Six-pack Joe and sellers of six-packs alike), thrive on doing just this, but so, unfortunately, do ideologically trendy and financially ambitious so-called scholarship and "higher" criticism. And in the continuous infomercialtainment which is our media environment now, it's sometimes impossible to tell who's propagating what and why. And when this happens, controversy, perhaps phony to begin with, continues to feed on itself ad infinitum, or at least until a new cultural trend or line of gossip takes its place.

Is this relevant to what people have to say about composers? In most cases maybe not, in some cases perhaps mildly, but in a few cases, definitely. Wagner, for example, remains the focus of a virtual industry of bogus controversy, and the propagators of misconceptions - from the arts reviewer in your local town rag to university professors to members of our own distinguished forum - are not necessarily innocent. I'm sure many would say the same about composers of contemporary music and its bogeyman grandfather Schoenberg; Mahlerian, in fact, spends more time here decrying the baselessness of attacks on Schoenberg than I do explaining why Wagner's operas are not anti-semitic tracts and begging his accusers to focus on the works themselves.

These may be the most extreme examples (along with Cage) among composers of controversy which feeds on itself, but there are probably more that others could name.

 

If we put aside politics and Wagner, basically the big TC controversies all focus on modern music. Some involve general categories such as atonal, avant-garde, or simply modern while others involve specific composers - often Schoenberg or Cage. There have been individuals that stirred up the forum (e.g. Robert Newman and he had quite a run), but when it comes to music, there's nothing like the modern period to stir things up.

 

Could be - it's been a long time since we had a proper shouting match about Telemann.

 

Mozart, really...?

It seems outside of this forum Wagner is and has always been the most controversial name in music, for the Jew-bashing stuff.

And Schoenberg has always scared the crap out of audiences! The concepts of atonality and dodecaphony are still controversial to this day.

 

And Schoenberg has always scared the crap out of audiences! The concepts of atonality and dodecaphony are still controversial to this day.

He only scares the crap out of audiences that are biased against his music or who haven't been exposed to much modernism.

Atonality is a nonsense word used to separate things people don't understand from those they think they do.
Dodecophony wouldn't be controversial if anyone actually understood more than the vauguest idea of what it entailed. It's just a way of writing music like any other.

 

Maybe the best way to quantify the "controversiality" of composers here at TC would be to track how many infraction points have been given in response to discussions of each composer. Whichever composers generate the most heated debate (as measured by bad behavior) should be considered the most controversial.

I'm sure the moderators would be happy to tally this up, right? Maybe going back to 2010 to increase the sample size?

:devil:

 

Thank you Woodduck! I'm always amused by people who say: You'd like the music I do if only you were (choose one or more):

- More knowledgeable
- Better read
- More adventurous
- More open to new ideas
- Less stuck in the past

In other words, more like me!

 

It's good that things don't work that way. If they did, the same CDs would be back ordered indefinitely!