1. Mozart was probably the least under-appreciated of all the 'great' composers during their respective lifetimes. If anything, he was over-hyped, having made a fairly huge name for himself as a child prodigy. He performed in Schönbrunn for the Hapsburgs at age five. If you were talking about in the 20th century....again, bad example. Even today, that child prodigy reputation remains, and most laymen, if asked, would tell you that Mozart is the greatest of the classical composers, or perhaps Beethoven. All the world seems unaware of the reverence that both of them had for J.S. Bach....

2. Beethoven was only an 'apprentice' of Mozart through indirect means (he was a fan of Mozart, and he studied with Haydn, Mozart's friend and admirer). He never studied with Mozart, and the tales of their meeting when Beethoven was a child have the earmarks of urban legend. No one has ever come up with convincing evidence that they actually met.

3. Debussy was very anti-German when it came to composition, and the German influences he would admit to were few, Wagner being a notable exception. In piano music, he was most influenced by Chopin, by a fair margin.

I am starting to get the idea that you have no idea what you are talking about, and that you're just bouncing around Wikipedia pages and pretending to have a clue. Really, I had that impression earlier, but decided to hold out for further evidence. Now, there's no shame if you're not classically trained. But it would be nice if you would admit it, rather than pretending to know what you are talking about.

No offense intended, but all of these misinformed details are distracting from the conversation.

Terez - 3
The Pringle - 0


I hadn't really followed this discussion, as I quickly get bored with long and winded, er, winding, arguments, but upon reading the latest illuminating post, I tend to agree with the above.

Mozart was an alcoholic... Where did you Google that up ? I think he was as sharp as a razor, and then some, right to the end.
Or no, wait... achoholic it says. What's that, addicted to having pains ?

Jack, what are you really doing here ? From your YouTube video, and the oblique PM's you sent us about it, I do not get the impression you are a fan of PS. It rather seems like you feel you have some bone to pick with us. I could be wrong of course, it's sometimes hard to gauge peoples' intentions. Maybe we should not even try... but we're such a nosy bunch here !

Well, in the beginning, I thought perhaps we could have an interesting philosophical discussion despite the original poster, but then it started to get really difficult! I wonder if maybe it is the same guy that tried to submit his new-agey piano pieces here recently? That would explain the bone....

Looking back at that post, I see I missed several wrong bits, such as the 'Mozart was poor' myth, along with the alcoholic bit (he might have seen Amadeus). And indeed the Wiki page on Debussy says almost exactly what he says about Debussy.

Though not that he was influenced by piano music. That must have been an original thought
Surely, one can learn a lot in a forum

HAHA, if I get it right, that is finally something we can agree upon.





My definition was tongue-in-cheek of course. How could you possibly run a survey on every supposedly classical piece of music? Aside from that, the five per cent boundary is more or less the proportion of classical on all music sales (again, they are rough figures, since they do vary with the different countries and, again, depend on which shelf you find Bocelli's crossover or Allevi's fashionable emptiness -but they're usually accounted as classical, this is what we have come to... ) You could call that the Marketeer's criterion. As good as another.

Seriously, as Scott has already pointed out, the definition of 'Classical' music can only be outlined by looking at the music landscape from a certain (temporal) distance (after all, being "classical", it cannot belong to the contemporary turmoil by definition), but it's quite sure that since the end of WWII, art music has radically changed in many aspects. Art in general has.





This is crap. One essential quality of art music is that offers multiple tiers of understanding and fruition -you don't need to reach one to have the 'right' to like a given piece. It's obvious to me that the more you understand about music (inner process, compositional devices, milieu and so on) the better, the goal being always to increase the awareness of what you hear as a listener or do as a pianist, but what we may experience through music goes well beyond that.




Nope, that would be a self selected sample, how could it work?




There should be, how fun a bike race, much better than my poll!





I didn't know that Haydn was Mozart's teacher.





I'm afraid that it was my fault. No more Wikipedia to anyone, I promise.

None taken--I am simply asking questions relating to the question I originally posted, and based upon what others have written.

You may (or may not) delite in knowing I do not enjoy Wikipedia. I find it useful for constants (i.e. formulas, the height of the highest skyscraper). Biographies, measuring what one has accomplished is a harder task, and should imho not be reserved for any jack who thinks he’s up to the challenge.

I find it interesting the challenge of one proving that Classical Music can be determined today, not by future music historians at some indeterminate time in the future. If all pieces could be gauged off other pieces, one might say Debussy sounds like Chopin, only more baroque, like J.S. Bach. Tchaikovsky sounds like Wagner only more systematic…



Terez, I admit I have not studied the background of the classical forefathers in fine detail, but that is not the central question is it? It is defining what is a classical piano piece and what is not. And though I already have answers, I enjoy continuing the conversation.



So that's what this is then--a competition? With all due respect Techneut, I never signed up to compete, and I do not wish to. I only posted this first topic for a discussion, not to keep score.



I will dissapoint you, I don't think I am capable of "new agey piano pieces"



If you read The Mozart Myth’s A critical reassessment it talks about it. I recommend it.



As I state above, I posted a topic that explores what is a classical piano piece and what is not.



I don’t know what I can do to convince you? Give you money? I have tried by writing you and telling your that I was...



No bone to pick sir.



Being nosy is a good thing,

Just ask all of the piano composers who have created beautiful works inspired by others!



I don’t think you could. One thing is if you tried it would probably take a real long time.

Beethoven was never an apprentice of Mozart. Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792. Mozart died in 1791. It is said that he met Mozart when Beethoven was younger and that his intent was to study with Mozart, but obviously that could not have happened unless he was somehow able to channel Mozart's spirit.

Scott

Count Waldstein was (through Haydn's hands).

pssh, you say that every time we agree about something! And it should not be all that hard to figure out in the context.



LOL, my apathy for the First Viennese School is bleeding through, isn't it? I suppose I had gotten that impression from the fact that Haydn knew Mozart when he was very young.

You have a thing about money, it seems. I was nonplussed earlier when money suddenly cropped up in your argument. Anyway, nope, I don't want your money. What a strange thing to say.

Now let me be honest with you. Your weird video, and the self-conscious way you presented it, has really put us on the wrong foot with you. It looks for all the world like you're trying to put us in a bad light - all three admins (including the site founder) thought so. Not that we worry about it in any way as it's not at all convincingly done, and we have many friends around the globe who will easily see through this. Still, I can't fathom why you did it and what you think to achieve, except for being eyed with suspicion in these quarters. Does that make sense at all ? Or have we got it all wrong ? If you did it with the idea of helping us, as I think you have suggested, then be aware that few things are more annoying than unsolicited help.

I have to side with Terez in that it looks like you are throwing all manner of irrelevant and sometimes dubious things in the pot. But of course anybody is free to do that, and I will not gripe about it. You'll have to allow me to take the p*ss every now and then though. Not being a scholar, that is all I can do

Well ok, spoke my mind here. If you have something to explain, then now would be a good time. But maybe you don't, and that is fine too (in that case, the suspicion will remain).

I know it's crap, and I also know why he spouted this crap. He has obviously had a good number of people over the years say that they don't like his music. He probably feels that they are ignorant and don't like his music because they don't understand it. So, if he wants to maintain this view, he has to also maintain the reverse, that you must know a piece of music very well to like it. He says that he also doesn't like it when people tell him that they like his music, mostly because he sees himself and a few others as the musical elite, and everyone else as the unwashed masses (and of course he doesn't say that). He doesn't care about your opinion unless you also toss out some detail that shows you are trained, such as a comment about the form or some such.

Which reminds me....Chopin did the same thing. In one of his letters, he tells his friend Tytus about a small private-ish performance, and how he got all sorts of compliments from various people, but one man said 'I have never heard anything written in that form before.' And Chopin tells Tytus, 'I think that man understood me better than anyone else.' I think Chopin was a little more entitled to be a snob....but he was definitely a snob.

I'd like to repeat in public what I just replied to Jack's PM to me.



Jack, please respond in public too. This forum is not just about the admins. One thing we value here is honesty and openness. You still have some explaining to do, if not outright apologizing.

I don't suppose we could watch this video? It doesn't seem to be linked on his profile or in his sig.

Nope, it's been deleted from YouTube already, after a PM exchange between the film director and Monica. I believe some others here have seen it.

We took it as rather derogatory, and the use of photographs (of Monica, Robert, and me), literal quotes, as well as the dedication to John Robson, are quite out of order.

Thinking about it, I see no future for Jack Pringle on this site unless he explains, apologizes, and bends over backwards.

That is indeed strange! There do seem to be a number of people who come around every once in a while with a bone to pick, and you have to wonder if some of them are the same people, especially in a case like this where the person's actions don't make sense otherwise.