Post by Ben on Mar 27, 2023 20:59:35 GMT
Beethoven is over-promoted and so is Mozart. The last great composer to deserve his reputation was J. S. Bach.
Miles has placed the launch of Operation Chaos in the mid-18th century, and if that's correct then it tells us a lot about Mozart and Beethoven and why they are still promoted everywhere. There was a massive shift in musical style around that time, including the simplification of all musical elements and the jettisoning of almost all counterpoint, which J. S. Bach pushed back against but which Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all embraced. Official history is that composers were at the whim of aristocratic sensibilities - as in Amadeus when the Emperor grumbles about "too many notes" - and that might be true to an extent. Elites may have gotten dumber over the years and prefer ever more simplified entertainment. But there is also a calculated aspect, evident for example in Mozart's operas, whose propaganda themes are oddly familiar (splitting the sexes for instance).
Both Mozart and Beethoven were groomed as child prodigies, and the stories of young Mozart's feats are absurd on multiple levels. Even if they happened, which is questionable, they aren't really impressive to anyone with a musical background. Wikipedia admits that his transcription of Allegri's Miserere at age fourteen is likely fictional and that the score was known anyway. Despite that, he was personally summoned by Pope Clement XIV and given an award for his non-accomplishment. So he was being promoted at the highest levels from a young age, before he had written any significant works.
Regarding Mozart's death, one peculiarity is the mainstream admission that parts of the Requiem were written by someone else (Sussmayr). Since we know Mozart's death was fake, does that not amount to an admission that he had a ghostwriter? What other works of his were ghostwritten? Was he even a real composer or a front man for a composing committee? I suggested that hypothesis to Miles, but he rejected it. I still think it is possible.
I also suspect that Mozart's marriage to Constanze Weber links him forward to Anton Webern of the Second Viennese School. If you don't know, the Second Viennese School wrote dreadful atonal noise, a kind of modern art in musical form, but are presented by academics as the successors to the original Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. That is curious, since the staid, traditional Classicists would seem to have little to do with Modernism. But if these people were all cousins making propaganda for the same bosses, then the association makes sense.
Of course, music is subjective in a way and everyone has their preferences, but it remains the case that some things are promoted way out of proportion to their merit.
To illustrate the point, let us compare two motets, one by J.S. Bach and one by Mozart.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEpU7cm1wys
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uduY8lh6B_Q
The lush harmony and dense counterpoint of Bach's motet demonstrate a skill level beyond that of any living person. You don't just need inspiration to write music of that quality; you also need years of intense focus and concentration. Modern people have deemed that unnecessary, which is why, as Miles would say, no one can do that anymore. No one!
The same can't be said of Mozart's motet, which could well be the work of any clever music student. It is crudely homophonic and full of cliches. It also has a cloying quality that I find unnerving.
I might be told I am cherry-picking these examples, and to be clear they aren't the whole story. But they are fairly typical of what you will encounter when you study this music.
Youtube personality Rick Beato has a video arguing that Bach's music is more technically advanced than that of Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcvUHdhROrk:
He is correct, but he frames it as evidence of Bach's genius and nothing else. He ignores the historical reality of artistic regression. Western music from 1450 to 1750 was characterized by continuous innovation and development, which came to a screeching halt as music was refashioned into a new form of propaganda.
Why does it matter? Well, people nowadays think that serious art is about being stuffy, pompous and boring, and the promotion of the Classical-era composers as history's ultimate geniuses has not exactly helped. Great music can inspire and edify even fairly unintellectual people, but what they are presented with (on classical radio for instance) rarely does - and perhaps that's deliberate.
I do appreciate Miles' papers on the subject, particularly his discovery of what Mozart did after his fake death (which in retrospect the Wiki page makes blindingly obvious, but of course I missed it).
Miles has placed the launch of Operation Chaos in the mid-18th century, and if that's correct then it tells us a lot about Mozart and Beethoven and why they are still promoted everywhere. There was a massive shift in musical style around that time, including the simplification of all musical elements and the jettisoning of almost all counterpoint, which J. S. Bach pushed back against but which Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all embraced. Official history is that composers were at the whim of aristocratic sensibilities - as in Amadeus when the Emperor grumbles about "too many notes" - and that might be true to an extent. Elites may have gotten dumber over the years and prefer ever more simplified entertainment. But there is also a calculated aspect, evident for example in Mozart's operas, whose propaganda themes are oddly familiar (splitting the sexes for instance).
Both Mozart and Beethoven were groomed as child prodigies, and the stories of young Mozart's feats are absurd on multiple levels. Even if they happened, which is questionable, they aren't really impressive to anyone with a musical background. Wikipedia admits that his transcription of Allegri's Miserere at age fourteen is likely fictional and that the score was known anyway. Despite that, he was personally summoned by Pope Clement XIV and given an award for his non-accomplishment. So he was being promoted at the highest levels from a young age, before he had written any significant works.
Regarding Mozart's death, one peculiarity is the mainstream admission that parts of the Requiem were written by someone else (Sussmayr). Since we know Mozart's death was fake, does that not amount to an admission that he had a ghostwriter? What other works of his were ghostwritten? Was he even a real composer or a front man for a composing committee? I suggested that hypothesis to Miles, but he rejected it. I still think it is possible.
I also suspect that Mozart's marriage to Constanze Weber links him forward to Anton Webern of the Second Viennese School. If you don't know, the Second Viennese School wrote dreadful atonal noise, a kind of modern art in musical form, but are presented by academics as the successors to the original Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. That is curious, since the staid, traditional Classicists would seem to have little to do with Modernism. But if these people were all cousins making propaganda for the same bosses, then the association makes sense.
Of course, music is subjective in a way and everyone has their preferences, but it remains the case that some things are promoted way out of proportion to their merit.
To illustrate the point, let us compare two motets, one by J.S. Bach and one by Mozart.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEpU7cm1wys
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uduY8lh6B_Q
The lush harmony and dense counterpoint of Bach's motet demonstrate a skill level beyond that of any living person. You don't just need inspiration to write music of that quality; you also need years of intense focus and concentration. Modern people have deemed that unnecessary, which is why, as Miles would say, no one can do that anymore. No one!
The same can't be said of Mozart's motet, which could well be the work of any clever music student. It is crudely homophonic and full of cliches. It also has a cloying quality that I find unnerving.
I might be told I am cherry-picking these examples, and to be clear they aren't the whole story. But they are fairly typical of what you will encounter when you study this music.
Youtube personality Rick Beato has a video arguing that Bach's music is more technically advanced than that of Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcvUHdhROrk:
He is correct, but he frames it as evidence of Bach's genius and nothing else. He ignores the historical reality of artistic regression. Western music from 1450 to 1750 was characterized by continuous innovation and development, which came to a screeching halt as music was refashioned into a new form of propaganda.
Why does it matter? Well, people nowadays think that serious art is about being stuffy, pompous and boring, and the promotion of the Classical-era composers as history's ultimate geniuses has not exactly helped. Great music can inspire and edify even fairly unintellectual people, but what they are presented with (on classical radio for instance) rarely does - and perhaps that's deliberate.
I do appreciate Miles' papers on the subject, particularly his discovery of what Mozart did after his fake death (which in retrospect the Wiki page makes blindingly obvious, but of course I missed it).
