Music Banter - View Single Post - Paul McCartney - The REAL King of Pop?
View Single Post
Old 07-22-2011, 01:26 AM   #138 (permalink)
starrynight
Music Addict
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 937
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan View Post
I disagree that the "Classical" composers were the greatest, the greatest composer when considering Art Music was during the Baroque period: J.S. Bach. Maybe most (or some) people feel the greatest composers were from the Classical period because of Mozart and Beethoven, and maybe that harkens back to what you said "People feel security in going with what they are told rather than daring to actually question something." Most people if asked who was the greatest composer will undoubtedly say Mozart.

The comparison was not between the structural similarities of a composition (e.g. a symphony) and a pop song. It's how popular they are and the contributions they made, the impacted they had on music in their own time and generations afterwards.
When I said classical I meant classical music in general and not specifically the classical style, so I did include JS Bach in that.

People love to make comparisons but I wonder if there comes a point where comparisons aren't so useful. As I said the societies in which these different types of music were created were completely different, the way music was made and the expectations of the audience were completely different. Sometimes all I can really judge on is how many good pieces of music I think someone has done, particularly when comparing things outside of their genres.



And as for improvisation well classical art music wasn't just playing the notes on the page, they had to be brought to life in live performance with the personal interpretation of the performers. Mozart for example didn't write down all the embellishments he might put into a performance. There also developed cadenzas sometimes which could be even more improvised. And even in jazz most of it isn't completely improvised, a structure with themes and chords is often laid out beforehand anyway
__________________
non-cliquey member of every music forum I participate on
starrynight is offline   Reply With Quote