weak popular works and their link to the audience?

In a thread by Debrucey there's mentioning that the Rach Prelude in C#m is weak and definitely not his strongest work (rather far from that. I happen to agree.

Other extremely popular works are the fur Elise, Clair de Lune, and whatever else...

None of the above show the particular strengths of the composer (in a very personal opinion) and they are more catchy and beautiful than masterful. This doesn't take away from their value, but it does appear that more knowledgeable listeners, or performers, or musicians appreciate other works and are turned off by such popular works.

If we take the above (personal, I repeat) premise as a fact, what does this mean for the general audience then? Why isn't the hammerklavier as popular as fur Elise? Why isn't L'apremidi d'un Faune (spelling... YIKES) more popular than Clair De Lune (I know this one. Because Clair De Lune was used in 'Twilight'...).

Are we 'doomed' to have less masterful works as the most popular works? IS a performer 'doomed' to have to perform such works? Is a composer 'doomed' to have to compose in such ways?

I wouldn't take it as a fact. IMO absolutely every classical work I can think of that has "caught on" tremendously with the general public, deserves it in some way. I think the reason some or many of those works may seem less-than-great to us is that they're so familiar that they've lost their impact for us, and/or that they're less complex and "deep" than some other works. But they make up for the latter with other qualities.

OK....I guess I've just answered what I think is a thing that it means for the general audience: Complexity and depth don't matter that much, and might even be negatives. But you need great beauty, or great striking drama, or something else very direct and powerful.


Complexity and depth.


Too hard to spell.


If you want something to catch on with "the general public," make it pretty simple, and make it something that they can go out humming.

Yes.



Ask Pollini.



Ask Kurtag.


It's always been the case - the more refined and sophisticated the art, the less popular it is (there are exceptions, but I think that general rule is still true). The reason why this is true should be fairly obvious - learning how to perceive and appreciate subtlety, nuance, complexity, cultural references, creative adventure, etc., requires a kind of interest and devotion that many people just don't want to invest, for whatever reasons.

Maybe, for them, the payoff isn't great enough to get them to become connoisseurs of the art. Because, basically, that's what it takes to move beyond the "easy-listening" and "highly accessible" stage of appreciation. You don't jump directly from de Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance" to his Harpsichord Concerto, without first experiencing a good deal of growth as a music connoisseur, IMO.

I also think there are cultural feed-back loops that tend to wildly emphasize popular "classical hits" in a weird way. For example, the use of Barber's Adagio for Strings to signify "sad". Or how the Funeral March from Chopin's 2nd sonata became the go-to funeral march. Or even how a piano playing an Alberti bass has become a kind of short-hand for classical music (usually of the prissy and stuffy sort, I think, and probably derived from the opening of "that" Mozart sonata in C major).

Many of the pieces named in the OP are relatively easy or at least offer a big payoff in terms of their difficulty. Thus they are popular with intermediate pianos students and become popular in general.

Fur Elise, on its first(and many students seem not to get much beyond there), page offers relatively little technical challenge because except for a few cross overs the hands stay in one position. It also offers a very Romantic sounding Beethoven which may appeal to younger students. If Fur Elise was missing its first page I don't think it would have any popularity and might be virtually unknown as I think it's weaker than most of the other Bagatelles.

Rachmaminov's C# minor Prelude offers an appealing and soaring melody but mostly the opportunity to play those gigantic chordal and octave passages that will again have great appeal for a young piano student. I bet many PW members can recall their thrill at first playing those passages. It offers a chance to impress a listener with a piece that probably sounds more difficult than it is. I think the C# minor Prelude is like the Brahms G minor Rhapsody. I do not think the Brahms is one of his better works but it is extremely popular as a teaching piece because it offers a big payoff for relatively modest technical demands. The opening octave passages will be highly appealing to young students and also offers a piece where their octave technique can be worked on.

Clair de Lune is among Debussy's easier works and at least on the first two pages offers the chance to play those appealing jazz like chords and relatively small technical demands. CDL offers a souped up Romantic introduction to Impressionist music. Later works by Debussy are more sophisticated harmonically and probably wouldn't have as much appeal to a young student.

Tune, tune, tune.

I still remember what drew me originally to Beethoven as a child (and no, it wasn't the Hammerklavier). And what drew me to Rachmaninoff. And Mozart, and so on.

It was the catchy tunes.

Not the complexity, nor the harmonic invention, nor the brilliance of the writing.

I think, in order to seek the answer to your question, the first question to ponder is this: who defines what "masterful" means? I'm sure if you ask someone who believes the opposite to find that these works, which have stood the test of time and remain extremely popular, are in fact the greatest works of a genius composer, and are thus representative of their most masterful effort.

The problem is, art is 100% subjective on a long enough timeline.

I feel these pieces are musically accessible to the common ear, and I agree with some of the points made by lots of the posters in this thread.

I happen to agree with this. There's something to be said about a great tune. What makes a memorable tune? No one knows. It's just one of those mysterious things about humans.

I also think many of the more famous pieces are the shorter ones and have to do with many beginning pianists learning them. We are more likely to hear a million amateurs playing Fur Elise than a million amateurs playing the Hammerklavier.

A side note on Clair De Lune: This is one of those "overplayed" pieces that everyone knows. However, to me it represents a sort of perfection in structure and execution. It is just the right length, it is structured beautifully, and just seems like one of those pieces that the composer wrote in one sitting, where every note fell into place easily. This is all my opinion of course, but it really does have that perfect storm of inspiration going for it. It's sublimely beautiful no matter how many times I hear it.

I don't think "the" Rachmaninoff prelude has much of a tune. The whole piece is more like effective dramatic gesturing.

Glad you said this.

I always thought Clair de Lune was an early work - BUT (from Wiki): "Although Debussy wrote the piece in 1890 at the age of 25, it was not published until 1905. By that time it had been partially re-written as well as re-titled. The original name of this piece was “Promenade Sentimentale.” The new title for the movement comes from a poem by the same name written by Paul Verlaine.....”

Learn something new every day.

Indeed! I knew of the poem, but not of the background of the piece.

Unless there was major rewriting I would say that it remains an early work. It certainly is, even its revised form, in the style of what is considered his earlier period.

Yay, Diduougetthathing!


(In reference to Clair de Lune) "has that perfect storm of inspiration going for it. It's sublimely beautiful no matter how many times I hear it."

Same reason why we've been loving certain paintings forever

Another piece that I think fits this criteria for popularity instead of having a great tune is the Precipitato movement from Prokofiev's 7th piano sonata. A student at my school played this for a concert with a variety of groups and soloists, and deliberately played it faster and louder than usual for this particular audience. They loved it. I suppose there is a somewhat catchy tune, or motive in the bass, but more catching IMO is the rhythmic drive.

We had mentioned other things besides catchy melody that can make something a huge hit and which cover pieces like the Rachmaninoff and the Prokofiev. Like:

It's definitely an early work - even with the later modifications. But now I seriously doubt that Debussy had "moonlight" in mind when he composed it. Fortunately Debussy was able to rename the piece himself in 1905.

It's very easy to impress people. I heard someone say "how can someone play so fast?" when I played one of those runs in the Mozart d minor fantasy.

A few weeks ago there was a video of some chinese 6-year-old on the webpage of a popular yellow media newspaper. The title was something like "how can someone this young play this well?" The boy played pretty well for someone of his age, but in the end it was just an arpeggiated I chord, then the same chord being banged in forte. Then IV, I, V, I. After listening to the video I went to the piano and played the same by ear.

Yes, that's interesting info. And it was interesting to read that the Passepied was originally called Pavane, which kind of sort of maybe supports my hunch that everybody plays it much, much too fast.

Who defines "masterful" is described in the OP.

And he's right - mastery isn't about popularity, it's about what those who are knowledgeable and experienced in the art think. Which, by the way, is not 100% subjective.

Otherwise, we're just talking pop music, and not fine art.

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Yes, that's interesting info. And it was interesting to read that the Passepied was originally called Pavane, which kind of sort of maybe supports my hunch that everybody plays it much, much too fast.

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That is interesting - makes a lot of sense too. It does seem to be very Pavane-like.

I'd put the issue a little differently, because I don't think the more knowledgeable folks are necessarily turned off by the early popular works, so much as feeling that it is unfortunate that the general audience doesn't have a similar enthusiasm for the "grown-up" music of those same composers.

Or, said differently, it is too bad some listeners (and pianists) stay stuck in the "ear candy" stage, because there is so much more wonderfulness to be had in classical music if they can just get past wallowing in the low-hanging fruit (to mix a few metaphors).

I think that you've hit the nail on the head with the 'ear candy' comment!

I think I wasn't too clear or specific with my OP (and further I was too busy to take part), but this includes most of my thoughts really...

Well, being one out of the general audience and not from the knowledgeables, I can underline what others answered already: The impressive emotional effects (may it just be loudness or speed, or a maestoso or sad tone) attract a lot, and if they are even coming in an easy to remember tune, then the word will be spread on it.

Music is first of all emotion and not a contest, and thus not well received by the 'general' listener if for listening having to work on it. If I feel like entertaining myself by concentrating, searching and analysing, then I can also open my physics books. Actually, if I read in a physics book, then I can stay relaxed by listening at the same time to some popular piano music, but I couldn´t split my concentration on physics and on a masterfully enriched piano act at the same time.
So - 'generally' spoken -, keep things simple but beautiful.

Why?

Most great musical art doesn't strike me as being very simple, and it often isn't "beautiful", either. There is little "beauty" in the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Sym., but it is generally recognized as a great artistic achievement.

1. Music is not necessarily entertainment.

2. Your analogy to a physics book is incorrect. When I listen to complex music, I am not concentrating, searching and analysing any more than when I listen to simple music. This is because I have been listening to lots of different kinds of music for a long time to the point where any 'understanding' that needs to happen has become innate, just like the 'understanding' that happens when most people listen to Fur Elise.

3. It's rather patronising to suggest that anyone who listens to music that doesn't resonate with you is only doing so as an intellectual pursuit rather than because they receive genuine musical enjoyment from it.

Nobody mentionned Dvorak's Symphony 9 "The new world" ? It seems to be both a super complex and super popular work to me.

Herein lies my exact point, and I'll use your definition to prove it: what happens when someone who is knowledgeable disagrees with someone else who is also knowledgeable?

I disagree that art is 100% subjective.

Then you have a disagreement. So what? It's not algebra.

Not really. It's a consensus of knowledgable opinions, not one knowledgable person's opinion.

A seismologist and a paleontologist are both knowledgeable people, but one has more of a say about earthquakes than the other.

I totally agree. This is why you are the knowledgable. But I, as the 'only general' listener, do not have this experience and therefore most likely favor other pieces than you would do it, and subsequently I become one in the mass making the other piece popular, although it might not really be such masterwork.

There are also very complex pieces being very popular, but I have the impression that this is because it is possible to listen to them and to 'feel' their beauty also in a simplified way: catching only some superficial but satisfying theme out of it without having to get into all fine nuances of it.
[added: think about the popular pieces in the sheet books for beginners: there we often find transcriptions from complex pieces to simplified arrangements; that´s not so easy to do with all of the masterworks, but with some of it is possible...]

Well said. Many of us here might disagree with that last part, I think there's no doubt that it's true for the great majority of music listeners -- and there's nothing wrong with it: it's human nature. For the most part, we don't want to have to "work on" things that we do for enjoyment or leisure.

BTW, an aspect that has been mentioned but (I think) not emphasized: LENGTH. Nikolas asked about Fur Elise vs. the Hammerklavier. If the Hammerklavier were somehow as short as Fur Elise, I think it would have a chance to be as popular and well-known. People in general have a certain desired attention span for things, and for music, it seems to be mostly something like 2-4 minutes, maybe up to 5; it's no accident that most popular songs are about that long, likewise most of the classical pieces that have achieved great popularity.

Interesting that Debussy composed the Pavanne (Passepied) three years after Faure wrote his Pavanne. Debussy certainly would have been familiar with the Faure work.

Here's a recording (piano roll) of Faure playing his Pavanne ...(you can skip the ad after 5 seconds)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsGh2xYYQg

I searched the internet and found this "slower" version of the Debussy Passepied played by Claudio Arrau. Debussy marked the piece "Allegretto ma non troppo." Arrau's tempo is consistent with that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6fTuLb5PO0

That was me! I totally agree, but something interesting to think about: The first movement of Beethoven's Fifth symphony is one of the most recognizable pieces of music, however, it's not often played in full when used. Not even the whole symphony itself, but the entire first movement. I'd say most people haven't even heard it in full. Same with the ninth symphony.

With the fifth, you usually hear the dramatic opening, and a minute or two after that. I feel that these are popular because of the mood they create perfectly within these "pockets" of music, as opposed to the efficient 3 minute piece such as Fur Elise.

Again, I think the main components to the popularity of these pieces are a combination of melody, length, and in the case of piano pieces, the fact that many people have learned them at some point. I know people that took piano lessons as children that played Fur Elise, but now can't even read music. Like I said in my last post, I imagine more people on the earth right now can play Fur Elise than the Hammerklavier. To me that is a BIG reason why it's so popular. It also has a nice melody that is flowing and harmonically simple that people can attach too. And lastly, as we are saying, it's nice and short!

I think the important thing to take away is that composers and performers need to provide a range of works to their audience.

Let's not forget that Beethoven wrote both the Hammerklavier AND a number of variation sets and trifles on popular tunes of the day.

You see the same from performers - Horowitz would play both colossal masterworks AND throw in a popular Chopin waltz, Schumann Traumerei, or even the Stars and Stripes Forever.

I think that is exactly what I am saying. Two knowledgeable people disagree on what is masterful. One says it is. The other says it isn't. To extrapolate: two groups of knowledgeable people have a similar disagreement. What then?


I had to smile when I read this. It never fails that science always comes into a discussion of art.

In this case, we are talking about math. Quantifiable results. "If 'x' happens, 'y' is the quantifiable result." Seismologists study the x's in order to mathematically determine the y's. A paleontologist knowledgeable of the relationship between x and y could make the same exact prediction as the seismologist (much like a chemist can understand physics, especially physics that another physicist has already explained).

In the case of art, we are largely talking about taste (or 'belief'--I'll come back to science on this), or to extrapolate beyond the individual level, collective taste. For me, to say otherwise is to try to turn art into science, and that, to me, is discrediting and devaluing art.

To bring it back to science, as promised. The parallel I see would be cutting-edge science. Things that have yet to be proved. Even in science, we can see scientists lining up on opposite sides of the line to debate a hot new topic. One side believes one thing, the other side believes is opposite or a variant. Once proven mathematically and logically, the side that is literally wrong has to accept they were wrong and move on.

This is the absolute beauty of art, that exists in no other endeavor on earth: no one is wrong. What you believe is your reality. To tell people they are wrong about what they feel when they partake in art is, to me, the greatest error one can make regarding that art.

It's that line of thinking that brought me to comment on "masterful" disagreements, and the ultimate subjective nature of art.

Who said anything about people being wrong? But, now that you bring it up, you're wrong. If artistic endeavors and people's responses to it were as solipsistic as you imagine, we wouldn't have any, because there would be no commonality of experience.

But there is some kind of commonality. And there are also varying degrees of talent, experience, and education in regards to it, as well, on the parts of everyone participating.

Of course, anyone can have whatever private experience they want with it, and can value it to whatever extent they like. And that isn't wrong. What's wrong is to imagine that one's personal reaction to art is the only valid criterion by which an entire culture is measured.

The basic tempo Arrau chooses seems about right to me. But, love him as I do, that's almost the only thing that seems right about his interpretation. There are a couple of spots where he seems threatening to drift into Pogo the Slow territory.

It's interesting how some extremely gifted musicians have, shall we say, "explored" unusually slow tempos. Arrau, Pogorelich, Celibidache, Richter and Sokolov are a few, off the top of my head.

You seem to have assumed I was trying to bring science into the discussion in a way which I was not. I only meant to make the point that 'knowledge' can't be measured as linear surfaces are, and that therefore grouping people into 'knowledgeable' and 'general' is a misdistinction.

However, I disagree with your point about art being outside of science. The fact that a perfect fifth sounds more consonant than a quartertone is because of physics, not personal preference.

Then there is no consensus about that particular piece. The point being made was that "knowledgeable" people are the best to decide on the quality of a piece. Whether they can reach a consensus on a particular piece or whether two knowledgeable people agree about a particular pieces is irrelevant to the point being made.

I'm not sure that this disagrees with me at all, so to your point, I believe that you're wrong when you say that I'm wrong. (And I do agree almost entirely with your post, to the degree short of saying that common experience necessarily is capable of defining reality. Separate from an artistic discussion, and really more of a philosophical one, individuals still create their own reality in their own heads. Unless we're talking about schizophrenics, in which case, an entire community could indeed live within one's head.)

I would like to bring up an honorable mention: if art were as archaic, academic and obtuse as the word solipsistic, it might indeed vanish. I do, however, applaud your vocabulary.

I apologize for answering in two posts. I thought these were separate conversation best kept apart.

I am perfectly fine with your response, and believe me or not, I actually agree with you on this point. I would like to take your words, "Then there is no consensus about that particular piece," back to the original postulation:



Again, if there is no consensus, which you have agreed is possible, then how can we say that that particular work is necessarily less masterful than others?