Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

[theREALdotnet]

Obviously there is substantial and broad subjectivity, but once it has no pattern or structure it doesn’t sound like music to most people outside of any context. Even machinery can sound musical due to its repeating patterns. Here it’s hard to find any sort of structure to even judge it as such.

You don’t hear any pattern or structure in the OP piece? Birdsong is just noise to you?

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

I don't think so, unless you freeze our tastes in time, and even then, no. Tastes have evolved significantly over time, largely thanks to composers who push the rules. See comments about Beethoven above and/or substitute any groundbreaking composer since..

Maybe it’s better said like this, if all things are relative, where do we draw the line? I like pushing the envelope, but it has to adhere to something or it’s just noise.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

You don’t hear any pattern or structure in the OP piece? Birdsong is just noise to you?

I know what it’s based on it it doesn’t translate at all to a piano. Birdsong is beautiful, but here it just sounds like noise with no real structure. Would have worked much better with wind instruments as is done in other pieces and by other composers.

 

[krabapple]

There are actually common patterns seen across many cultures when it comes to how music is structured as there are neurological underpinnings for this, much like we have octaves that reflect how we hear frequency. Obviously there is substantial and broad subjectivity, but once it has no pattern or structure it doesn’t sound like music to most people outside of any context. Even machinery can sound musical due to its repeating patterns. Here it’s hard to find any sort of structure to even judge it as such.

Again, so? ''Hard to find" for you, but certainly not everyone.

Critics in his day considered Beethoven's Grosse Fuge incomprehensible.

Des Canyons aux Etoiles is 90 minutes long and employs an orchestra. You are opining on a 1 minute segment of solo piano, much of which (as is common for Messiaen) invokes birdsong. How can you possibly know anything about the entire work's structure or how this minute fits into it?

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Again, so? ''Hard to find" for you, but certainly not everyone.

Critics in his day considered Beethoven's Grosse Fuge incomprehensible.

Des Canyons aux Etoiles is 90 minutes long and employs an orchestra. You are opining on a 1 minute segment of solo piano, much of which (as is common for Messiaen) invokes birdsong. How can you possibly know anything about the entire work's structure or how this minute fits into it?

I said I dont like this piece as it’s presented.

 

[theREALdotnet]

I know what it’s based on it it doesn’t translate at all to a piano. Birdsong is beautiful, but here it just sounds like noise with no real structure.

Give a couple more listens, I’m sure it’ll click. The structure or patterns don’t come from the instrumentation.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Give a couple more listens, I’m sure it’ll click. The structure or patterns don’t come from the instrumentation.

Its clicking, it just doesn’t work on a piano.

 

[krabapple]

No, I dont hate all his other work, now that I can remember hearing it years ago when I studied music. This was linked above, and it’s actually good even if I don’t like the style. It has structure to it.

But that piece above by the OP has no real structure. Yes it can be hard to define it, but most people would just be confused if you show them that excerpt with no context.

I could extract a minute of birdsong-based piano music from the Turangalila (which Messiaen sometimes spoke of as a very long piano concerto). You'd probably (wrongly) call that structureless or 'not working' too.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

I could extract a minute of birdsong-based piano music from the Turangalila (which Messiaen sometimes spoke of as a very long piano concerto). You'd probably (wrongly) call that structureless or 'not working' too.

On a piano, I would indeed say yes because it’s lacking the context and instruments around it that give it structure and make it work. And yes it’s a fair point that it’s part of a larger composition and I’m being rash. But it does sound terrible as it was originally presented and is the core topic of the thread, which is what I was commenting on. Hopefully that can bridge the gap of opinions, here.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

It's been a few years since I listened to Turangalila, so I thought I'd give the Previn recording a listen to refresh my memory of the piece. I'd forgotten what great fun this music is, and in Previn's hands it's almost a summer pops piece (well, maybe not all 80 minutes of it).

\

Yes and even more spectacular in the multichannel re-release. I much prefer it to the Chailly/Decca SACD or the Lintu/Ondine because of its spaciousness.

 

[krabapple]

To answer the OP's question, 'who listens?': certainly many thousands, at least, have listened to and enjoyed work like this of Messiaen's , and music even more 'difficult' by him and other composers, for about a century now. Personally I'm lifelong friends with at least 4 others who, raised in the blue-collar Bronx, are big fans of Messiaen, Bartok, Stravinsky...

If you've listened to the rather famous British rock band Radiohead or anything by their guitarist since the year 2000, you've listened to 'popular' music directly influenced by Messiaen.

So?

Argument from incredulity is a type of logical fallacy. As is argument from authority.

 

[Mnyb]

You've never come to admire music over time that at first made little impression?

Oh yes some things grown over time.

I’m appreciating the hard work and training that goes into being good at playing music . Years and years of education and honing a craft/skill I assume . My point was that it’s should not take similar efforts to be able to approach the results as a listener then it somehow failed .

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

To answer the OP's question, 'who listens?': certainly many thousands, at least, have listened to and enjoyed work like this of Messiaen's , and music even more 'difficult' by him and other composers, for about a century now. Personally I'm lifelong friends with at least 4 others who, raised in the blue-collar Bronx, are big fans of Messiaen, Bartok, Stravinsky...

If you've listened to the rather famous British rock band Radiohead or anything by their guitarist since the year 2000, you've listened to 'popular' music directly influenced by Messiaen.

So?

Argument from incredulity is a type of logical fallacy.

To be fair, we also need to acknowledge that by including the entirety of the composer’s work, we are no longer within the scope of the thread and what was originally posted. As this piece is presented, not many people. It’s pretty bad... it’s just structured noise without it’s context.

As a larger work, as you say, many thousands or more. I dont like his overall style, but as a whole they do work. To conflate the two is what is causing the confusion to begin with. Mea culpa I am also running afoul of that just looking at the one excerpt as is presented, but so is saying one’s opinion of this is invalid because in its context it has musical structure.

 

[Multicore]

He was active in the time period when this was quite en-vogue.

When what exactly was quite en-vogue?

 

[krabapple]

What's interesting to me is why (or how come) art upsets some people. In our podcast episode Ken relates a story of a concert of Birtwistle's music after which in a Q&A Birtwistle took questions. Some Bach fans had sat through the whole thing in order to denounce Birtwistle as some kind of an enemy of right and propery harmony, good taste, or something and as a traitor to the traditions of classical music.

The obvious question is: why bother? Why is it so important to them? There's no shortage of performances and recordings of Bach. Birtwistle and the performances of his work doesn't harm them. Any yet they feel they need to make a stand and be seen to be in opposition. It's really interesting what motivates this. There can be more than one kind of music. Nobody is saying you can't listen to what you prefer.

Wanna bet at least some reactions similar to these greeted JS Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue back in the day?:

'Incomprehensible'
'Too many notes'
'emperor's new clothes/some kind of joke'
'No structure'
'Where's the melody?'
"What's this noise?"
'Doesn't make me tap my toes.'
'Doesn't work on harpsichord'

(Pretty sure, at least, that they would not say 'my kid could do that'.)

 

[krabapple]

To be fair, we also need to acknowledge that by including the entirety of the composer’s work, we are no longer within the scope of the thread and what was originally posted. As this piece is presented, not many people. It’s pretty bad... it’s just structured noise without it’s context.

Why is 'structured noise' (which it isn't) necessarily 'pretty bad'?

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

When what exactly was quite en-vogue?

Ok so let’s step back and realize Im not talking about the whole work, but what was posted here by the OP. Overall his style does have that flavor, but here the excerpt as shown its terrible. There is a reason I included that piece of art to begin with Its not the source that was bad, but it’s interpretation. Make more sense, now? I think we are getting our thoughts crossed.

 

[krabapple]

Oh yes some things grown over time.

I’m appreciating the hard work and training that goes into being good at playing music . Years and years of education and honing a craft/skill I assume . My point was that it’s should not take similar efforts to be able to approach the results as a listener then it somehow failed .

Again, there are no songs, albums, genres, works of music that it took time, maybe even years before you realized they're actually enjoyable to listen to?

 

[Multicore]

Maybe it’s better said like this, if all things are relative, where do we draw the line? I like pushing the envelope, but it has to adhere to something or it’s just noise.

Just noise? Noise is important in a lot of music, especially modern popular music. It's also a genre of music, one I know because I specialized in it for a while. Des Canyons aux Étoiles not remotely like noise. It's rather obviously Messaien with all his famous harmony, melody and rhythm. It maybe makes sense to level such accusations of impregnable randomness against, say, Ferneyhough, but Messaien? I don't see it.

What, at root, is the argument here? That if few people like listening to such-and-such while others either aren't interested or dislike it then we should agree that the people who do like it are wrong? Or that they are listening to something that isn't music? Or what?

 

[theREALdotnet]

It’s perfectly fine to not like a piece of music. It’s fraught with danger to try and rationalise one’s dislike by pointing out supposed deficiencies in the piece, which more often than not betray a lack of understanding. It often helps to listen some more – with exposure comes understanding. In the end you may still not like it, but you might get an idea of why other people do.