like Vivaldi's Four Seasons and such. Not Stravinsky.
— baker

Stravinsky reportedly said, "Vivaldi didn't write 500 concertos; he wrote the same concerto 500 times."

The quip is established enough that a 1986 book—Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David W. Barber—riffed on it: “People who find [Vivaldi’s] music too repetitious are inclined to say that he wrote the same concerto 450 times. This is hardly fair: he wrote two concertos, 225 times each.”

Or

"Even someone as informed as pianist/musicologist Charles Rosen attributed the quote to him [Stravinsky] when asked which composer he found most overrated:

“I'm tired of [Vivaldi]. Stravinsky once said that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 500 times. I disagree. Instead, I think he began 500 concertos and never achieved anything in them. So he kept trying over and over again without ever quite succeeding.”
—Charles Rosen to The New York Times, 1987

The most they can do is "enjoy" some piece in their dark corner. They can be consumers, and nothing more. A nameless, faceless mass.
— baker

It would be clinically interesting to know more about the source of such opinions as this that you expose to the right of day. — Bitter Crank

There are 7 notes. Suppose I'm allowed only 7 notes per score. That gives me 7⁷ = 823, 543 unique pieces (combinatorics). After that, it's repetition. Vivaldi might've been trying to make a (secret) point. Too bad some didn't get it. If only music critics had paid attention in math class.

During the Renaissance, together with the rest of mathematics and the sciences, combinatorics enjoyed a rebirth. Works of Pascal, Newton, Jacob Bernoulli and Euler became foundational in the emerging field. — Wikipedia

Music:

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)

Math:

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Jacob Bernoulli (1655 - 1705)

Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783)

All contemporaries (thereabouts). Ideas might've been passed around.

The elite have different cultural and practical predispositions than the lower class, so it only makes sense that they experience things differently. — baker

Money or influence doesn't make you hear things differently. — ssu

Being born and raised into a life of money and influence can make one hear things differently.

If one has had the opportunity to listen to classical music all of one's life, from early on, with easy access to it, and has obtained some formal education in it (as used to be the norm for the elite), then it's only normal that one has a different predisposition for hearing classical music than someone who didn't have those advantages.

On the other hand, it's understandable that people don't have as a sport hobby polo as horses are expensive. But listening to classical music isn't. — ssu

Sure. But I argue that it makes an important qualitative difference in one's experience of classical music whether one has had easy opportunity to listen to it from early on in life, has received formal education in it, and has had ample opportunity to discuss the music with other people who are more expert in classical music than oneself.

The relevant difference is between a naive, ad hoc, unsystematic, uneducated, unstructured listening to music and with it, a naive liking; and on the other hand, a systematic, educated, structured listening, which, arguably, provides a more meaningful and profound music experience.

If one doesn't know anything about movements, keys, themes, historical references of a music piece, and so on, listening to classical music is bound to be boring, or at the very least, idiosyncratic.

If all the classical music heaped up over the centuries serves "no wholesome purpose", what in God's name does? — Bitter Crank

So let's listen to a nice little piece from the classical canon:



Is your life any better now? Have your existential fears disappeared? Are you now beyond sorrow?

Is your life any better now? — baker

Yes, it is slightly better now -- about 1% better. Short piece, small results.

Have your existential fears disappeared? — baker

I don't have any existential fears just right now, thanks to 2 hours of Mozart.

Are you now beyond sorrow? — baker

Probably not. Only the grave offers that solace.

The relevant difference is between a naive, ad hoc, unsystematic, uneducated, unstructured listening to music and with it, a naive liking; and on the other hand, a systematic, educated, structured listening, which, arguably, provides a more meaningful and profound music experience. — baker

What's wrong with "naive, ad hoc, unsystematic, uneducated" listening to music? How many know how to play an electronic guitar? How many know the history of pop-music or rock? How are those people who don't know all that about pop or rock music so different in their liking of the music from those who do?

Sorry, but it's really not a relevant difference. Yeah, if you know how to play the guitar, you might really appreciate more some virtuoso, yet is that really relevant?

I think more relevant is the hostility we take towards some music that isn't "for us". Hostility to classical music is actually quite similar to the hostility towards country music or the music "ordinary people" listen to. The music that the peasant, the redneck, the yokel, listens to in their shabby bars and gatherings. Why is that music so bad? Take away the social or class construct around it, a lot of music is quite interesting to listen to.

Is your life any better now? — baker

Mmh...long time I heard that. :up:

I am declaring that this is abstract expression art, the title of which is "What did the galaxy ever do for you, anyway?"

This is art:

So, what actually is that? It looks like it could be a galaxy.

So, what actually is that? It looks like it could be a galaxy. — T Clark

It purports to be an image of electrical activity in the central galactic region. Or it's art. It's art on a galactic scale.

Art is anything which is designed to evoke an emotion. Good art evokes good emotions, and vice-versa. It is possible that the original work was indeed art and the graffiti on it also art. To the artist and the owner of the original art, the graffiti is probably considered bad art. I wonder what he would get if he tried to sell the painting with the graffiti.

Can this art work even be defaced?

I think for an art work to be defaced, first it must have a face. Vegetarian people only buy abstract art, obviously and therefore.

One might argue that the surface of the canvas the painting is on, is the face of the painting. After all, you are facing it.

Paintings therefore (if you buy the one previous line) always get sold at face value.

I am declaring that this is abstract expression art, the title of which is "What did the galaxy ever do for you, anyway?" — Bitter Crank

Oh, drat. I almost bid on this, because I thought it was the abstract rendition of "Lenin Giving A Speech To The Workers of the Kolhozmanovszki Iron Works."

Baker, thanks for putting in the Brahms piece. I feel 5% more Hungarian now than before I listened to it.

This is a very good rendition of it. Hungarians gerne play classical music, but they are schrecklich at it. The only thing they do schlechter als that in music is rock. The entire Hungarian post-Beatles music industry only managed to produce zwei Lieder that get to you in melody: "Gyöngyhajú lány" und "Emlék", both by Omega.

Abstract? Seems pretty concrete to me. Hyper realism, that's abstract.

What's wrong with "naive, ad hoc, unsystematic, uneducated" listening to music? How many know how to play an electronic guitar? How many know the history of pop-music or rock?

How are those people who don't know all that about pop or rock music so different in their liking of the music from those who do? — ssu

To name just a few:
They get bored more easily by the music.
They miss out on important artistic elements.
They contribute to the culture of shallowness and the general decline of civilization into mere consumerism.
They don't meaningfully contribute to the artists who produced the art work.

And I don't mean to be offensive.

Sorry, but it's really not a relevant difference. Yeah, if you know how to play the guitar, you might really appreciate more some virtuoso, yet is that really relevant?

Relevant to whom?
To the guitar virtuoso -- probably not.
I think that a person who is approaching art in a consumerist, easy fashion is not making the best use of their time and resources. It's a bit like insisting on eating cold pizza.

I think more relevant is the hostility we take towards some music that isn't "for us". Hostility to classical music is actually quite similar to the hostility towards country music or the music "ordinary people" listen to. The music that the peasant, the redneck, the yokel, listens to in their shabby bars and gatherings. Why is that music so bad?

Take away the social or class construct around it, a lot of music is quite interesting to listen to.

Provided one has the time and resources to do so.

What's wrong with "naive, ad hoc, unsystematic, uneducated" listening to music? How many know how to play an electronic guitar? How many know the history of pop-music or rock?

How are those people who don't know all that about pop or rock music so different in their liking of the music from those who do?
— ssu

To name just a few:
They get bored more easily by the music.
They miss out on important artistic elements.
They contribute to the culture of shallowness and the general decline of civilization into mere consumerism.
They don't meaningfully contribute to the artists who produced the art work. — baker

Seems likely that music evolved as a participatory activity. People didn't just listen to it, they danced to it and sang with it. People going to a dance club are probably using music in a more natural, human way than you and the others sitting in a concert hall listening to the music of guys who have been dead for two or three hundred years.

And I don't mean to be offensive. — baker

Actually, you made good points there.

I think that a person who is approaching art in a consumerist, easy fashion is not making the best use of their time and resources. It's a bit like insisting on eating cold pizza. — baker

So some people put ice cubes into the best single malt whisky's there are. That's reality.

Yet I think that the distiller and the shopkeeper are still happy that the person bought the expensive bottle.

But ....I get your point. Still, even if the consumerist doesn't or cannot appreciate the fine touches, at least he or she gets hopefully something out of it that is positive. And that counts.

Seems likely that music evolved as a participatory activity. — T Clark

Classical music still is participatory, the mode of participation is specific. Ideally, one should be able to play the music piece on an instrument or sing it oneself, play or sing variations of the themes in the piece, analyze it, discuss it intelligently and critically with others.

I think that the distiller and the shopkeeper are still happy that the person bought the expensive bottle. But ....I get your point. Still, even if the consumerist doesn't or cannot appreciate the fine touches, at least he or she gets hopefully something out of it that is positive. And that counts. — ssu

I have found great pleasure in music written by people who have been dead for hundreds of years, whether that was sitting in a plush orchestra hall seat or listening to it through earphones on a bus. I can say the same for listening to music performed in the flesh by the guys who wrote it. And I've danced to music in discos.

BTW, you can rest, assured that people who have paid a hundred bucks to listen to a stage full of professionals play Beethoven are engaged with the music. They own comfortable chairs to sit in, and have many ways of being amused. They don't have to go to to Orchestra Hall for a good time.

Some music was intended to be the basis of group movement (dance) and some music was intended to be heard by people sitting still -- and this goes back centuries. Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei, written in (written in the early 1600s) is still a killer piece of music. The Vatican knew it had a platinum hit, and it didn't want to lose control of the piece. They were successful until a young Amadeus Mozart heard the music in one Good Friday in Rome, and went back to his motel and wrote it out from memory.

Some orchestral music calls for movement -- thinking of some pieces by the German Michael Praetorius' Terpsichore, for example, 1610.

Did Stone Age people always move to whatever music they produced? (Some ancient bone flutes have been found, about 66,000 years old. "Ok, shut up everybody, Glug is going to play something now."

I have found great pleasure in music written by people who have been dead for hundreds of years, whether that was sitting in a plush orchestra hall seat or listening to it through earphones on a bus. — Bitter Crank

I don't question the value of music played by orchestras in beautiful, acoustically designed halls. I only question @baker's smug arrogance in feeling contempt for those who don't share his level of involvement.

I only question baker's smug arrogance in feeling contempt for those who don't share his level of involvement with music. — T Clark

Oh, my virtual balls!

I get that about Baker. Of course, on the Internet nobody knows for sure how much of what somebody says reflects their actual life and how much of it is public relations copy. You wouldn't know for instance, that I am actually a cloistered monk with an overheated imagination in an isolated monastery and lots of time on my hands.

Of course, on the Internet nobody knows for sure how much of what somebody says reflects their actual life and how much of it is public relations copy. — Bitter Crank

With me, what you read is absolutely, completely, exactly, precisely, indubitably what I am really like. But you knew that.

I am actually a cloistered monk with an overheated imagination in an isolated monastery and lots of time on my hands. — Bitter Crank

I always assumed it was something like that, although I was leaning more toward a dungeon than a monastery.

Oh, my virtual balls! — baker

Virtuoso balls! (Snicker...)

Here is a piece of commercial art that I think could be defaced. It was put up in the Dayton's building, the former site of the Dayton's Department Store in downtown Minneapolis. Dayton's sold its department store operation to Macy's, and changed it's name to Target, which had long since become the largest part of the Dayton's company.

Macy's also gave up on this downtown site. A developer converted the large 12 floors to high end office space and small shop retail. So far, the retail part has not gotten off the ground (thanks to Covid-19).

I doubt this commercial graphic was spontaneously created by artists, because it does not seem spontaneous to me. Were someone to spray paint two straight lines on the surface, it would look like a defacement. I don't think the 'piece' is beautiful or attractive. Rather, it looks "commercial" which is anything but spontaneously.

I came across a couple of other commercial pieces very much like this one yesterday, but for different locations, under different management. My guess is that they were created in the same shop.

I came across a couple of other commercial pieces very much like this one yesterday, but for different locations, under different management. My guess is that they were created in the same shop. — Bitter Crank

For some reason it made me think of Ren and Stimpy.

The point of the art is that it has no definitive form, if the person's addition's intention was vandalism then the art piece is now a critique on how one person can ruin a community effort. If that vandalism is embraced, then the art becomes a comment on how destruction can be embraced. If the community continues to paint over the vandalism, then the art piece symbolizes moving on from setbacks.

No matter what is added to the piece, it remains an important piece of work.