The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: skl.sh/12tone0820 Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) To be clear, you're allowed to like Beethoven! Lots of people do, and if you find his music meaningful and important I don't want to (and can't) take that away from you! But isn't it a bit weird that we've constructed a system where that's the only option? 2) Also, since I'm not sure I was clear enough on this point, I think DAMN is a very good album.
Great video! Some thoughts: If Beethoven had been a bad composer, say, if his 9th symphony used only two chords, he wouldn't have been part of the canon. It seems unreasonable to deny that aesthetic quality played some role in canon formation, just as it's unreasonable to deny that cultural factors also played a role. I also doubt the idea that there is *one* widespread use of the canon, as you implied by saying it's used as a gatekeeping device and not as a means for achieving musical quality. I agree that gatekeeping uses of the canon should be sharply critiqued, and I am on your side in that respect. Few things frustrate me as much as classical music lovers who look down on other kinds of music. But I think a more complete picture of the canon needs to acknowledge its use by practicing musicians as an impetus for and precondition of musical creativity. We don't create music ex nihilo. A canon, or canons if you prefer, allows us to enter into a musical tradition and develop it through contesting it. A tradition, in an important sense, is comprised of contestations of that tradition. The classical canon was formed by composers who, in various ways, went beyond and against the ideas of their predecessors. It is this side of canon formation that I think your video misleadingly leaves out. I agree with the gist of your video, I just wish it painted a more complex picture of canon formation. But I'm glad your video will spur conversations about this important topic!
@@m.l.pianist2370 I didn't go to music school, but I did take piano lessons with a couple different teachers over the span of about five years. They both heavily pushed the idea that Beethoven, Bach, Brahams, etc. were the greatest of all time. I didn't know enough at the time to contest that, so I believed it too despite none of their music resonating with me especially well. I thought there was something wrong with me, like I had bad ears or I wasn't smart enough to "get" the music. I think the point 12tone is making is that this type of attitude is pervasive in music education and popular understanding of music despite the fact that the composers that are on the list were simply, as he put it, at the right place at the right time. You say that aesthetic quality had to play a role, but how do you define what's good "aesthetically?" It's purely subjective whether a piece of music is "good." Complexity doesn't make a piece of music good, nor does simplicity. Consonance and dissonance can either be a good thing or a bad thing. A song can be great with or without lyrics or whether it has twenty key changes or zero. When you sit down and actually define "good," you'll realize that you can't because you can't describe something that's subjective using objective terms. Furthermore, I need to repeat 12tone's point that all of the composers in the Western Classical Music canon are white male German composers from a relatively specific time period. I'm going to assume that you agree that it's not a simple coincidence that all the "best" composers fit this description, so you have to admit that time, geography and culture played a significant part in choosing these composers. No one is really arguing that Beethoven was a *bad* composer, but it's completely valid to question whether he is a good composer and especially if he's one of the greatest of all time.
I'm a jazz musician and I started with Beethoven thinking he was overrated and could never be as good as everyone says. Then I really listened to his complete works and I must say he's really really that good, it's crazy how efficient and creative he was. And also looking at his context you can see how innovative he was, how he changed the course of classical music and how he battled and won trough all the struggles that came in his life. He's our hero in the western classical music world.
Compare it also to other fields, we all know Einstein, Picasso, The Beatles.. even if we are not familiar with their work. If you delve really deeply into their areas and historical contexts they definitely earn their place on the zeitgeist.
I think there is a lot that Beethoven wrote that is genuinely overrated in my book however I agree with you and listening to stuff like the Grosse Fugue ( honestly could've been written in 1925 not 1825) gives you an idea of how great and innovative he really was.
Tiago, I know that feeling so well. His immense reputation is to his detriment. I listen to all my Beethoven CDs in the car, and I love his music for its own merit. I would love to have an earnest conversation about the Archduke trio or the op. 110 sonata, but I feel like any praise I have for Beethoven is prejudged by others as fawning over someone inherently regarded as great with no merit. So it makes perfect sense that you would go into Beethoven imagining that he's overrated only to then be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Genuine appreciation for his music in the modern day is a battle against the grassroots-esque mentality of "down with the dogma and hubris of status-seekers who listen to classical music in bad faith!"
Agreed. Strip away identity and judge the music entirely on the merits and you will probably still have some of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic masters show up on the list. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert might have gotten a little bump from being "old white guys" but to dismiss their greatness entirely because guilt over cultural exclusivity as opposed to the merit of the music seems to be falling into the same trap of dismissing music simply because of who wrote it. Haydn on the other hand was a hack who did just get a bump for being Austrian.
But in the same regard you are inside the system that created the canon so your opinions are distorted by it no matter how well intentioned you are. One would need a genuinely independent reviewer to see for sure. Some un-contacted islanders, aliens or AI!
Dont listen to this stupid video. Beethoven was recognised as the greatest all across Europe by those who were educated in music. Men who were far smarter and knowledgeable than this uploader.
The only problem with this is that there were tons of people in the same place and the same time. There were princes, people of nobility and men of renown. How many of their names would be more recognizable to someone on the street today between them or Beethoven? Not many I'd presume. What he said in the video is true, but it also lacks an important component: "He was the right person in the right place at the right time." How many other people do you think you supplant in his place at that time and they would have had the same legacy? Very, very few.
@@rossconnolly3402 This channel is a more contemporary music channel. I don't expect him to just give the praise Beethoven needs. He is pretty annoying too, the way he approaches music is just awkward and he usually speaks with floating terminology instead of concrete examples. Adam Neely for example, teached me a lot about jazz music theory and music theory in general. This channel is an utter garbage.
I've always been a proponent of the idea that music exists to evoke emotion, so if you like a piece that in itself is justification for it being good. I'm a HUGE Mendelssohn nerd and I'll freely admit that his oeuvre isn't the most complex or revolutionary in classical music, but it SLAPS. And at the end of the day that's all it needs to do.
what he is trying to say is that its subjective, no doubt Bach and Beethoven slap, but other Asian and African composers slap too in their cultures. the problem comes when we teach it as GENERAL music theory, and just european style of music. I for once only learnt music this european way and didnt learn other ways while I wish I could have.
@@ShadowD2C What is the alternative? Do you learn Chinese authors in a French literature class? Western classical is Western classical, Chinese music is Chinese music. The principles are totally different and you need to spend years and years to build any mastery of it - and learn Mandarin, Chinese history & culture, literature, philisophy, etc. I wish that other cultures would do more to preserve and promote their classical traditions, but that's not up to us.
@@jpiccone1 Im not sure about the chinese traditions, but for example guitar which I learnt the western way is most defently derived from middle eastern music theory and their oud (lute) scales. The issue just lies with the naming when youre learning it should be taught as western classical or smth so you dont internalize it as the basic of everything
@@jpiccone1 except it’s just presented as “music theory”. Not “18th century European music theory”, but simply “music theory”, and it’s held as some sort of objective measure of musical worth when it’s just…not.
The word is 'canon', not 'cannon'. canon noun (1) can·on | \ ˈka-nən 4a: an accepted principle or rule b: a criterion or standard of judgment the canons of good taste c: a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms [Late Greek kanōn, from Greek, model] : a contrapuntal musical composition in which each successively entering voice presents the initial theme usually transformed in a strictly consistent way Have a great day!😃👍
It's clear that Beethoven was exceptional, even if his importance was also inflated by German musicologists. We have quotes from Schubert talking about Beethoven as someone God-like even before this rise in nationalism. Beethoven was so important that his death caused a divide in the classical music world, the conservatives and New German School both believing themselves to be the correct answer to Beethoven's life. Clearly, Beethoven was amazing in his own right before his importance was blown up in later decades.
I agree. In the social circles I'm in, classical music is not seen as "high class" but pretentious, but I enjoy Beethoven anyway. His music works as low art that's nice to listen to and I'd argue that's much more impressive than any pedestal the rich can put him on.
@@PragmaticAntithesis lol "low art", wtf are you talking about? Beethoven sparked an era of music that spread well beyond pretentious aristocrats and is still taught to this day for a reason. You clearly are not a musician.
You missed out on the most important argument about why Beethoven wasn't so great "Did Beethoven ever have his picture on a bubblegum card? How can you say someone is great if they never had their picture on a bubblegum card?" Lucy Van Pelt in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
I thought that Mozart was the stereotypical “best classical composer” that people felt were so great. Personally, I love Beethoven and think he’s better than Mozart, but most people I’ve met have thought of Mozart as a prodigy and the Einstein of music.
@Devin Belver Mozart's music is certainly *not* simple. Or at least not always. Listen to the finale of the Jupiter if you think that, or an ensemble from one of the Da Ponte operas or the E Flat String Trio (K.563).
I prefer Beethoven too, but they are equally great composers. Mozarts music isn't necessarily cheerful and simple. ua-cam.com/video/Ui9pyxdVX6Y/v-deo.html
@Devin Belver Your comment just reveals your ignorance of Beethoven and Motzart.. Hahaha "Mozart is used so much for soothing babies" and "Beethoven is DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN" Beethoven almost explored all kind of music in his lifetime, in the end of his life he even created pieces in style wasn't really come recognized untill in the 20th centur, "the Grosse Fuge" I think it was called. Listen for example to this concerto by Motzart to realize how ignorant you are about his music. ua-cam.com/video/3KHvNDn-o0s/v-deo.html ..And listen to Pathetique to realize that your knowledge about Beethovens music doesn't stretch further then the knowledge of a 5 year old that just introduced his music in pre- school. ua-cam.com/video/iCL5sHzlDOI/v-deo.html
Beethoven copied or was influenced by the aria "ah soccorso" of the first act of Don Giovanni by Mozart for the first movement of moonligth sonata, Check Out the minute 3:50 ua-cam.com/video/6XfkvANfYb4/v-deo.html
As a classical musician, this is one thing that frustrates me the most about the culture around classical music. People treat it as a status symbol rather than something to be enjoyed. Music, like any art, is about the experience, and therefore is inherently subjective, so there is no way to definitely crown one composer as "the greatest composer of all time." I knew Beethoven was considered one of the "Big Three," but I honestly had no idea people thought he was definitely the best over the other two, mostly because I've always liked Bach and Mozart more. In my experience, the classical canon has somewhat been updating over time. Maybe not for everyone, but at least in the sense of "if you want to seriously pursue classical music, these are the composers you need to be familiar with." While there are a significant amount of German composers, there's also a lot of French, Russian, and even American composers as well, though admittedly it's still mostly white men. Even so, that's among the people who actually make the music. I have no idea how it is among communities of people who just listen to it.
The biggest problem that classical music has is the audience. The vast majority of classical audiences consider any work composed in the past 100 years as something to simply endure until they get to the Beethoven or Mozart. It’s utterly depressing and I take my hat off to musicians and more so composers who are willing to put up with such utterly unadventurous and banal listenership.
@@nstrug Seriously, I've met so many audience members who's music history ends with Rachmaninoff or if they're more outgoing maybe even Stravinsky, much less modern composers like Unsuk Chin, Penderecki, Saariaho etc. who are still composing today, its kinda really annoying
@@aaronhaettenschwiller1626 Because contemporary classical is so avant-garde, like New Complexity, that it will probably take 100 years until the mainstream audiences catch up to its level.
@@hb712 To be honest if I had to explain to someone what Beethovens music is like beautiful would probably not be the first word I'd use either. I just couldn't find a better word for the point I was trying to make.
Idk I’ve been exploring Beethovens actual obscure compositions and I’ve found many sonatas and piano pieces that are just magical that show a good understanding of how to make music that inspires
I also think that Beethoven is held in such a high regard is because he pushed musical boundaries - especially in terms of harmony. It was him who pretty much led music from the classical era to the romantic era.
Neat video. A couple of points, though, where things seemed incomplete: 1. Regarding the short-term nature of pre-19th Century classical music, there is at least one exception, being the tune "L'homme armée", which was constantly re-used in parody masses over quite a long time. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that bit of medieval remix culture. 2. The stuff about nationalism is a bit more complicated than you presented things, since that's a broad umbrella term that covers both racist, jingoistic imperialism and national liberation movements fighting against racist, jingoistic imperialism. In a musical sense, the "nationalist schools" outside of Austria and Germany included a lot of forces who looked to folk music in their area to counter the German domination of classical music (Janacek, Grieg, etc.) and often looked to a broad range of fold traditions (Bizet, Bartok, etc.). So, while Wagner tried to purge all foreign elements from his music, Dvorak went out of his way to incorporate African-American music into his works, but both get classified as "nationalist composers". I'd liken the "nationalist schools" of classical music less to modern white nationalism, and more to 00s hip-hop where, after years of domination by New York and L.A., a whole bunch of local hip-hop scenes started getting mainstream attention, often doubling down up their own local accents and slang as a political statement.
“Mediaeval remix culture” isn't a phrase I'd think I'd ever encounter, but I'm not complaining that I did. Great comment. As a Czech I like seeing the specific mentions of Dvořák and Janáček; incredibly important musical figures over here, especially the former, nearly on the same level as Beethoven or Bach.
I’d like to point out that fusion jazz is larger in the NY scene as it’s more of a live scene. LA is the production side of music while NY is the live scene
Happened in the 18th century too. Metastasio was set hundreds of time, by people like Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Meyerbeer, and even Beehoven and Rossini (though never a full opera)
This whole conversation hits a lot of musicians who think the sheer quality of their music will be enough to gain an audience. Most artists hate the idea of marketing. Does great music rise like cream to the top on its own? Maybe some of it. The music industry would argue that they can make the public like anything with enough radio play, marketing and promotions. Some of yesterday's favorites are unknowns today.
I loved Billy Joel's "Shameless" when I got his album Storm Front. I was blown away. It seems like Garth Brooks felt the same and he was equally shocked it never appeared on the radio much less the charts. So he recorded a version which skyrocketed to the top of the charts. The song has become a part of the country canon and the canon of popular music in general. The difference? One person marketed it and the other didn't. You would think the sheer quality of the song would carry it but it didn't. But the big question is: Which artists and songs did history mistakenly forget and which ones did the industry push that should have been forgotten??
People think of The Doors and Queen as some of the greatest acts of the late 60s and 70s, but it wasn't until various movies came out that featured them that the public re-discovered them. I don't think they had that statue until the movies came out. The Val Kilmer one about the Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody was featured in at least two popular movies over the last couple decades.
Every time a symphony does a piece of something less well known or more "weird" they'll do it alongside a Beethoven symphony or some equivalent. Ultimately they have to sell tickets.
If it were only about that, they wouldn't play new pieces at all. This is done to 'force' audiences to listen to the new pieces. Put Beethoven on your program and everyone will show up. Then play the new piece they wouldn't come for and people might discover something new they enjoy, or at least be exposed to things outside of Beethoven, Mozart etc. and slowly learn to appreciate new music.
I agree with Daniel Edwards. It’s not a bad thing that this happens. People like what they know and people know Beethoven (or at least those who appreciate classical music). Music is music and let people like what they want and let them discover new things! I think it’s too harsh to criticize Beethoven because the music is actually amazing! But it’s also completely ok and great to discover new music
All of this and so much of our world is just a sliver of what music is. Music is so vast and there’s so much of it around the world. I say just let people listen to what they want to listen! For example there isn’t a valid criticism against one a Hindu who only listens to classical Indian music. There shouldn’t be a criticism against one who only listens to the western classical “canon”
@@Nadav3.0 I'm not trying to criticize anything but I work with an orchestra and ultimately the decisions are financially motivated especially because people are starting to care less and less about classical music the so it's pretty much essential to milk the pieces that will sell yes it also gets more people listening to modern pieces but that frankly isn't the motivation
One thing worth mentioning is how Beethoven's life story fits the trope of the tortured artist very nicely, being tragic and romantic in equal measure. There's a certain mysticism and mythology to the "greatest" composer of all time becoming deaf. It makes him appealing outside of the music itself because it's a very inspirational human story that people can connect to without having an acedemic knowledge of classical music. This doesn't discount anything mentioned in the video, but it does go someway to explaining why lovely lovely Ludwig is so embedded in the public consciousness.
@@gazicj did someone say GABBERING??? * plays 5th symphony motif on distorted 909 bassdrums * (Actually I didn't get your joke, so I just made my own... sry :'( )
That deaf argument needs to stop. While tragic, yes, Beethoven began losing his hearing at a time in his life when he was already at a level where he could simply hear the sounds in his head. That is an amazing skill, but one that any prolific professional composer can aquire. I will say that while his deafness wasn't as much of an issue to his musical ability, it was definitely still a huge influence on his music due to the deep depression that he found himself in. One of my favorite stories about Beethoven was a letter he wrote that almost served as a suicide note. In it he struggled with suicidal ideation, but the thing that pulled him out was the fact that he was so narcissistic he concluded that the world would suffer without his creativity and music. Thing is, he had the skill and pure talent to back-up his self-aggrandizing XD
@@Soarin_Altiss I'd disagree that "any prolific professional composer" could develop the skill to work only internally with no outside stimuli. No matter your skill and understanding of a medium, hearing/seeing it back is a very different experience to conceiving it. So yes, of course Beethoven was conceiving and composing in his head using his years of experience as reference, but the level and quality he was still able to produce is no easy feat, and isn't something that just anyone can do. And it still does not detract from the fact that Beethoven didn't hear 'Ode to joy' in the same way that following generations have.
I think it’s a shame Arthur Sullivan genius is rarely recognized. He composed gavotte’s, madrigals, patters, church songs. His graduation piece, The Tempest, is beautiful.
I minored in Musicology (or Music History) in college and one of my BIGGEST complaints was how reductive and limited the set of pieces we studied was. At the time I was fresh out of high school band where the majority of the works we played were composed by modern composers, including many contemporary composers. So I wrote a very agitated essay for one class that was titled something like "Equal Rights for Band Composers Now!" that was essentially a diatribe about the limited nature of the canon we studied, especially if a composer didn't primarily write for piano or symphony orchestra. I got an A on the essay, but the equivalent of a laugh and pat on the head by my tenured music professor. Beethoven's 9th is as close to perfect as the symphonic form ever got (IMHO) but it's time to get out of the rut. The fact that Mozart & Haydn dominate an *entire freaking period* of musical composition, like there were only 2 composers in the world, is mind boggling.
I feel precisely the same about Beethoven. It is as if Bach and Mozart (and to a decreasing extent due to politics, Wagner) are the only humans ever to have written a song other than Beethoven, who is generally referred to like he is the only composer in the history of the planet.
"Well, there was, his Fifth symphony, everyone knows that one, and his first, second, third, and fourth, which was like really cool too, and his, uh... His sixth one! Yeah, that was a great follow up, though his seventh was like not too great but okay. I loved his, uh, his moonlight sonata ones, and that one he didnt finish. Oh yeah, and his ninth."
@@jameswhitley4101 Don't forget the Pathetique Sonata (Opus 13), The Tempest (Opus 31), Apassionata (Opus 57), The Hammerklavier (Opus 106), and my father's favorite, the unnamed Opus 111. :)
@@photonicpizza1466 It's my 3rd favorite, after Pathetique, and Moonlight. While Moonlight is probably overrated, Tempest is definitely underrated, as you mentioned. ;) I note how all 3 of my favorites are piano sonatas, and if pressed I'd probably list more sonatas before listing a symphony (The 5th of course, followed by the 9th... I guess I'm pretty boringly conventional, and no surprise, the only instrument I can play at all is the piano... and no, I'm not good enough to actually play any Beethoven besides Fur Elise, and even that is a less than good rendition) I don't know where I was going with all this, but it is great to hear from someone who picks out the Tempest instead of Moonlight or the 5th... ;)
Listen to the sixth symphony, put down the fifth and ninth symphonies for a minute. It’s beautiful and peaceful, full of joy upon discovering the beauty of nature. An underrated work.
I find the 7th and 8th more captivating. The 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th are all generally accepted as incredible masterworks, the 8th symphony is the real underrated one IMO.
@@stephenwu1524 Funny enough...it's reported thT when asked by Czerny why his 8th symphony didn't receive as much enthusiasm as his 7th, Beethoven said "because the Eighth is so much better" 😂 Also read that he was overall disappointed by the reception! So in a word...Beethoven agrees, lol
The 6th is absolutely not underrated. It's a masterpiece known as a masterpiece 👌 I love the 7th because it delivers. Relatively short and cool tunes from beginning to end 😎
This video is encouraging me to listen to classical/romantic era music and figure out what I actually like. Thank you for making me realize I've just thought Beethoven and company to be great without actually forming that opinion myself.
It took me until 11:24 to realize something important. You are not arguing that Beethoven ACTUALLY sucks, but that it's not fair that he is canonized as "one of the greatest" to the exclusion of others, who aren't being included. If I've got you right, you're not saying that Beethoven is bad, but that other musicians might be better, but don't get enough recognition because "they aren't the right kind of people."
If you're looking for more modern music that truly innovated and also happens to be more diverse in authorship, look at jazz. It stands on its own as a peer to the greats of classical tradition. The title of this video has little to do with its content and I wish a more relevant title were chosen instead of clickbait.
@@marioaviles19 if you have any recommendations that mirror the musicianship in Jazz, I'd love to learn more. I've found the popular music that I've heard to be bland especially from a melodic and harmonic perspective and that has been an obstacle to my appreciation of the genre. I think I am simply ignorant of what is out there, though I concede that I have a strong bias in favor of Western musical practice including the innovations that Jazz brings. That bias may be an insurmountable obstacle but if I can learn to appreciate it I would like to.
@@FubukiShiromiya well, I think that what will help you better appreciate this more modern style is by focusing less on the harmonic and melodic material and focus on the other elements of the song. Namely the production. That said, I think you'd get a lot out of Kendrick Lamar's music
@@marioaviles19 Thank you for the recommendation and perspective. I'll check it out and hopefully develop a deeper appreciation or at least better understanding of the genre.
Even though I agree with most of what you said concerning the Canon (and, must say, it's very evident from a Brazilian perspective due to the evolution of our folk music) Beethoven is too big of a figure to consider it pure accident of right place and time. His mark was so huge and innovative in classical Western music that the composers of his time wondered whether his works have set the boundaries of musical creation or have opened the door to new paths, thus sparking the War of the Romantics (and before there was a concept of Canon in art). I love his work, and I love as his compositions sound like a crazy fractal mirror maze. They were ground-breaking at his time and still provoke amazement. I understand the purpose of the video to expose how Canon provokes bias on our opinions on music (and lots of white males earn the recognition). But there are reasons beyond the Canon to deem his works some of the most important for the Western classical music, which are essential to understand how it came to be
Im super late to this, but just by the sheer amount of work that classical composers put in their music, especially in those times when live was so difficult. Their passion and dedication is undeniable.
Beethoven had incredible harmonics in his pieces and expressed feeling describing the romantic era barely comparable to anybody else. His works are masterpieces without compare. Despite that, you are very much right. Most people are just familiar with his name and status, and unfamiliar with the idea and genious of the person, wich is a problem in many ways as you stated; i fully agree. And i also would like to hear "welcome to thr machine" composed by Beethoven or Händel
Beethoven was great surely, but claiming that he sucks just because people are not that familiar with his music is just ridicilous. The narrator even admits in the video that Beethoven doesn't suck, so the title is just full-blown clickbait.
Beethoven was one of the few composers (Monteverdi is the only other one that spring to mind) who changed the course of music. He was an enormous influence on the Romantics, and given that one could hardly throw a stone in early 19th Century Vienna without hitting a composer, it couldn't have all been due to his temporospatial location. I have taken part in a performance of his _Missa Solemnis_ , and defy any other composer, canon or not, to match the near-hysterical ecstasy of the _Gloria_ from that work. Was he the greatest composer who ever lived? Maybe not. Did he write work after work of amazing power, unlike anything before or since? Bet your ass he did.
".. feeling describing the romantic era barely comparable to anybody else" LOL excuse me? Are you insane? Have you ever heard about Chopin? Lol, the harmonical structure of many of Chopin’s pieces are among the grestest ever written. I want you to analyse the harmony on Ballade no 4 of Chopin’s and tell me if there's something remotely close thst Beethoven wrote it on piano. Seriously, your statemant is a joke and shows how much you don't understand musical theory. Beethoven was one of the greats, I am pretty sure about it! But his work on piano means nothing comparing to Chopin’s.
What is this new trend of amateurs trashing every single artist with talent in history and their works? "Shakespeare sucks" "Mozart sucks" "2001 Space Odyssey sucks" "The Beatles suck" "The lord of the rings suck" "Michael Jackson sucks" "Minecraft sucks" And a long etc.
As much as I agree with you, I do think Beethoven still revolutionized music by using very clever ideas to push classical forms and tonality to their limits, thus allowing romanticism to blossom. A closer look at his music easily reveals the scope of his intelligence. But admittedly, it could have been anyone else. He happened to have pretty much nothing more to do, had access to top-notch education, and the time was very right.
Vayhef - this argument cannot mean ‘anyone else’ it could mean something similar to what Malcolm Gladwell says about Bill Gates. He was born in the perfect year (1955) to an upper middle class family with access to a time sharing computer. But the many thousands of others with similar advantages didn’t create Microsoft. Beethoven has an incredible ear, endlessly inventive and exhaustive. He worked his buttons off and struggled with the rich assholes he depended upon. It wasn’t a difficult or close call about Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. Musicians knew this and the Canon is influenced by that the same way Dizzy can vouch for Parker or Keith Richards for the Blues masters who never profited from their work.
@@reganjo1955 good point, I should have been more nuanced on that. After all, many 19th century composers were so impressed by Beethoven's work that it detered them from walking in his steps, stating there was no point in doing so since he had already reached the top of the mountain. They refused to write pieces that would sound like "Beethoven but worse". If anything, that has to be the proof that in addition to having created the right art at the right time, he did actually perfect it, so much so that no one would dare walk in his shoes for decades. So yeah, he had it all : circumstances and genius.
@@jankbunky4279 it's still a bit confusing imo since I don't remember him really stating how witful and impactful Beethoven's writing was, which would make one think his fame is undeserved. But yeah it's no big deal, the video is still very insightful.
I don't believe it could have been anyone else. There are maybe a handful of other composers throughout history you could put in Beethoven's place and yielded results of the same magnitude.
Beethoven had a concert where he premiered the Fifth Symphony (the most famous of all time), the sixth (the Pastoral), and the 4th Piano Concerto (considered one of the greatest ever), and that wasn’t even half of the program! Leonard Bernstein’s opinion as to why Beethoven’s music was so great is that every note looks to be the right note, as if it had to be there, and couldn’t be changed without lessening the piece.
ok, came here because of the title, hopefully it really is about beethoven being bad and not just clickbait EDIT: interesting video, but i'm still disappointed
Hey, I don't particularly enjoy him either. What you can do is listen to his music and try to identify why you don't like it. Whether it be through music theory, cultural context, etc. It can then easily lead you to music you _do_ like more reliably than just through random discovery, and it's also a pretty neat intellectual exercise.
Are you kidding? I love Beethoven and have listened to *a lot* of his works. All of his symphonies, most of his sonatas, a lot of his string works, all bagatelles. And Beethoven is my favorite composer. And there are so many things that make Beethoven great, with these just being a few: - Quick, 1 chord modulations, often using a diminished seventh chord - Unifying themes of extreme contrast via shared motifs(Like for example, a fast, tense, energetic, minor theme unified with a slow, peaceful, tranquil, major theme e.x Fifth Symphony First Movement) - Parallel major-minor motions that feel like modulations in their own right(In fact, I often use the term Parallel Modulation to describe what happens in for example the second B section of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata Rondo, where it sounds like it's going to end in a peaceful C major and then *Bam!* 1 chord and you are back in the tense C minor, because just saying Modal Interchange sounds so wrong when it isn't only a few chords of major in otherwise minor or vice versa, but Parallel Modulation sounds right, regardless of how many people say it isn't a thing) - His use of Chromatic Mediants to both add and release tension(His Pastoral Symphony and the Tarantella from his 18th piano sonata both have these distant but still connected chord relations) And I could go on and on, but you get the point. Point is, so what if musicology is screwed at it's core? So what if Beethoven broke the rules more often than Mozart and Haydn before him? He is still a great composer because his music is great. Beethoven didn't suck! People say he's a rough orchestrator. Not for his time he isn't! People say he wasn't good at Counterpoint. Uh, have a listen to Grosse Fuge and see if you still think he isn't good at Counterpoint. Counterpoint changes with time you know, from the strictly algebraic that is Bach's day to just 2 melodies that sound good combined(Modern times). You can't judge a book by it's cover. You need context. I have that context because I listen to Beethoven all the time. Most people do not have that context.
I feel like Shakespeare also gets this treatment with regard to writing... to a much more extreme, almost religious level. In both cases, it's not fair to modern writers/musicians/writesicians, but, just to play devil's advocate, I'd argue it's also freeing. If there's no point in aspiring to be "the best there ever was", I think you get many more people trying to do things that haven't been done before and building things that have meaning to them, rather than needing to build off some other acclaimed artist's masterpiece in order to be considered "good". There are still people out there who do that, of course, 'cause nothing's absolute... but I think without the idea that some moldy old skeleton in a crypt you'll probably never see was always going to be better than you, we'd get a lot more of them.
@@thomaswinwood very interesting. I imagine there would be intense pushback from all those academics who think it's "perfect". Myself I'd certainly like to read translated versions, even just out of curiosity.
I don’t know anything about Shakespeare, but from what I’ve heard his stuff is written with a rhythm sort of like music. And translating would ruin that.
@@dfdfdgggjhjjh5081 Counterpoint 1: not necessarily. As a songwriter myself I can tell you there's a lot you can do to twist around this language and sometimes even keep it sounding fairly natural at the same time. Translations of, say, TV shows or movies from other languages do this all the time in order so that the dialogue won't keep going when the actors' lips stop moving. Could you take that whole idea this far for a whole play? Maybe not, but you could certainly preserve some of it. Counterpoint 2: Musical rhythm or not, it would still be helpful to be able to actually tell what's going on in the play -- especially when you're just reading it and it's not being performed in front of you. When it comes to people who just want to read the things and see what all the fuss is about, I can guarantee you you'd see more appreciation for every aspect of the writing if they had two versions they could flip back and forth between when they found something difficult to decipher.
Personally, I always hated Shakespeare. It mostly is "love wins in the end" in one way or another, while actual human motivators like revenge are getting tossed aside as lowly and degenerate. It's as if Shakespeare was a time traveling Disney-employee writing edgy fanfiction. It's so romantic, that it almost seems grimdark.
First of all, Beethoven could write Pink Floyd-esque pieces. And he did. (Obvious example is Moonlight 1st mvmt which easy to imagine being played with Gilmour's touch and aesthetic) Of course, he did not have the knowledge of the modern sonic vocabulary. Yet still. Just saying. Also there is vast amount of people who genuinely love Beethoven's music, deeply. Not just for the music itself, but the progress of thought. He pushed the thought forward. I completely understand there are as well many people who just want to seem better so they say they like Beethoven, 'cause it's, you know, trendy. But it can be applied to any other artists. Moreover, people who say that they "don't like Beethoven" say it because it's trendy. It's not Beethoven's problem, it's the problem of our society. Everyone's trying to be better and still don't want to put effort. Music IS just a wiggly air, and all the value lies in a constant listeners' work on expanding the vocabulary to be able to perceive great works and achieve the greatest possible inber emotional response. No pain, no gain. Yet people are willing to listen to some crappy -thing- with no pitch information, no harmonic information and they now it, but still want to be treated as people with a fully developed musical taste. So, occasionally they say they like Beethoven. Sometimes they say they like Pink Floyd. Sometimes they try to invalidate "Western Music" entirely for no reason other than just because it's a trend. Leave my man Beethoven alone, he's great and deserves some rest.
"Snobs like Western music and it's full of white people so therefore it's bad." Exactly, that is the trend. Annoys the hell out of me. Before I went to music school, I did enjoy Beethoven, but it wasn't until I learned about all that he contributed to the genre and how he evolved it that I really truly came to appreciate just how magnificent he was. And guess what - I can say that without invalidating other composers. It's possible to like multiple composers. Hell, I wouldn't even say Beethoven's my favorite, but he is one of the greats for a damn good reason.
@@Cabrono You know, both of you guys would have had good points, if this video were actually criticising Beethoven or saying that he sucks or "invalidating" him, but 12tone hasn't done any of that, so...
@@Copperhell144 Sometimes I feel UA-cam comment sections would be far more civil, on-topic, and interesting if there was a rule that you couldn't leave a comment until having watched the video for half its running time.
The Bourdieu + Cage theory combo is the "system" we're not allowed to get out of. If Beethoven's wasn't actually good, if he was just a name good to drop around, no one today would listen to his music. For instance, there would be none of his compositions updated on YT to be listened to for free - it sounds like a dumb example, but it wouldn't be the case if "everyday people" didn't like his music - if his was just a big name on a list. On the other hand, do people listen to La Monte Young (since you cited him in another video) or Cage outside of music studies? Do you? The systematic attack of "the canon" (the religious comparison is so /classy/) in an attempt bring down all the "big names" is a very symptomatic postmodern move which only brings forth what it pretends to "unmask": nominalism (arbitrary attribution of value through authority; empties any value of its actual quality and leaves it to be just a name), greed and snobbism (money and self-centeredness are the last "values") and most importantly, a class of theorists who *do* perpetuate *an actual system*: academic theories staler than an old bag of chips whose survival relies purely on a continuous preaching by fully indoctrinated professors. Crazy how getting out of the "tradition dogma" 60 years ago allowed us to progress so much that no other theory has emerged asides from radicalized versions of all those post-war thinkers, right? One of my reasons for saying all this is that I'm an art history student, I don't know anything about music theory, yet all these arguments are the EXACT SAME when it comes to contemporary art (which is probably bc Cage had a rather important part in theorizing it, at least that's the conclusion I've come to). It truly is a broken record at this point. Cheers.
Shakespeare is damn good, but he's so flawed, and we don't have any genuine manuscripts of his, afaik, they were all collected from each actors' parts. Academic Literature needs some better authors than an English guy and some white Americans who were to liberal in their use of the n word
@@spartacuz9er9er69 damn straight. he's good, don't get me wrong, one of the best to ever do it. but he's not the be all end all. hes really not all that relevant in today's field of literature, and I think we should stop acting like he is tbh
@@dylandarcy1150 I would disagree with that, many of his works still are relevant, Julius Caesar and the Tempest off the top of my head, but some (Taming of the shrew, say) do need to be left out, or at least critically analysed. Personally, I love to read his works with a feminist or progressive eye, just to see how much was a product of his time, and what wasn't. Take the work of Arthur Conan Doyle for instance, the original Irene Adler is a proto-feminist icon, she is objectively in the right in her story, and outsmarts Holmes. Is she a particularly powerful woman by modern standards? No, of course not, but the beginnings are there, they're just affected by the culture
The mention of how D.A.W.'s are ignored by school honestly made my day. as a mobile producers who specializes in hard bass music like Dubstep, I truly believe that EDM is one of the most forgotten and exiled umbrella genres. If you were to ask "name 5 music genres." or maybe "what music do you listen to?", most would either answer with "Pop, Rock, Metal, Country, and Rap." or "I don't know, whatever is on the radio I guess". and that really sucks, because there are some brilliant people who create amazing music that takes just as long, and just as much effort as other genres. hell, I decided to try and learn more about music to help me make my own better and be more happy with my final releases by taking a music theory class, and it has barely taught me anything of worth. I mean, it's barely even a music theory class, it's a music history class with occasional theory lessons thrown in. I don't even care about those lessons either though because I'm tired of that class and how much bs and useless info it's been giving me. I really wish that there was some class where one could learn about all 'main' genres of music. I want to learn more about how rock is made, have a lesson about how the vocalist of Gojira controls his voice so well while keeping the intense metal screaming and growling, something about the details in rap numbers, or something as broad as 'lyric writing'. sorry for the ramble, but thats been really getting under my skin for a while now...Have a nice day, Cheers! ^v^
He's 'Composer of the Week' on BBC Radio 3 every other week all this year (to celebrate the 250th anniversary) and I've been enjoying his back story. :)
You basically don't speak about his music but about the canon at a meta level, attacking the subject by one angle. There is one big contradiction, you underline the importance of actual musical quality and suggest a reexamination of the canon under new criteria. However you also say that the quality of Beethoven's music doesn't matter in an "abstract sense" note the use of vocabulary here to diminish importance. I'm quite dissapointed of this video. I really deeply enjoy the music of Beethoven since I'm very young (my best friend played a lot of it, he's now working on his own music theory). From an analytical point of view at least you had the honesty to concede Beethoven's music is great. Yes history did "reward him" but not in the sense you frame it. He didn't happen to be in the transition between the classical and romantic era, he was the transition, his music was. I have sympathy for the emotions that drove this video, but it is very poorly researched compared to the rest of your content. Why? Because it defends an a priori political view that you strive to defend.
Another point about Ludwig was that he was mostly deaf for half of his life. I can't think of another composer who has that disability. Like an Olympic sprinter having one leg
I think one topic you didn't really talk about is how music changed from composers performing their work to performers performing other composers' work. There was also a glaring omission when you talked about Bach writing for a patron and his tastes when a large portion if not at least half of his works were for the church. I agree with your point that we hold on to the idea that "older is better," but rather than "move on" which is the theme I got from your video, I'd argue we should just add composers to the canon. You also approached the topic of the music from a popular/elitist point of view, and while that does play a significant role, you'd be remiss not to take into account what the big names did to actually contribute or revolutionize music in their time. There is a reason why Mozart and Beethoven both looked upon Bach's work with admiration. What was that reason? Don't you think it would be important to include this video? Were there others, should there be others? Yes. But, your video dismisses their genius and simply attributes their longevity to canon. Another factor you completely glanced over is instruments. I'm not going to hear an oboe concerto at the top of the current music charts. If symphonies did not serve as a home to these classical instruments, we would be robbing future generations of learning these instruments and probably condemning some of the more obscure instruments to die. And the elitism goes both ways. People who only listen to popular contemporary music dismiss anything that is more complex than a song in simple 4/4 with a common chord progression.
_"you'd be remiss not to take into account what the big names did to actually contribute or revolutionize music in their time. There is a reason why Mozart and Beethoven both looked upon Bach's work with admiration. What was that reason? Don't you think it would be important to include this video? Were there others, should there be others? Yes. But, your video dismisses their genius and simply attributes their longevity to canon."_ Yes, good point. The canon isn't totally arbitrary. I feel like usually (at least these days) the classical canon is about the most "important" composers. It doesn't mean that their music is necessarily better, but it means that they had a big influence on music. Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest composers for the same reason as why Jimi Hendrix is considered to be one of the greatest electric guitar players and why The Beatles are considered to be one of the greatest pop/rock bands. Obviously we should also give recognition to artists outside of the canon. But I think it's also important to make a distinction between what artists we subjectively like, and what artists we should appreciate, even if they didn't make my personal favorite music.
@@MaggaraMarine "I think it's also important to make a distinction between what artists we subjectively like, and what artists we should appreciate, even if they didn't make my personal favorite music" But this distinction is arbitrary and entirely focused on an extremely eurocentric view of music. There's plenty in middle-eastern and other oriental musical traditions, for example, that have been large influences in our modern musical landscape, but that you'll never even hear mentioned because said influences aren't a part of western canon. This doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate the composers within this canon, but the value we apply to them excludes other equally useful influences from that level of appreciation - and, in part, due to inflexibility.
@@henriquepacheco7473 _"But this distinction is arbitrary and entirely focused on an extremely eurocentric view of music."_ Well, I thought we were talking about the Western classical canon here... That's what the video was also talking about, so I don't see why "Eurocentiricity" would be an issue in this context. The "classical canon" is by definition about Western classical music. I'm not saying there aren't artists that would deserve more recognition. All I'm saying is that there's a difference between your own taste ("I like this random hipster band, and in my opinion, they would deserve a lot more recognition"), and the more "objective" influence/importance of certain artists ("Personally, Beethoven isn't my favorite composer, but I recognize his importance in a historical sense"). Then again, it is true that people put these big classical composers on a pedestal. Some people worship their genius and treat them as some kind of "musical gods". And I doubt these people would recognize similar talent from the music of other genres or cultures. So, if we are talking about the "top composers/songwriters/musicians of all time", then treating Beethoven as the greatest of all time would be more questionable, because a lot of things have happened in music since him. But then again, I think a list like that would be too vague any way, and it would be comparing apples to oranges. For example why would Beethoven deserve more recognition than Jimi Hendrix? Both were hugely important figures in music, and comparing the two just wouldn't make much sense. It's easier to compare different musicians in the same style than to compare two musicians from totally different styles and eras. But if we are only talking about the classical canon (and don't focus on the way some people treat these composers as some kind of super-humans/demigods), then Beethoven's position on the list is deserved because of his influence. It isn't just about people's opinions - it's also about his importance in general. He pretty much started the romantic period, and a lot of romantic composers were hugely influenced by his music. He was pretty much treated as the "pinnacle of music" by a lot of composers back then. Then again, there's a discussion to be had on why it's exactly Beethoven that's seen as the most important composer in classical music. Why not someone like Monteverdi who basically started the baroque period, and was one of the innovators of opera? Why not someone like Perotin who was one of the first composers that started writing 3- and 4-part harmony? It seems like we value the opinions of 19th century classical musicians over the classical musicians from the previous centuries... But yeah, basically I'm saying that Beethoven's position as one of the greatest classical composers is deserved, just like Jimi Hendrix's position as one of the greatest rock guitarists is deserved. I mean, Michael Angelo Batio could easily play any Hendrix song, and a lot more complex stuff than that, but that doesn't make him "greater" than Jimi Hendrix. And this is because of influence. Hendrix totally changed guitar playing. MAB on the other hand is just a technically proficient shredder, but didn't really do much to change the "meaning" of guitar music. In other words, I think there are certain names that deserve to be on these lists simply because of their importance - not because people simply like their music. Hendrix's influence is more than just someone thinking Purple Haze is a banger. And similarly, Beethoven's influence is more than just someone thinking Ode to Joy is a catchy melody. Those are just arbitrary opinions. What makes them great is not some random opinions. It is about their influence. They kind of "redefined" their own styles.
@@MaggaraMarine I think you, then, understand the point this video is making. It isn't denying Beethoven's worth, but rather pointing out that usually the western classical canon is propped up as the absolute primacy of music, to the detriment of all other music that preceded, coexisted with and that followed it - and that it does so in significant part because of the biases of the people that historically structured the academic construct of the canon.
recognizing other new geniuses does NOT require to destroy and replace old school composers! Why should we replace them, when we can just add more to the canon?
To add to that: who can say that our changes to a canon are not just as politically motivated? Sure a canon will represent the zeitgeist but I find it worrying when people say we can update or change a canon to be "correct". It will always be an imperfect tool, which luckily plenty of people already know. Contrary to what this video seems to suggest.
@@20xx-mm-dd I did watch a video, did you? The video literally suggests that Beethoven literally got on the cannon out of sheer f****** luck. It named some women composers and composers of color, but I wonder what those composers had said about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? All right, they all hail damage the greatest composers and would have never have dared to even try to compare themselves, as most composers during the nineteenth century Europe also would never have dared.
@@20xx-mm-dd If Beethoven actually sucks at music and is only on the canon as a matter of some cosmic fluke, he OUGHT to be removed. Follow the reasoning of the argument ACTUALLY being made in this video.
I feel like the solution to this is to change the way we think of the canon composers, rather than to shoehorn in a bunch of composers in to make it more inclusive. The canons were made mostly in Germany to portray mostly German music but was later thought of to represent all music, and since classical music was the music of the upper class, the canon composers were seen as the “fanciest musicians”. Beethoven was chosen because he not only was a good musician but he also significantly influenced German music, same with the others. The romanticist composers like Chopin and Tchaikovsky are a bit different since they weren’t really “classical” but they are known for having significant influence as well. Since classical and classical-like music (romanticist music) was made in the west, it makes sense that the canon composers would be white, similar to how the most famous jazz musicians or rap artists are black. Changing the canon list without keeping the classical music and influence aspects would just make it loose meaning. Making the composers be seen as specifically the best classical musicians rather than the best musicians is the best way to make the composers seen with more realistic eyes.
@@rossconnolly3402 -Beethoven sucks, who has even listened to him? Its probably because hes old. Do you like music? Well I bet you havent listened to him anyway, god forbid studied him. Etc etc etc
@@RobinJWheeler I'm a 20 year old classically trained pianist and I compose, the uploader is an idiot and not qualified to make videos about the master Beethoven.
@@rossconnolly3402 I like a lot of his other videos and he knows what hes talking about a lot more than me. Its just a bit weird for him to act like Beethoven wasn't as incredible as he was.
As someone that is in the "I can hum and enjoy a few parts of 5th and 9th" group I really enjoy in this way of thinking of not discounting the present just because I enjoy the past. Thank you for this other point of view!
I've listened to classical music for over 60 years. I've continued to listen to it because it's the perfect tonic for heart and mind. In my early teens, I was a great proselytizer for classical music. I was young, enthusiastic, naive and learned some hard lessons about the varieties of taste and preference that exist. Rather soon, the proselytizing went away. I found that the person I had to please was myself and this was my goal with listening to music. Why, after all this time, does Brahm's 4th symphony still so deeply move me? I could say the same thing about the last three symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven's 7th symphony or Bach's partitas and sonatas for violin...and this is the tip of the iceberg. Why does classical music, for me, offer hope, beauty, consolation and inspiration? I don't really know, it just does and always will. Something I found about classical music is that you either "get it" or you don't. It's as though you're born with a preference for it. It may be a personality type. Perhaps Jung could explain it. It is also an integral part of European culture and mindset. For me, classical music has been the greatest of gifts and had enriched my life beyond measure. I couldn't live, in any meaningful way, without it.
I get it, i have it, and yes only classical music does it for me. I have both books of wtc memorized. That doesn’t stop me from realizing that my preference for this kind of music was predetermined by the place and people I was born into. I was born into middle class parents who wanted to signal higher class status by sending their kids to piano lessons at an early age, only listened to classical music at home and talked about european paintings and sculptures and literature, even though we are middle eastern. And I don’t know jack shit about the culture of my own country. Am I mad? No. Do I understand that me writing fugues in my spare time was influenced by all these facts? Yes. Only classical music does it for me, as I told before. But I am also cognizant of the fact that classical was the only thing I ever listened to as a kid, and to this day.
Say one thing for old Ludwig: while all the classical canon composers were rhythmically stunted as a result of not being exposed to African music (that's why I had expected this video to be about), Beethoven was shockingly funky in comparison to the others. Just listen to the rhythms in the first minute or two of Symphony 3: Mvt. I. You can find the most prevalent West African bell pattern in there and he's doing wild things with it. I'm guessing that if Beethoven had been given access to 2020 UA-cam, he would have gone wild with it. He was also considered a wildly anti-canon musical arsonist during his lifetime. In fairness, he also appears to have been one of the most appalling jackasses in history in terms of his personal life.
I used to not care for Beethoven particularly. But his music sucked me in, deeper than any other music I have known. I didn't choose it. This is true for countless musicians and listeners. More musicians have build their careers around Beethoven than any other composer, and not because it "belongs to the cannon," so they feel they should. They so because it draws them in. Because they love the music endlessly. Its what they want to play, and its what people want to hear. This video wasn't bad in the end. But it didn't need the dumb click-baity title. Beethoven has nothing to do with your personal problems. leave him out of it.
Beethoven has meant a lot to me over the years. He regularly explores tragedy and hope. He’s very versatile through different stages of life. I’ve also really come to enjoy Dvorák, Rossini, and others. I try to branch out and regularly engage with music by composers other than white men. Some of it really resonates me, and some of it doesn’t. Ultimately, I believe that’s okay. If you love Beethoven and want to listen to nothing else, that’s perfectly okay. If you hate Beethoven and he does nothing for you, that’s okay too. Art is subjective. Don’t force yourself to follow someone else’s standards-and don’t force someone else to follow yours. Find what you like, and allow others to do the same. It’s beneficial to branch out sometimes, but you do you.
I mean.. its obviously a clickbait title but you never even try to make that point. Trying to prove that Beethoven is considered great for reasons that aren't the quality of his music doesnt prove that the quality of Beethoven's music isn't great. I spent the whole video looking for an objective analysis to back up the title but it just isn't there. I love your work 12tone, but the title is too obvious of a troll, and unnecessarily agitating.
I agree the video title was clickbait, but based on the video itself, his focus wasn't on measuring the quality of Beethoven's music but on a distinct but related topic: the formation of the classical music canon. Keeping that in mind, I think his video did a great job of presenting his view on canon formation.
I think the title is really apt: the only reason the title is clickbait is because Beethoven is so accepted as one of the greats, and the video dives right into the analysis of why specific composers are considered great.
It’s weird that Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer is what triggered such a negative reaction considering in the hip hop world Kendrick kinda is high art (though he does still crossover with the mainstream far more then, say, The Roots). But it’s not like they have a Pulitzer to Blueface or whatever. (don’t get me wrong we also stan Blueface)
if i understand u correctly, wat ur saying is, the blueman group. my preliminary assessment is that, i got it-though further study is warranted. sorry, i’m slow.
@@mackereltacos2850 I'd lay money that the first jazz composer to win a Pulitzer stirred fights if he was Black. May have even upset people anyway, since jazz was not considered music by the ultra-snobby racist set.
Seeing the title I thought I was going to see a video arguing through music about the value of Beethoven. Unfortunately, it was nothing more than a clickbait that talks about inequality using as a vehicle a musician whose best-known work talks about the brotherhood of peoples! In the next video, explain to us why orcs are those poor proletarians who fight for a fairer world.
This video has several of the kinds of moments that I find the most persuasive of all; where I put my agreement or disagreement to the side because what I'm hearing is so plainly-simple and good humored (I laughed at the parts about Pink Floyd) that it makes more sense than something complicated, snobbish or mean-spirited possibly could. By 5:42, you've at least hinted at the main point. The late 1700s were a time of great worldwide class struggle, where an upper class had their elite music, and the "lower classes" still wanted to sing songs and have parties and dancing. It was two directly-conflicting ways of "owning" music (and other arts) that has for centuries been a defining aspect of the struggle for spiritual freedom. Long live rock and roll, folk, hip-hop, and enjoying life.
I find it very interesting that in the past grave classical music was so mainstream, while today it isn't. I would make a case for a possible personality change in culture: Today there isn't much left of the "epic" gravity of the past, instead lighter and more "fun" music is appreciated much more. But in domains like video games epic music has survived: Because the narrative itself - for example a boss battle - demands "epicness" and gravity. It is ironic that video games (like Dark Souls) continue the tradition of this sort of music seemingly much more than temporary classical music. When I listen to choir music, it is most often in video games nowadays! :D
As a definite classical music fanboy (not that I scoff at other genres, I listen to all of them and enjoy them, just that _some_ classical music has found its way very deep into my heart), it seems to me that because of this stupid and untrue high art / low art distinction there was a separation of motives, with one group pursuing deep essential profundity at the cost of all surface aesthetics (the "epic gravity" thing), and another dismissing that as a fool's errand and going for just the best looks. In essence, it's like nowadays music can be either "pretty" or "deep" but not both anymore. This is truly heartbreaking for me, because these traits are not opposites, but rather, two sides of same coin. Music is the greatest form of art, not because it's the highest, but because it's simultaneously the highest _and_ the lowest, and as such, captures the full spectrum of humanity; All of my favourite composers, classical or not, understood this truth, that beauty of sound and and depth of meaning are one and the same, and purposely amputating one from the other is ultimately a disservice to both. I will leave you with a (translated) quote from my very tippity-top favourite composer, the quite apparently very misunderstood Beethoven (yes, actually): "Music is the mediator between the sensual and the spiritual"
Classical music wasn't "mainstream" in the past, it was the music of the elites. Normal people had always have folk music. Also, there's some pretty uninspired "Epic" music often used in big block busters and some really deep popular music.
The distinction is not so much between 'grave' and 'serious' on the one hand, and 'light' and 'fun' on the other. The main difference lies in rhythm and physicality (and, by extension, danceability and sensuality). This is why people raised on "popular music" often find classical music unexciting and inaccessible.
@jacobpast5437 Sure, that can play a role too. Maybe more "cerebral" people who are disconnected from their body (like typical nerds) tend to prefer classical music to the more physicality oriented pop music or rock music etc, because the body orientedness fills them with some sort of "shame".
I feel like another thing that goes overlooked about the canon and the "Great Composers" is the fact that the pieces we associate them with are a very small percentage of their work. They wrote lots and lots of pieces, and only the "best" ones are the ones we associate them with. It makes it more difficult for new composers, who have to, for example deal with EACH of their new compositions being compared with the "best" pieces of Mozart's music that are sorted from ALL of his works, maybe a selection of 10 or 20 well-known pieces out of hundreds of total works. Kinda makes it hard to find your footing when the fifth piece you've written is compared to a hand-selected 1 in 600 piece from another composer. EVERY composer writes good and bad music, and it's a bit of an unfair standard to compare a blossoming composer who only has a few works to someone who's written hundreds or thousands of works to choose the "best" from.
Guilty of exactly what you are protesting. Love watching and studying you stuff. I was VERY interested in seeing an explanation of why “Beethoven Sucks”. You did not review or evaluate in any way his music. Isn’t that the point you brought up, that people do not look at the product,, just where it came from? If you tell me that he sucks, then tell me why. For the first time, I am very disappointed with one of your works.
They weren't interested in making the object-level point ("Beethoven good/bad.") - they don't state in the video whether they actually think Beethoven sucks or not, and discussing it isn't the purpose of it. The goal of this video was to get people to think about the meta level of this topic - How come most people say "Beethoven is Great™", despite not having listened to his works? What is a canon? Why are works in it? What are its consequences? (Complaining about clickbait is valid, ofc - if everyone would do it willy-nilly, it makes finding videos we actually want to watch harder.) [EDIT: Wrong pronouns, my bad. And like Leo Hecht pointed out: 11:47. My point remains that the quality of Beethoven is not relevant to this video, and the title is just an entry point.]
He says he doesn't think beethoven sucks at the end. Basically just a way to start the conversation / get people to click on the video. You missed the entire point of the video, which was very well explained by nibblrr.
@@leohecht6837 It's not the viewer's fault to not get the idea of a video if the title hasn't anything to do with the content of the video. At least I was watching this video with an assumption that he is going to explain why Beethoven's music is bad, because that's what the title is telling.
Pate Pulkkinen/vtec okay that’s fair, I think clickbait is kind of lame but after watching the video you should be able to realize that the title was just clickbait because the discussion in the video really is quite different than the title. The 4 word title should have less influence on your takeaway from the video than the content of the 15 minute video
As a classical musician I can say with certainty that Beethoven is just that good. He isn't great by accident he is great by his amazing and beautiful works, he'll even just playing his pieces is fun. Moonlight sonata 3rd was hard to learn but oh so fun to play. He is a musical genius and is not even slightly overrated. He might not be my personal favourite (that spot belongs to Chopin), but I do consider him the best.
I agree with this more than I do most of the other comments here! You're exactly right: nobody is famous by accident. They can be famous for what might seem to some people to be a trivial reason, but ultimately they still have or do something that a significant number of people value. A major reason there are so many German/Austrian (and also Italian) composers from the time is largely because the culture of the time in those places emphasized music. Around the same time, Britain was famous for literature for similar reasons.
Just to be clear, the early German nationalist movement (from around the 1850s onward) was NOT the same as the Nazi movement nor did it necessarily lead to it. It was initially just a push for unification of German-speaking countries/kingdoms at the time as well as for democracy in this new Germany. That being said it was nationalism all the same and you are probably right about German nationalism influencing the Canon of "great composers".
German nationalism ultimately led to the rise of the Nazis, though. Granted, the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles played a major role in that, too.
In my long distant past, I played plenty of Beethoven. "Moonlight Sonata, the first movement" was my favorite piece for decades. He's got a LOT out there, and I enjoyed him greatly.
Beethoven wasn’t such a snob himself: everyone knows about his Pastoral 6th Symphony, but he also included Folk influences in his 2nd Symphony, which I like to call the “Rodney Dangerfield” symphony because it don’t get no respect. The second Larghetto movement is gorgeous, the Scherzo is Schizoid, the final movement starts with a musical fart joke, and it’s generally quite nuts.
I'm interested in an explanation to the "fart joke" in the finale. I've been exploring Beethoven's symphonies lately, and gave the 2nd a listen. I absolutely loved the 1st movement, thought the 2nd was great too, and was disappointed in the 3rd and 4th movement.
Any Scherzo that isn't schizoid is doing it wrong. Scherzo literally means "joke" and sometime I feel like the only person who ever understood that was Dvorak who starts the scherzo for the New World with a percussionist going nuts on the triangle. :) I've definitely always described the opening of the 2nd's finale as the musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel :)
@@5BBassist4Christ The "fart joke" isn't canonical: it's based on what people knew about Ludwig at the time, complaining about gastric problems. I see that as trying to cheer himself up and have some fun during the very difficult period when his hearing was clearly deteriorating.
That time was known as being an important music industry. Beethoven started earlier. He was put into this composer make machine when little. He is a product of this machine, and this evolution was directed to aim high to a point. Mozart, the same. Multicultural cities were uncommon in europe, unless we talk about ports. Some pieces stand and others sank. What´s the most canon piece of modern days in this kind of music? John cage? Yes, the ones you can recognize. No matter how many times they play something in the radio it will die. And only because of nostalgia of bombardment will "rise" again. The problem to address is not they were black composers in vienna or germany at the time. The problem is why europe was the center of worldwide canon. Why here in southamerica should we listen to european people playing european music and not our own? Maybe has something to do with colonialism. Or imperialism. The why i am speaking in english right now. Of course you have heard of Luis Advis. His most famous work resonates here. But i don´t think i could be sad because the color of his skin wasn´t inclusive. I can´t see how. At the end of the day, i only listen to music i like. And how i know i like it? I just listen, when something resonates with me, i look for the name of the song, or the piece. I want to repeat that experience. "Wow, i shouldn´t listen to Shostakovich, today trend fashion is being anticommunist and once he was seen looking at a red flag in the beach. And is not from my country. But this is good or bad?" BTW, your work is brilliant. no irony, i really mean it.
Watching this again after really studying Beethoven for the past year of my life, and this video only got worse since I last watched it. Listen to the tortured fugatto of the second movement of his 3rd symphony and tell me that he was “just in the right place at the right time”. Beethoven is THAT good, and this video reeks of hatred for that fact rather than genuine investigation of it.
I'm a fan of this nuanced critique of a canon that I never gave much thought to. Makes me glad that some of my favorite artists don't just pull from classical influences, but also non-western stuff to. I also thank peeps like Adam Neely for opening my ears to "non-standard" harmonies, scales, and rhythms.
I think it presents a one-sided portrayal of the classical canon. He does present that one side accurately, but he leaves out how the classical canon has always been contested by its participants. As Charles Rosen puts it, "The essential paradox of a canon, however-and we need to emphasize this repeatedly-is that a tradition is often most successfully sustained by those who appear to be trying to attack or to destroy it. It was Wagner, Debussy, and Stravinsky who gave new life to the Western musical tradition while seeming to undermine its very foundations."
1. In the cultural context I was raised in, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (the "First Viennese School" or Wiener Klassik) are regarded as the three greatest classical composers. Of these, _Mozart_ is considered the greatest-not Beethoven. This quasi-religious view has little to do with personal preference. It must always be framed as something like, "Mozart is, of course, the greatest, but personally, I prefer Beethoven." The only composer you might be allowed to consider greater than these three is Bach, who is seen as beyond comparison-the "grandfather genius." However, voicing such an opinion might mark you as either a music nerd detached from the real world, or worse, someone just trying to appear exceptionally cultured and intellectually superior. 2. If we aim to establish a canon of the greatest Western composers from the pre-popular music era based on _objective criteria of quality,_ then characteristics like skin color, nationality, sex, and gender would, by definition, not play a role. However, it’s possible no such objective criteria can be established-and addressing that question should have been the starting point of the discussion in this video. Now if we concede there are no objective criteria, then, clearly, we also cannot claim that "Beethoven sucks at music" (or anyone else, at that). 3. On a personal note, I love a great deal of Renaissance and Baroque music and often find the classical composers who followed these periods either superficial (Mozart, for instance, in much of his work, seems to have been the frivolous pop star of his time) or deafeningly melodramatic. For me, music begins to resonate again with Rock and, more specifically, Hardcore Punk and related genres.
1.) The canon was created when concert culture started to become a thing in Europe. They needed a list of masters that would sell tickets. Mid 1800s I believe not mid 1900s. 2.) The whole reason the canon focuses on Germany is because Austria, specifically Vienna, was the musical capital of the world for the longest time during the classical and romantic period. They shaped the face of western music and understanding of harmony as we know it. 3.) Beethoven is considered the best composer because of how he mastered the principals of counterpoint and achieved flawless harmonic and melodic balance. His masterpieces specifically his 9th symphony has been played during celebrations everywhere from Germany to Japan. It is one of the most universally loved pieces of music in recorded history. It's not only played these days, but it never stopped being played since 200 years ago when it was first performed. Edit: I've since learned new information. Beethoven is praised not only because of his music, but his impact. Critiquing him is like critiquing something like Gravity. His career was such a lynchpin in freedom of expression in music that we would not have anything like we do in the western music circle without him. That's why he's the greatest composer of all time. Not just because of his music, but because of his legacy and impact. He shook the music world to it's core in many ways as early as his 3rd symphony. He was the first truly free artist. He was free to explore whatever he wished within his time. And the 9th? That was absolutely revolutionary. He did what he wanted, and we do what we want now because of that. We should thank him for that.
10:00 "can we do something about that"? yes. - classical german canon - new german canon - english canon - french canon - etc etc etc. - european canon (assembled from equal number of things chosen from national canons of european cultures) - western canon (assembled from equal number of things chose from european+english+american(+australian?) canon - eastern cannon with similar structure under it (i'm no expert on eastern cultures so i can't enumerate it in as much detail as the western one (or even american one)) this kind of granularity basically for every subject if you want. then every region/school/state/whatever entity people decide that is appropriate decides the primary canon of its educational institutions, and some secondaries (which are optional). students can then choose which canon they want as their primary and optional secondary, and would get education according to that. - ...humanity canon? an extraction of all knowledge, ideals, and morals which are the intersection of everything that humanity can agree on as a whole? hm... naiive. but a nice sentiment/aspiration.
The take-home message here is that titles like 'genius' or 'greatest of all time' don't really mean anything, and say far more about those giving them than about those receiving them.
@@iloveraisins4137 "common sense" as a concept is the mind projection fallacy - assuming that things you've learned through experience are self-evident to others.
Yea, I usually just enjoy your videos but this one seems forced. The idea that there is more in music to consider as among the best than what we do (or the problematic nature of the false dichotomy of high art and folk music) is a worthy one. The approach that "you probably don't ackshually know any of Beethoven's music" is a poor one, because to be as blunt as possible, Beethoven's music is often transcendent. It doesn't matter if people might not be familiar with them, because all anyone needs to do is go to watch an orchestra. I wouldn't give him the reach around on every composition, but many of his pieces create a visceral experience that goes beyond what most music does -- even in context of other "greats." The best I can convey it is with an anecdote. I was at a production that was doing classical compositions through time, though in no particular order. There was plenty of lovely music, a brilliant Mozart concerto for example. But it was all still just music. I don't recall the specific Beethoven piece, but as soon as the strings started their rapid vamping, the air physically changed. There was an extra pressure or feeling to the space around you that didn't exist with the other compositions being played. It demanded attention and was unavoidable. It took you for a ride of experience that was beyond the ordinary. Bach had nothing on this. The rest of the music was flat and lacked a wholeness after experiencing it. So yea, Beethoven is still recognized because many of his compositions truly were great. Was the canon perpetuated by white men and is it skewed and biased? Sure. Does that mean the ones who made the list aren't there for a reason? Not at all. The Beethoven thing is true for playing his music too. Your body gets the chills and you know when your fingers hit that right tempo and right dynamics. It doesn't even need to be a show off piece, and can be one of his slower second movements. There's something *else* in the music he writes. I keep my own personal canon based on this. There is some music that you play, and it's great, but still just music. Then you hit the right groove on a Joplin rag or some Steve Wonder licks and the music becomes transcendent. Those are the greats.
The title is fucking clickbait. around 11:45 he says: do I think Beethoven sucks? Well no. So you just picked a title that would get you the most views?
This video summed up several of the classes I took in graduate school in a few minutes, well done. Something that wasn't mentioned though, is that almost all of those composers who also ended up canonized in the WAM tradition based their compositional styles on those that came before--a process which came to a hard break in the 20th ce. when musical genres exploded and became much more diversified and democratized. You kind of mention this when you comment on "cultural inertia" of the canon perpetuating itself. But it's a pretty big deal, the study of counterpoint was always one that accumulated around the study of 'good practices' of previous composers, so along with being a cultural phenomenon in his time, Beethoven's legacy was reciprocally reinforced every time a later composer either aspired to his style, or even when they attempted to get out from under his long shadow.
You answered your last question in the beginning. THIS canon(the western classical) is only one. There are many canons. Lamar may not be the best in the western classical Canon or the 20th century Rock n roll but he's the best for the modern hip hop Canon.
I agree with your basic point here, but I think it's interesting to then take that a bit further and ask, as 12tone actually does in the vid, what functions do the different canons have in our culture and why? As the video mentions, why is the western classical music canon associated with high culture and why is it almost completely white, German speaking men? Why were people upset with Kendrick Lamar, a great in the modern hip hop canon won the Pulitzer? So it's possible 12tone answered their own question, but I think they also wanted to dig a little deeper past that to try to get to something deeper in our culture. Just my take on this video.
@@theofrantz9374 At least what I think is, people are generally way close minded and usually prefers whatever they are used to (and I'm not saying it's a bad thing). Let me make an example, an extreme one in fact. In a club, let's say I played 10 minutes of screaming and bashing, shattering and shit as a dj. I personally value expression of emotions in music, so these are the stuffs I find musical. How many people do you think will enjoy and dance to the track I play? Of course, Pulitzer's decision to choose Kendrick Lamar as a winner isn't wrong in any mean. He is indeed great. But I don't think I'm shocked to see people being upset when it comes to Pulitzer, which I'm sure was a complete opposite reaction to his winning in Grammy.
The notion of musical canons is for non-musicians and low-grade weak ego musicians to feel good about themselves and have some idea of who did a great job of make notes become emotion. When it comes to the notes put down and the sound they produce, Beethoven absolutely earned his title. For someone stuck in Europe during that time, he made sounds that even veered proto-modern, such as the Great Fugue and the variations in his Piano Sonata 32, which sounds ragtime-ish.
@@golgothatheend Kendrick Lamar may be great at what he does, but DAMN is not musically interesting. It's still interesting as a work of art, but It's like musical storytelling, a kind of hybrid artform. But take away the lyrics, and you take away the story, which makes up much of the impact of the album. If someone who wasn't an English speaker listened to DAMN, they could only derive enjoyment from the musical aspects of the work of art. Compare that to other music with lyrics, such as the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th, the Ode to Joy movement, and you would be able to derive vast enjoyment from that despite not knowing a lick of German. Nobody is going to be humming any tunes from DAMN, but the tune of Ode to Joy is almost universally recognizeable. Thus, Beethoven's 9th has a universality that Lamar's DAMN lacks.
@@babygottbach2679 Remove the strings from the 9th symphony and you will reduce drastically the enjoyment people can get from it. Remove the guitar from the Jimmy Hendrix Experience and you will reduce the enjoyment most people get from it. Remove the browns from the Mona Lisa and you will reduce the enjoyment most people get from the artwork. You can't judge an artwork's value by removing its central piece and judging only the skeleton that props it up. And I can guarantee you some people will be humming tunes from DAMN, as they have with most popular hip-hop releases before and after.
I mean, if you just listen he is pretty freakin good lmao. It isn't like he had Pro Tools or Ableton to record his symphonies and sonatas. He even wrote great music when deaf. And the ideas and structure are about as sonically pleasing as any music from his age. That being said composers back then had to be sponsored by roaylty so of course there was tons of musical potential untapped due to lack of opportunity. But if you don't think Beethoven was all time great, just try to do some of what he did. Put away all your music tech and compose something using only paper and your memory.
Man predicted my reason for coming in the first 5 seconds, to the letter. If I'm going to be honest, there is so much more to classical composers than meets the eye. Like I used to think Beethoven as overrated (bcs well literally 0:43), and also bcs I tended to like Mozart more, and still do to a certain extent). But then I listened to his symphonies (all of them), his piano works and sonatas and then I found a deeper love and appreciation for his music. Same with Chopin. I honestly knew very little other than "He was a Romantic composer, and Romantic composers write big" (i.e. Berlioz and his symphonies), however I found, as a pianist, a love for his music and how expectionally free it is, much so with Liszt, who I thought was just a virtuoso and nothing more. Ofc I was wrong. Listening to more of a composer's work helps you deeply understand their music and appreciate their style.
Hey 12tone, I have a lot of respect for you and your content. I really appreciate your ability to simplify and explain somewhat complicated musical concepts in a way that is accesible to those unaccquainted. Because of this, this video came as quite a shock. I was quite surprised by the title, as I wasn't really sure how someone would make a compelling argument for Beethoven sucking at music. I was even more surprised to find out that the video actually had very little to do with Beethoven's compositional skill. While I don't neccesarily agree on all of your points, I certainly agree that the so called classical cannon is...problematic. I won't comment on your opinions on the cannon because I don't know how much research you did for this video (my knowledge is about that of the average conservatory student). I don't know what you omitted for the sake of being concise, but many of your arguments, for their extremely, are unsubstantiated. For example, when you speak of the invisible hand, you seem to dismiss many of the ideas simply because you feel they aren't true or don't apply. From the perspective of a viewer, this leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Something I can comment on a little more directly are your thoughts on orchestral programming. I won't be presumptuous and assume that as a string player I am more intimately aware of what modern orchestras are programing, but I have seen many examples of orchestras regularly programing works by modern composers. In fact, most of the top orchestras in America include contemporary works in their programs. The majority of works programed are from the classical cannon, but I think some of the claimes you made do a disservice to the progress's that has been made. Regarding the upsetness over the Pulitzer prize, I totally agree that people don't really have a right to be upset about a classical composer not winning, but I think this may be related to the classical cannon as well. It's not a question that pop music is far more dominant in out society than classical is. And that within classical music, the cannon is more dominant than works of contemporary composers. In a way, contemporary composers are a minority within a minority. The prize perhaps acts as a shining beacon of hope, so when it goes to a pretty famous pop artist, they and the community that supports them probably feel pretty negative emotions. I'm not trying to justify these emotions, and I agree that Kendrick's album was more than deserving of the prize. I've gone on longer than I intended, but in summary. I totally agree that there are lots of problems with the classical cannon and the pedestal it's placed on, but I don't think that making the claim that Beethoven or Mozart or whoever sucked at music, especially if left unsubstantiated, is at all related to the problems of the cannon.
Hello I agree with what you said above very much so, but I do think progress in the so called "cannon" simply happens over a span of time that is far too long for us to appreciate the progress. As you mentioned contemporary composers are quite frequently featured in the modern orchestra programmes with a combination of the old masters, it simply takes a far longer time for more modern composers to come out into the limelight simply that good music often takes a few listens for the audience to "understand" so to speak and I am repeating myself here, that it takes time. At the same time I think there is a risk of over featuring contemporary composers so that a deeper understanding of the work may not be reached and make the audience and programme makers to fall back to safer options. TLDR I believe the cannon shifts over time although it happens over a long period of time and high turnover of contemporary composers may result in a quick rejection and ultimately end badly.
I don't really appreciate the intentionally deceptive clickbait title, although I think I somewhat understand what the intention behind it is. It's true that the way in which only certain classical European composers are kept in high praise, while others seemingly fade from collective memory is problematic in certain ways, but thhe discussoin, in my mind, shouldn't so much revolve around criticising the work of those composers whose work has prevailed over time as much as it should revolve around lifting up the works of others who created great music but have since been forgotten. There also are other reasons why Beethoven's music is still taught in musicology classes than just that the teachers think that he was the greatest composer of all time, like the fact that his symphonies essentially created the layout of how most symphonies were structured afterwards until today, and the model of the sonata form is largely based on his work. This influence on symphonic music is undeniable, so it makes sense to take Beethoven as an example. One doesn't have to personally like his music to understand his indirect contribution to music theory. One also generally doesn't have to like a certain style of music to analyse it and thereby gain understanding of musical structure and practice. I, for example, didn't really like the segments on Indian raga in the analysis seminar I took in my second semester of studying musicology, because listening to the music didn't speak to me on a purely subjective, aesthetic level. But the analyis of the structure of this music was still interesting to me, and I certainly learned a lot from it. Which brings me to my last point: Disliking a certain kind of music doesn't mean that that music is "objectively" bad. It's not even really possible to objectively judge music in order to come to such a conclusion. So even if someone subjectively thought that Beethoven sucked, that wouldn't be much of an argument on its theoretical, "objective" value.
Thank you for the tip on that Trap Production class! I have a skillshare subscription and I'm always psyched when someone smart recommends a class to me.
The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: skl.sh/12tone0820
Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) To be clear, you're allowed to like Beethoven! Lots of people do, and if you find his music meaningful and important I don't want to (and can't) take that away from you! But isn't it a bit weird that we've constructed a system where that's the only option?
2) Also, since I'm not sure I was clear enough on this point, I think DAMN is a very good album.
If I already on the page and register, but I don't have a credit target right now, if I already on the link I still have the opportunity?
Man, that sponsor plug was smooth AF.... (video was great too)
Great work, keep it up!
Great video! Some thoughts: If Beethoven had been a bad composer, say, if his 9th symphony used only two chords, he wouldn't have been part of the canon. It seems unreasonable to deny that aesthetic quality played some role in canon formation, just as it's unreasonable to deny that cultural factors also played a role. I also doubt the idea that there is *one* widespread use of the canon, as you implied by saying it's used as a gatekeeping device and not as a means for achieving musical quality. I agree that gatekeeping uses of the canon should be sharply critiqued, and I am on your side in that respect. Few things frustrate me as much as classical music lovers who look down on other kinds of music. But I think a more complete picture of the canon needs to acknowledge its use by practicing musicians as an impetus for and precondition of musical creativity. We don't create music ex nihilo. A canon, or canons if you prefer, allows us to enter into a musical tradition and develop it through contesting it. A tradition, in an important sense, is comprised of contestations of that tradition. The classical canon was formed by composers who, in various ways, went beyond and against the ideas of their predecessors. It is this side of canon formation that I think your video misleadingly leaves out. I agree with the gist of your video, I just wish it painted a more complex picture of canon formation. But I'm glad your video will spur conversations about this important topic!
great video!! i agree the canon is an ugly beast as it is.
@@m.l.pianist2370 I didn't go to music school, but I did take piano lessons with a couple different teachers over the span of about five years. They both heavily pushed the idea that Beethoven, Bach, Brahams, etc. were the greatest of all time. I didn't know enough at the time to contest that, so I believed it too despite none of their music resonating with me especially well. I thought there was something wrong with me, like I had bad ears or I wasn't smart enough to "get" the music. I think the point 12tone is making is that this type of attitude is pervasive in music education and popular understanding of music despite the fact that the composers that are on the list were simply, as he put it, at the right place at the right time.
You say that aesthetic quality had to play a role, but how do you define what's good "aesthetically?" It's purely subjective whether a piece of music is "good." Complexity doesn't make a piece of music good, nor does simplicity. Consonance and dissonance can either be a good thing or a bad thing. A song can be great with or without lyrics or whether it has twenty key changes or zero. When you sit down and actually define "good," you'll realize that you can't because you can't describe something that's subjective using objective terms.
Furthermore, I need to repeat 12tone's point that all of the composers in the Western Classical Music canon are white male German composers from a relatively specific time period. I'm going to assume that you agree that it's not a simple coincidence that all the "best" composers fit this description, so you have to admit that time, geography and culture played a significant part in choosing these composers. No one is really arguing that Beethoven was a *bad* composer, but it's completely valid to question whether he is a good composer and especially if he's one of the greatest of all time.
idk why anyone would disagree. beethoven hasn't uploaded a single piece for 200 years ffs the man is slacking
Daniel Ek approves of this comment
We all get those dry spells every once in a while.
You must have missed the latest album he did with 2Pac.
Agree, unsubbed
Spotify 10/10 agrees. God, make more music, you decomposing hack
Beethoven: Canon
Mozart: Canon
Vivaldi: Canon
Tchaikovsky: Cannon
I see what you did there...
This made my day😆😆
Underrated comment
Tchaikovsky was a little dyslexic but he had the right spirit
Hahahahaha Tchaikovsky go brrrrrrrrr
To be honest, Beethoven was pretty good, but his 808s didn't hit hard enough for me
Bro i died at this comment 😭😭😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think he was side chaining them too much
He shouldn't have used reverb on them, but you really can't blame him considering it was like 50 years ago and he probably just didn't know better
My only complaint, especially as you're left handed is that you drew Hendrix playing right handed, I mean come on
@John Verne of course
@John Verne A room full of mirrors, surely?
He’s been dead over 40 years who cares
Wasn't he able to play lefty and then just flip the guitar over mid-song and play righty?
@@ceilidh169 that's not how guitars work, the strings would be facing your belly if you did that
apparently, Beethoven didn't watch "How to not suck at music" by Adam Neely
hahahahaha-gold!!!
“Music sucks because it doesn’t have timber.”
He didnt put the vocals and the synths in the same key
But he didn't use Eb11, therefore he was good at music.
But he did probably write his music at A=432Hz
When a youtuber says "but that's a topic for another video", you know they'll never make that video 😢
It's the poorest, cheapest and dirtiest trick in the youtube video making book for sure 😢
Adam Neely did a good video about Schenker so you could check that out
And if they do it's usually on curiosity stream haha
Unless it's Terrible writing advice, lol.
unless it's MatPat. you know that boy is gonna come back... he always comes back
I'm a jazz musician and I started with Beethoven thinking he was overrated and could never be as good as everyone says. Then I really listened to his complete works and I must say he's really really that good, it's crazy how efficient and creative he was. And also looking at his context you can see how innovative he was, how he changed the course of classical music and how he battled and won trough all the struggles that came in his life. He's our hero in the western classical music world.
Compare it also to other fields, we all know Einstein, Picasso, The Beatles.. even if we are not familiar with their work. If you delve really deeply into their areas and historical contexts they definitely earn their place on the zeitgeist.
I think there is a lot that Beethoven wrote that is genuinely overrated in my book however I agree with you and listening to stuff like the Grosse Fugue ( honestly could've been written in 1925 not 1825) gives you an idea of how great and innovative he really was.
Tiago, I know that feeling so well. His immense reputation is to his detriment. I listen to all my Beethoven CDs in the car, and I love his music for its own merit. I would love to have an earnest conversation about the Archduke trio or the op. 110 sonata, but I feel like any praise I have for Beethoven is prejudged by others as fawning over someone inherently regarded as great with no merit.
So it makes perfect sense that you would go into Beethoven imagining that he's overrated only to then be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Genuine appreciation for his music in the modern day is a battle against the grassroots-esque mentality of "down with the dogma and hubris of status-seekers who listen to classical music in bad faith!"
Agreed. Strip away identity and judge the music entirely on the merits and you will probably still have some of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic masters show up on the list. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert might have gotten a little bump from being "old white guys" but to dismiss their greatness entirely because guilt over cultural exclusivity as opposed to the merit of the music seems to be falling into the same trap of dismissing music simply because of who wrote it. Haydn on the other hand was a hack who did just get a bump for being Austrian.
But in the same regard you are inside the system that created the canon so your opinions are distorted by it no matter how well intentioned you are. One would need a genuinely independent reviewer to see for sure. Some un-contacted islanders, aliens or AI!
"He was in the right place at the right time and history rewarded him for it." My man just pretty much summed up fame for ya..
summed up the universe since the big bang
And he was a master in business.
Dont listen to this stupid video. Beethoven was recognised as the greatest all across Europe by those who were educated in music. Men who were far smarter and knowledgeable than this uploader.
The only problem with this is that there were tons of people in the same place and the same time. There were princes, people of nobility and men of renown. How many of their names would be more recognizable to someone on the street today between them or Beethoven? Not many I'd presume.
What he said in the video is true, but it also lacks an important component: "He was the right person in the right place at the right time." How many other people do you think you supplant in his place at that time and they would have had the same legacy? Very, very few.
@@rossconnolly3402 This channel is a more contemporary music channel. I don't expect him to just give the praise Beethoven needs. He is pretty annoying too, the way he approaches music is just awkward and he usually speaks with floating terminology instead of concrete examples. Adam Neely for example, teached me a lot about jazz music theory and music theory in general. This channel is an utter garbage.
Although there's a slight difference between "greatest that has ever lived" and "sucks".
There's also the use of hyperbole to make a point.
@@flatblack7406 which comes off as disingenuous and clickbait-y
@@flatblack7406 and he even says at the end of the video that beethoven doesn't actually suck at music
Oh, so he is SOOOO great? Name EVERY piece he made.
Exactly.
I love this channel, but that was a cheap clickbait and I feel cheated.
I've always been a proponent of the idea that music exists to evoke emotion, so if you like a piece that in itself is justification for it being good. I'm a HUGE Mendelssohn nerd and I'll freely admit that his oeuvre isn't the most complex or revolutionary in classical music, but it SLAPS. And at the end of the day that's all it needs to do.
what he is trying to say is that its subjective, no doubt Bach and Beethoven slap, but other Asian and African composers slap too in their cultures.
the problem comes when we teach it as GENERAL music theory, and just european style of music. I for once only learnt music this european way and didnt learn other ways while I wish I could have.
@@ShadowD2C What is the alternative? Do you learn Chinese authors in a French literature class? Western classical is Western classical, Chinese music is Chinese music. The principles are totally different and you need to spend years and years to build any mastery of it - and learn Mandarin, Chinese history & culture, literature, philisophy, etc. I wish that other cultures would do more to preserve and promote their classical traditions, but that's not up to us.
@@jpiccone1 Im not sure about the chinese traditions, but for example guitar which I learnt the western way is most defently derived from middle eastern music theory and their oud (lute) scales. The issue just lies with the naming when youre learning it should be taught as western classical or smth so you dont internalize it as the basic of everything
For me, music has to move me. Otherwise I like it & forget about it
@@jpiccone1 except it’s just presented as “music theory”. Not “18th century European music theory”, but simply “music theory”, and it’s held as some sort of objective measure of musical worth when it’s just…not.
14:15 the most subtle rick roll of all time
how
@@dakotaashe3184 the 7 midi notes he wrote follows a peculiar pattern 🤡
@@notkiji which part tho, the intro, the vocal melody etc?
@@dakotaashe3184 chorus vocal melody '-'
@@notkiji wtff
"The Cannon has always been political"
Tchaikovsky: Wait, what's this now?
Ok, now imagine Shostakovich to be complying with politics from his time.
Don’t worry he’d have to decipher all the little drawings to understand that he was being insulted
No he wouldn't, he was deaf not blind
wait
@@rafaeldiehl8553 I forgot how being deaf works don't mind me
it’s called pictography!!!
He could just turn on captions, come on
"The cannon has always been political"
*draws astronaut pointing gun*
amazing
oh my goddd i missed that
7:57
The word is 'canon', not 'cannon'.
canon noun (1) can·on | \ ˈka-nən
4a: an accepted principle or rule
b: a criterion or standard of judgment the canons of good taste
c: a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms
[Late Greek kanōn, from Greek, model] : a contrapuntal musical composition in which each successively entering voice presents the initial theme usually transformed in a strictly consistent way
Have a great day!😃👍
@@williaml.6922
cannon cannon cannon cannon cannon
@@user-qd7zb4wm9b you got him 👌🏾
can
It's clear that Beethoven was exceptional, even if his importance was also inflated by German musicologists. We have quotes from Schubert talking about Beethoven as someone God-like even before this rise in nationalism. Beethoven was so important that his death caused a divide in the classical music world, the conservatives and New German School both believing themselves to be the correct answer to Beethoven's life. Clearly, Beethoven was amazing in his own right before his importance was blown up in later decades.
I agree. In the social circles I'm in, classical music is not seen as "high class" but pretentious, but I enjoy Beethoven anyway. His music works as low art that's nice to listen to and I'd argue that's much more impressive than any pedestal the rich can put him on.
@@PragmaticAntithesis lol "low art", wtf are you talking about? Beethoven sparked an era of music that spread well beyond pretentious aristocrats and is still taught to this day for a reason. You clearly are not a musician.
sure but that's besides the point. There's certainly someone less deserving of the canon that has been propped up by German musicologists
He was a huge influence on subsequent composers - so his importance was not "blown up" in later decades.
@@joniii_W
You missed out on the most important argument about why Beethoven wasn't so great "Did Beethoven ever have his picture on a bubblegum card? How can you say someone is great if they never had their picture on a bubblegum card?" Lucy Van Pelt in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
Solid opinion from the Peanuts gallery.
Ahaha, how in the world did you remember that?
@@rorydillon7572 I have re-watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" every year since it originally aired in 1965. I was 10 years old at the time.
..maybe the Time is Now...definitely maybe,...call the printers...someone start a go fund me for the cost of....🎼💞🤘
Good grief...
I thought that Mozart was the stereotypical “best classical composer” that people felt were so great. Personally, I love Beethoven and think he’s better than Mozart, but most people I’ve met have thought of Mozart as a prodigy and the Einstein of music.
(+Devin Belver) Just thinking about how Moonlight Sonata and a lot of his pieces are basically metal piano shred solos.
@Devin Belver Mozart's music is certainly *not* simple. Or at least not always. Listen to the finale of the Jupiter if you think that, or an ensemble from one of the Da Ponte operas or the E Flat String Trio (K.563).
I prefer Beethoven too, but they are equally great composers.
Mozarts music isn't necessarily cheerful and simple. ua-cam.com/video/Ui9pyxdVX6Y/v-deo.html
@Devin Belver Your comment just reveals your ignorance of Beethoven and Motzart.. Hahaha "Mozart is used so much for soothing babies" and "Beethoven is DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN" Beethoven almost explored all kind of music in his lifetime, in the end of his life he even created pieces in style wasn't really come recognized untill in the 20th centur, "the Grosse Fuge" I think it was called.
Listen for example to this concerto by Motzart to realize how ignorant you are about his music. ua-cam.com/video/3KHvNDn-o0s/v-deo.html ..And listen to Pathetique to realize that your knowledge about Beethovens music doesn't stretch further then the knowledge of a 5 year old that just introduced his music in pre- school. ua-cam.com/video/iCL5sHzlDOI/v-deo.html
Beethoven copied or was influenced by the aria "ah soccorso" of the first act of Don Giovanni by Mozart for the first movement of moonligth sonata, Check Out the minute 3:50 ua-cam.com/video/6XfkvANfYb4/v-deo.html
As Spotify's CEO recently said "It's not enough” to release albums “every 3-4 years”." - so yeah Beethoven is waaaaaay behind
But that's what the Spotify CEO thinks...
@@bachagain1685 Don't you know? Spotify is the council that governs all music.
As a classical musician, this is one thing that frustrates me the most about the culture around classical music. People treat it as a status symbol rather than something to be enjoyed. Music, like any art, is about the experience, and therefore is inherently subjective, so there is no way to definitely crown one composer as "the greatest composer of all time." I knew Beethoven was considered one of the "Big Three," but I honestly had no idea people thought he was definitely the best over the other two, mostly because I've always liked Bach and Mozart more.
In my experience, the classical canon has somewhat been updating over time. Maybe not for everyone, but at least in the sense of "if you want to seriously pursue classical music, these are the composers you need to be familiar with." While there are a significant amount of German composers, there's also a lot of French, Russian, and even American composers as well, though admittedly it's still mostly white men. Even so, that's among the people who actually make the music. I have no idea how it is among communities of people who just listen to it.
The biggest problem that classical music has is the audience. The vast majority of classical audiences consider any work composed in the past 100 years as something to simply endure until they get to the Beethoven or Mozart. It’s utterly depressing and I take my hat off to musicians and more so composers who are willing to put up with such utterly unadventurous and banal listenership.
@@nstrug Seriously, I've met so many audience members who's music history ends with Rachmaninoff or if they're more outgoing maybe even Stravinsky, much less modern composers like Unsuk Chin, Penderecki, Saariaho etc. who are still composing today, its kinda really annoying
@@nstrug I think everyone's confusing the "classical music audience" with the "snobs who are part of the classical music audience."
Yeah this sentiment of Beethoven being the King of Music or whatever was new to me as well
@@aaronhaettenschwiller1626 Because contemporary classical is so avant-garde, like New Complexity, that it will probably take 100 years until the mainstream audiences catch up to its level.
i really dont care who the best composer is or not i just wanna listen to beautiful music and beethovens music is really beautiful to me :)
@LeftRight An opinion cannot be wrong...
That’s interesting, I’ve never heard Beethoven described as beautiful. Music is so subjective!
@@hb712 To be honest if I had to explain to someone what Beethovens music is like beautiful would probably not be the first word I'd use either. I just couldn't find a better word for the point I was trying to make.
Elite Miko
Lol
Idk I’ve been exploring Beethovens actual obscure compositions and I’ve found many sonatas and piano pieces that are just magical that show a good understanding of how to make music that inspires
His piano sonatas are amazing. I especially like 8 and 15.
So you didn't watch the whole video huh?
I also think that Beethoven is held in such a high regard is because he pushed musical boundaries - especially in terms of harmony. It was him who pretty much led music from the classical era to the romantic era.
But I hate the romantic era.
Neat video. A couple of points, though, where things seemed incomplete:
1. Regarding the short-term nature of pre-19th Century classical music, there is at least one exception, being the tune "L'homme armée", which was constantly re-used in parody masses over quite a long time. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that bit of medieval remix culture.
2. The stuff about nationalism is a bit more complicated than you presented things, since that's a broad umbrella term that covers both racist, jingoistic imperialism and national liberation movements fighting against racist, jingoistic imperialism. In a musical sense, the "nationalist schools" outside of Austria and Germany included a lot of forces who looked to folk music in their area to counter the German domination of classical music (Janacek, Grieg, etc.) and often looked to a broad range of fold traditions (Bizet, Bartok, etc.). So, while Wagner tried to purge all foreign elements from his music, Dvorak went out of his way to incorporate African-American music into his works, but both get classified as "nationalist composers". I'd liken the "nationalist schools" of classical music less to modern white nationalism, and more to 00s hip-hop where, after years of domination by New York and L.A., a whole bunch of local hip-hop scenes started getting mainstream attention, often doubling down up their own local accents and slang as a political statement.
dope comment! esp the 00s hip-hop analogy
I never thought I'd see a historical and cultural parallel between The Mighty Handful and the rise of southern hip-hop, but here we are.
“Mediaeval remix culture” isn't a phrase I'd think I'd ever encounter, but I'm not complaining that I did.
Great comment. As a Czech I like seeing the specific mentions of Dvořák and Janáček; incredibly important musical figures over here, especially the former, nearly on the same level as Beethoven or Bach.
I’d like to point out that fusion jazz is larger in the NY scene as it’s more of a live scene. LA is the production side of music while NY is the live scene
Happened in the 18th century too. Metastasio was set hundreds of time, by people like Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Meyerbeer, and even Beehoven and Rossini (though never a full opera)
This whole conversation hits a lot of musicians who think the sheer quality of their music will be enough to gain an audience. Most artists hate the idea of marketing. Does great music rise like cream to the top on its own? Maybe some of it. The music industry would argue that they can make the public like anything with enough radio play, marketing and promotions. Some of yesterday's favorites are unknowns today.
I loved Billy Joel's "Shameless" when I got his album Storm Front. I was blown away. It seems like Garth Brooks felt the same and he was equally shocked it never appeared on the radio much less the charts. So he recorded a version which skyrocketed to the top of the charts. The song has become a part of the country canon and the canon of popular music in general. The difference? One person marketed it and the other didn't. You would think the sheer quality of the song would carry it but it didn't. But the big question is: Which artists and songs did history mistakenly forget and which ones did the industry push that should have been forgotten??
People think of The Doors and Queen as some of the greatest acts of the late 60s and 70s, but it wasn't until various movies came out that featured them that the public re-discovered them. I don't think they had that statue until the movies came out. The Val Kilmer one about the Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody was featured in at least two popular movies over the last couple decades.
To the Swifties I say...David Cassidy (he warned his half brother Shaun of exactly this).
Every time a symphony does a piece of something less well known or more "weird" they'll do it alongside a Beethoven symphony or some equivalent. Ultimately they have to sell tickets.
If it were only about that, they wouldn't play new pieces at all.
This is done to 'force' audiences to listen to the new pieces. Put Beethoven on your program and everyone will show up. Then play the new piece they wouldn't come for and people might discover something new they enjoy, or at least be exposed to things outside of Beethoven, Mozart etc. and slowly learn to appreciate new music.
I agree with Daniel Edwards. It’s not a bad thing that this happens. People like what they know and people know Beethoven (or at least those who appreciate classical music). Music is music and let people like what they want and let them discover new things! I think it’s too harsh to criticize Beethoven because the music is actually amazing! But it’s also completely ok and great to discover new music
All of this and so much of our world is just a sliver of what music is. Music is so vast and there’s so much of it around the world. I say just let people listen to what they want to listen! For example there isn’t a valid criticism against one a Hindu who only listens to classical Indian music. There shouldn’t be a criticism against one who only listens to the western classical “canon”
@@Nadav3.0 I'm not trying to criticize anything but I work with an orchestra and ultimately the decisions are financially motivated especially because people are starting to care less and less about classical music the so it's pretty much essential to milk the pieces that will sell yes it also gets more people listening to modern pieces but that frankly isn't the motivation
@@Nadav3.0 not trying to criticize anyone. Love what you love!
One thing worth mentioning is how Beethoven's life story fits the trope of the tortured artist very nicely, being tragic and romantic in equal measure. There's a certain mysticism and mythology to the "greatest" composer of all time becoming deaf. It makes him appealing outside of the music itself because it's a very inspirational human story that people can connect to without having an acedemic knowledge of classical music.
This doesn't discount anything mentioned in the video, but it does go someway to explaining why lovely lovely Ludwig is so embedded in the public consciousness.
djggou - true it stands in for esthetic evaluation poorly but provides a mythos for jabbering about it.
Joseph Regan “jabbering” is the Beethoven in the “canon of words” am i right, people??? !!! :)))
@@gazicj did someone say GABBERING???
* plays 5th symphony motif on distorted 909 bassdrums *
(Actually I didn't get your joke, so I just made my own... sry :'( )
That deaf argument needs to stop. While tragic, yes, Beethoven began losing his hearing at a time in his life when he was already at a level where he could simply hear the sounds in his head. That is an amazing skill, but one that any prolific professional composer can aquire. I will say that while his deafness wasn't as much of an issue to his musical ability, it was definitely still a huge influence on his music due to the deep depression that he found himself in.
One of my favorite stories about Beethoven was a letter he wrote that almost served as a suicide note. In it he struggled with suicidal ideation, but the thing that pulled him out was the fact that he was so narcissistic he concluded that the world would suffer without his creativity and music. Thing is, he had the skill and pure talent to back-up his self-aggrandizing XD
@@Soarin_Altiss I'd disagree that "any prolific professional composer" could develop the skill to work only internally with no outside stimuli. No matter your skill and understanding of a medium, hearing/seeing it back is a very different experience to conceiving it. So yes, of course Beethoven was conceiving and composing in his head using his years of experience as reference, but the level and quality he was still able to produce is no easy feat, and isn't something that just anyone can do.
And it still does not detract from the fact that Beethoven didn't hear 'Ode to joy' in the same way that following generations have.
I think it’s a shame Arthur Sullivan genius is rarely recognized. He composed gavotte’s, madrigals, patters, church songs. His graduation piece, The Tempest, is beautiful.
I minored in Musicology (or Music History) in college and one of my BIGGEST complaints was how reductive and limited the set of pieces we studied was.
At the time I was fresh out of high school band where the majority of the works we played were composed by modern composers, including many contemporary composers. So I wrote a very agitated essay for one class that was titled something like "Equal Rights for Band Composers Now!" that was essentially a diatribe about the limited nature of the canon we studied, especially if a composer didn't primarily write for piano or symphony orchestra. I got an A on the essay, but the equivalent of a laugh and pat on the head by my tenured music professor.
Beethoven's 9th is as close to perfect as the symphonic form ever got (IMHO) but it's time to get out of the rut. The fact that Mozart & Haydn dominate an *entire freaking period* of musical composition, like there were only 2 composers in the world, is mind boggling.
I feel precisely the same about Beethoven. It is as if Bach and Mozart (and to a decreasing extent due to politics, Wagner) are the only humans ever to have written a song other than Beethoven, who is generally referred to like he is the only composer in the history of the planet.
"So, you like Beethoven? Name ten of his records".
"Well, there was, his Fifth symphony, everyone knows that one, and his first, second, third, and fourth, which was like really cool too, and his, uh... His sixth one! Yeah, that was a great follow up, though his seventh was like not too great but okay. I loved his, uh, his moonlight sonata ones, and that one he didnt finish. Oh yeah, and his ninth."
@@jameswhitley4101 Don't forget the Pathetique Sonata (Opus 13), The Tempest (Opus 31), Apassionata (Opus 57), The Hammerklavier (Opus 106), and my father's favorite, the unnamed Opus 111. :)
@@renegade4dio The Tempest is one of the few Beethoven compositions I genuinely enjoy. Glad to see it mentioned, deserves more attention.
@@photonicpizza1466 It's my 3rd favorite, after Pathetique, and Moonlight. While Moonlight is probably overrated, Tempest is definitely underrated, as you mentioned. ;) I note how all 3 of my favorites are piano sonatas, and if pressed I'd probably list more sonatas before listing a symphony (The 5th of course, followed by the 9th... I guess I'm pretty boringly conventional, and no surprise, the only instrument I can play at all is the piano... and no, I'm not good enough to actually play any Beethoven besides Fur Elise, and even that is a less than good rendition) I don't know where I was going with all this, but it is great to hear from someone who picks out the Tempest instead of Moonlight or the 5th... ;)
Now that I think of it, I don't think I would recognize 5 of his works... I only know the 4 everyone talks about all the time...
Listen to the sixth symphony, put down the fifth and ninth symphonies for a minute. It’s beautiful and peaceful, full of joy upon discovering the beauty of nature. An underrated work.
I find the 7th and 8th more captivating. The 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th are all generally accepted as incredible masterworks, the 8th symphony is the real underrated one IMO.
@@stephenwu1524 Funny enough...it's reported thT when asked by Czerny why his 8th symphony didn't receive as much enthusiasm as his 7th, Beethoven said "because the Eighth is so much better" 😂 Also read that he was overall disappointed by the reception! So in a word...Beethoven agrees, lol
The 6th is absolutely not underrated. It's a masterpiece known as a masterpiece 👌
I love the 7th because it delivers.
Relatively short and cool tunes from beginning to end 😎
This video is encouraging me to listen to classical/romantic era music and figure out what I actually like. Thank you for making me realize I've just thought Beethoven and company to be great without actually forming that opinion myself.
Imagine what will happen in 200 years when someone unearths a hard drive full with youtube "top tenz" videos.....you want canons? here you have'em.
@NTDM 😂
It took me until 11:24 to realize something important. You are not arguing that Beethoven ACTUALLY sucks, but that it's not fair that he is canonized as "one of the greatest" to the exclusion of others, who aren't being included.
If I've got you right, you're not saying that Beethoven is bad, but that other musicians might be better, but don't get enough recognition because "they aren't the right kind of people."
If you're looking for more modern music that truly innovated and also happens to be more diverse in authorship, look at jazz. It stands on its own as a peer to the greats of classical tradition.
The title of this video has little to do with its content and I wish a more relevant title were chosen instead of clickbait.
Impressionist music as well
Or hip hop, it's also very diverse and innovative
@@marioaviles19 if you have any recommendations that mirror the musicianship in Jazz, I'd love to learn more. I've found the popular music that I've heard to be bland especially from a melodic and harmonic perspective and that has been an obstacle to my appreciation of the genre. I think I am simply ignorant of what is out there, though I concede that I have a strong bias in favor of Western musical practice including the innovations that Jazz brings. That bias may be an insurmountable obstacle but if I can learn to appreciate it I would like to.
@@FubukiShiromiya well, I think that what will help you better appreciate this more modern style is by focusing less on the harmonic and melodic material and focus on the other elements of the song. Namely the production. That said, I think you'd get a lot out of Kendrick Lamar's music
@@marioaviles19 Thank you for the recommendation and perspective. I'll check it out and hopefully develop a deeper appreciation or at least better understanding of the genre.
Even though I agree with most of what you said concerning the Canon (and, must say, it's very evident from a Brazilian perspective due to the evolution of our folk music) Beethoven is too big of a figure to consider it pure accident of right place and time.
His mark was so huge and innovative in classical Western music that the composers of his time wondered whether his works have set the boundaries of musical creation or have opened the door to new paths, thus sparking the War of the Romantics (and before there was a concept of Canon in art). I love his work, and I love as his compositions sound like a crazy fractal mirror maze. They were ground-breaking at his time and still provoke amazement.
I understand the purpose of the video to expose how Canon provokes bias on our opinions on music (and lots of white males earn the recognition). But there are reasons beyond the Canon to deem his works some of the most important for the Western classical music, which are essential to understand how it came to be
Word! Downplaying geniuses is simply forgetting how they've made people feel and ignoring how they've made you feel.
crazy fractal mirror maze is something you'd rarely hear about Beethoven's music, very interesting comparison
Oh? And what are those reasons?
Im super late to this, but just by the sheer amount of work that classical composers put in their music, especially in those times when live was so difficult. Their passion and dedication is undeniable.
Beethoven had incredible harmonics in his pieces and expressed feeling describing the romantic era barely comparable to anybody else. His works are masterpieces without compare.
Despite that, you are very much right. Most people are just familiar with his name and status, and unfamiliar with the idea and genious of the person, wich is a problem in many ways as you stated; i fully agree.
And i also would like to hear "welcome to thr machine" composed by Beethoven or Händel
Beethoven was great surely, but claiming that he sucks just because people are not that familiar with his music is just ridicilous. The narrator even admits in the video that Beethoven doesn't suck, so the title is just full-blown clickbait.
I don’t see Beethoven as Floydian prog-rock type; that seems more J.S. Bach territory. Ludwig is more Tool or Dream Theater prog-metal
Beethoven was one of the few composers (Monteverdi is the only other one that spring to mind) who changed the course of music. He was an enormous influence on the Romantics, and given that one could hardly throw a stone in early 19th Century Vienna without hitting a composer, it couldn't have all been due to his temporospatial location. I have taken part in a performance of his _Missa Solemnis_ , and defy any other composer, canon or not, to match the near-hysterical ecstasy of the _Gloria_ from that work. Was he the greatest composer who ever lived? Maybe not. Did he write work after work of amazing power, unlike anything before or since? Bet your ass he did.
".. feeling describing the romantic era barely comparable to anybody else" LOL excuse me? Are you insane? Have you ever heard about Chopin? Lol, the harmonical structure of many of Chopin’s pieces are among the grestest ever written. I want you to analyse the harmony on Ballade no 4 of Chopin’s and tell me if there's something remotely close thst Beethoven wrote it on piano. Seriously, your statemant is a joke and shows how much you don't understand musical theory. Beethoven was one of the greats, I am pretty sure about it! But his work on piano means nothing comparing to Chopin’s.
Meh. I’m more of an A.M. Yankovic man myself, so I don’t feel like I have a dog in this fight.
Truly the greatest ever
Yeah. I swallowed the Hendrix pill a long time ago and am still under the influence. I must recuse myself as judge on grounds of nostalgia.
What is this new trend of amateurs trashing every single artist with talent in history and their works?
"Shakespeare sucks"
"Mozart sucks"
"2001 Space Odyssey sucks"
"The Beatles suck"
"The lord of the rings suck"
"Michael Jackson sucks"
"Minecraft sucks"
And a long etc.
As much as I agree with you, I do think Beethoven still revolutionized music by using very clever ideas to push classical forms and tonality to their limits, thus allowing romanticism to blossom. A closer look at his music easily reveals the scope of his intelligence.
But admittedly, it could have been anyone else. He happened to have pretty much nothing more to do, had access to top-notch education, and the time was very right.
Vayhef - this argument cannot mean ‘anyone else’ it could mean something similar to what Malcolm Gladwell says about Bill Gates. He was born in the perfect year (1955) to an upper middle class family with access to a time sharing computer. But the many thousands of others with similar advantages didn’t create Microsoft. Beethoven has an incredible ear, endlessly inventive and exhaustive. He worked his buttons off and struggled with the rich assholes he depended upon. It wasn’t a difficult or close call about Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. Musicians knew this and the Canon is influenced by that the same way Dizzy can vouch for Parker or Keith Richards for the Blues masters who never profited from their work.
I think the title was mostly clickbait, but imo in this case it's not done in bad taste or as false advertising.
@@reganjo1955 good point, I should have been more nuanced on that.
After all, many 19th century composers were so impressed by Beethoven's work that it detered them from walking in his steps, stating there was no point in doing so since he had already reached the top of the mountain. They refused to write pieces that would sound like "Beethoven but worse".
If anything, that has to be the proof that in addition to having created the right art at the right time, he did actually perfect it, so much so that no one would dare walk in his shoes for decades.
So yeah, he had it all : circumstances and genius.
@@jankbunky4279 it's still a bit confusing imo since I don't remember him really stating how witful and impactful Beethoven's writing was, which would make one think his fame is undeserved.
But yeah it's no big deal, the video is still very insightful.
I don't believe it could have been anyone else. There are maybe a handful of other composers throughout history you could put in Beethoven's place and yielded results of the same magnitude.
Beethoven had a concert where he premiered the Fifth Symphony (the most famous of all time), the sixth (the Pastoral), and the 4th Piano Concerto (considered one of the greatest ever), and that wasn’t even half of the program!
Leonard Bernstein’s opinion as to why Beethoven’s music was so great is that every note looks to be the right note, as if it had to be there, and couldn’t be changed without lessening the piece.
This should be retitled "the problem with classical cannon" because you never pointed out what makes Beethoven suck
I agree but then its all about clickbait tbh, can't be too mad
A bombastic title gets clicks.
Then you missed the point of the video. If anything he could have added a question mark at the end, boom, solved. Easy.
ok, came here because of the title, hopefully it really is about beethoven being bad and not just clickbait
EDIT: interesting video, but i'm still disappointed
Hey, I don't particularly enjoy him either. What you can do is listen to his music and try to identify why you don't like it. Whether it be through music theory, cultural context, etc. It can then easily lead you to music you _do_ like more reliably than just through random discovery, and it's also a pretty neat intellectual exercise.
They didn't say anything about Beethoven. It was more about boring generalizations what is good and what isn't...
@@songfulmusicofsongs yeah i watched the video by now, good video but not what i wanted
@@photonicpizza1466 i'll try to do that eventually then o7
Small world, but yes interesting.
Are you kidding? I love Beethoven and have listened to *a lot* of his works. All of his symphonies, most of his sonatas, a lot of his string works, all bagatelles. And Beethoven is my favorite composer. And there are so many things that make Beethoven great, with these just being a few:
- Quick, 1 chord modulations, often using a diminished seventh chord
- Unifying themes of extreme contrast via shared motifs(Like for example, a fast, tense, energetic, minor theme unified with a slow, peaceful, tranquil, major theme e.x Fifth Symphony First Movement)
- Parallel major-minor motions that feel like modulations in their own right(In fact, I often use the term Parallel Modulation to describe what happens in for example the second B section of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata Rondo, where it sounds like it's going to end in a peaceful C major and then *Bam!* 1 chord and you are back in the tense C minor, because just saying Modal Interchange sounds so wrong when it isn't only a few chords of major in otherwise minor or vice versa, but Parallel Modulation sounds right, regardless of how many people say it isn't a thing)
- His use of Chromatic Mediants to both add and release tension(His Pastoral Symphony and the Tarantella from his 18th piano sonata both have these distant but still connected chord relations)
And I could go on and on, but you get the point. Point is, so what if musicology is screwed at it's core? So what if Beethoven broke the rules more often than Mozart and Haydn before him? He is still a great composer because his music is great. Beethoven didn't suck! People say he's a rough orchestrator. Not for his time he isn't! People say he wasn't good at Counterpoint. Uh, have a listen to Grosse Fuge and see if you still think he isn't good at Counterpoint. Counterpoint changes with time you know, from the strictly algebraic that is Bach's day to just 2 melodies that sound good combined(Modern times). You can't judge a book by it's cover. You need context. I have that context because I listen to Beethoven all the time. Most people do not have that context.
Good thing the video isn't actually claiming Beethoven sucks, then
@@Copperhell144 Yeah, it's not like it's title of video or anything.
@@samuelterry6354 Yeah, it's not like a video is anything else other than just a title or anything.
@@Copperhell144 You can't call a video Beethoven sucks and then say you never claimed Beethoven sucks.
I once insulted Beethoven, claiming only that my best composition is better than Beethoven's worst, and people lost their actual minds.
I feel like Shakespeare also gets this treatment with regard to writing... to a much more extreme, almost religious level.
In both cases, it's not fair to modern writers/musicians/writesicians, but, just to play devil's advocate, I'd argue it's also freeing. If there's no point in aspiring to be "the best there ever was", I think you get many more people trying to do things that haven't been done before and building things that have meaning to them, rather than needing to build off some other acclaimed artist's masterpiece in order to be considered "good".
There are still people out there who do that, of course, 'cause nothing's absolute... but I think without the idea that some moldy old skeleton in a crypt you'll probably never see was always going to be better than you, we'd get a lot more of them.
@@thomaswinwood very interesting. I imagine there would be intense pushback from all those academics who think it's "perfect".
Myself I'd certainly like to read translated versions, even just out of curiosity.
I don’t know anything about Shakespeare, but from what I’ve heard his stuff is written with a rhythm sort of like music. And translating would ruin that.
@@dfdfdgggjhjjh5081 Counterpoint 1: not necessarily. As a songwriter myself I can tell you there's a lot you can do to twist around this language and sometimes even keep it sounding fairly natural at the same time.
Translations of, say, TV shows or movies from other languages do this all the time in order so that the dialogue won't keep going when the actors' lips stop moving.
Could you take that whole idea this far for a whole play? Maybe not, but you could certainly preserve some of it.
Counterpoint 2: Musical rhythm or not, it would still be helpful to be able to actually tell what's going on in the play -- especially when you're just reading it and it's not being performed in front of you.
When it comes to people who just want to read the things and see what all the fuss is about, I can guarantee you you'd see more appreciation for every aspect of the writing if they had two versions they could flip back and forth between when they found something difficult to decipher.
@@SplotchTheCatThing they’ve been rewriting Shakespeare in modern English forever.
Personally, I always hated Shakespeare. It mostly is "love wins in the end" in one way or another, while actual human motivators like revenge are getting tossed aside as lowly and degenerate. It's as if Shakespeare was a time traveling Disney-employee writing edgy fanfiction. It's so romantic, that it almost seems grimdark.
First of all, Beethoven could write Pink Floyd-esque pieces. And he did. (Obvious example is Moonlight 1st mvmt which easy to imagine being played with Gilmour's touch and aesthetic) Of course, he did not have the knowledge of the modern sonic vocabulary. Yet still. Just saying.
Also there is vast amount of people who genuinely love Beethoven's music, deeply. Not just for the music itself, but the progress of thought. He pushed the thought forward.
I completely understand there are as well many people who just want to seem better so they say they like Beethoven, 'cause it's, you know, trendy.
But it can be applied to any other artists. Moreover, people who say that they "don't like Beethoven" say it because it's trendy.
It's not Beethoven's problem, it's the problem of our society. Everyone's trying to be better and still don't want to put effort.
Music IS just a wiggly air, and all the value lies in a constant listeners' work on expanding the vocabulary to be able to perceive great works and achieve the greatest possible inber emotional response.
No pain, no gain. Yet people are willing to listen to some crappy -thing- with no pitch information, no harmonic information and they now it, but still want to be treated as people with a fully developed musical taste.
So, occasionally they say they like Beethoven. Sometimes they say they like Pink Floyd. Sometimes they try to invalidate "Western Music" entirely for no reason other than just because it's a trend.
Leave my man Beethoven alone, he's great and deserves some rest.
"Snobs like Western music and it's full of white people so therefore it's bad." Exactly, that is the trend. Annoys the hell out of me.
Before I went to music school, I did enjoy Beethoven, but it wasn't until I learned about all that he contributed to the genre and how he evolved it that I really truly came to appreciate just how magnificent he was. And guess what - I can say that without invalidating other composers. It's possible to like multiple composers. Hell, I wouldn't even say Beethoven's my favorite, but he is one of the greats for a damn good reason.
@@Cabrono You know, both of you guys would have had good points, if this video were actually criticising Beethoven or saying that he sucks or "invalidating" him, but 12tone hasn't done any of that, so...
@@Copperhell144 Sometimes I feel UA-cam comment sections would be far more civil, on-topic, and interesting if there was a rule that you couldn't leave a comment until having watched the video for half its running time.
The Bourdieu + Cage theory combo is the "system" we're not allowed to get out of. If Beethoven's wasn't actually good, if he was just a name good to drop around, no one today would listen to his music. For instance, there would be none of his compositions updated on YT to be listened to for free - it sounds like a dumb example, but it wouldn't be the case if "everyday people" didn't like his music - if his was just a big name on a list. On the other hand, do people listen to La Monte Young (since you cited him in another video) or Cage outside of music studies? Do you?
The systematic attack of "the canon" (the religious comparison is so /classy/) in an attempt bring down all the "big names" is a very symptomatic postmodern move which only brings forth what it pretends to "unmask": nominalism (arbitrary attribution of value through authority; empties any value of its actual quality and leaves it to be just a name), greed and snobbism (money and self-centeredness are the last "values") and most importantly, a class of theorists who *do* perpetuate *an actual system*: academic theories staler than an old bag of chips whose survival relies purely on a continuous preaching by fully indoctrinated professors. Crazy how getting out of the "tradition dogma" 60 years ago allowed us to progress so much that no other theory has emerged asides from radicalized versions of all those post-war thinkers, right? One of my reasons for saying all this is that I'm an art history student, I don't know anything about music theory, yet all these arguments are the EXACT SAME when it comes to contemporary art (which is probably bc Cage had a rather important part in theorizing it, at least that's the conclusion I've come to). It truly is a broken record at this point.
Cheers.
@12:12 Did you just draw Battletoads for "its a hard problem"?! Most accurate doodle yet
as a literary nerd I have to say- this is all true of Shakespeare
Shakespeare is damn good, but he's so flawed, and we don't have any genuine manuscripts of his, afaik, they were all collected from each actors' parts.
Academic Literature needs some better authors than an English guy and some white Americans who were to liberal in their use of the n word
@@spartacuz9er9er69 damn straight. he's good, don't get me wrong, one of the best to ever do it. but he's not the be all end all. hes really not all that relevant in today's field of literature, and I think we should stop acting like he is tbh
@@dylandarcy1150 I would disagree with that, many of his works still are relevant, Julius Caesar and the Tempest off the top of my head, but some (Taming of the shrew, say) do need to be left out, or at least critically analysed. Personally, I love to read his works with a feminist or progressive eye, just to see how much was a product of his time, and what wasn't.
Take the work of Arthur Conan Doyle for instance, the original Irene Adler is a proto-feminist icon, she is objectively in the right in her story, and outsmarts Holmes. Is she a particularly powerful woman by modern standards? No, of course not, but the beginnings are there, they're just affected by the culture
@@spartacuz9er9er69 yo im aware you probably already know this but you probably should acknowledge that shakespeare didn't write sherlock holmes lol
I'm a fan of the Theater of the Absurd, so my love of Shakespeare is pretty invalid
The mention of how D.A.W.'s are ignored by school honestly made my day. as a mobile producers who specializes in hard bass music like Dubstep, I truly believe that EDM is one of the most forgotten and exiled umbrella genres. If you were to ask "name 5 music genres." or maybe "what music do you listen to?", most would either answer with "Pop, Rock, Metal, Country, and Rap." or "I don't know, whatever is on the radio I guess". and that really sucks, because there are some brilliant people who create amazing music that takes just as long, and just as much effort as other genres.
hell, I decided to try and learn more about music to help me make my own better and be more happy with my final releases by taking a music theory class, and it has barely taught me anything of worth. I mean, it's barely even a music theory class, it's a music history class with occasional theory lessons thrown in. I don't even care about those lessons either though because I'm tired of that class and how much bs and useless info it's been giving me. I really wish that there was some class where one could learn about all 'main' genres of music. I want to learn more about how rock is made, have a lesson about how the vocalist of Gojira controls his voice so well while keeping the intense metal screaming and growling, something about the details in rap numbers, or something as broad as 'lyric writing'.
sorry for the ramble, but thats been really getting under my skin for a while now...Have a nice day, Cheers! ^v^
He's 'Composer of the Week' on BBC Radio 3 every other week all this year (to celebrate the 250th anniversary) and I've been enjoying his back story. :)
You basically don't speak about his music but about the canon at a meta level, attacking the subject by one angle. There is one big contradiction, you underline the importance of actual musical quality and suggest a reexamination of the canon under new criteria. However you also say that the quality of Beethoven's music doesn't matter in an "abstract sense" note the use of vocabulary here to diminish importance. I'm quite dissapointed of this video. I really deeply enjoy the music of Beethoven since I'm very young (my best friend played a lot of it, he's now working on his own music theory). From an analytical point of view at least you had the honesty to concede Beethoven's music is great. Yes history did "reward him" but not in the sense you frame it. He didn't happen to be in the transition between the classical and romantic era, he was the transition, his music was.
I have sympathy for the emotions that drove this video, but it is very poorly researched compared to the rest of your content. Why? Because it defends an a priori political view that you strive to defend.
Another point about Ludwig was that he was mostly deaf for half of his life. I can't think of another composer who has that disability. Like an Olympic sprinter having one leg
He wasn't born deaf though. He knew what the music he was composing sounded like.
I think one topic you didn't really talk about is how music changed from composers performing their work to performers performing other composers' work. There was also a glaring omission when you talked about Bach writing for a patron and his tastes when a large portion if not at least half of his works were for the church.
I agree with your point that we hold on to the idea that "older is better," but rather than "move on" which is the theme I got from your video, I'd argue we should just add composers to the canon.
You also approached the topic of the music from a popular/elitist point of view, and while that does play a significant role, you'd be remiss not to take into account what the big names did to actually contribute or revolutionize music in their time. There is a reason why Mozart and Beethoven both looked upon Bach's work with admiration. What was that reason? Don't you think it would be important to include this video? Were there others, should there be others? Yes. But, your video dismisses their genius and simply attributes their longevity to canon.
Another factor you completely glanced over is instruments. I'm not going to hear an oboe concerto at the top of the current music charts. If symphonies did not serve as a home to these classical instruments, we would be robbing future generations of learning these instruments and probably condemning some of the more obscure instruments to die.
And the elitism goes both ways. People who only listen to popular contemporary music dismiss anything that is more complex than a song in simple 4/4 with a common chord progression.
_"you'd be remiss not to take into account what the big names did to actually contribute or revolutionize music in their time. There is a reason why Mozart and Beethoven both looked upon Bach's work with admiration. What was that reason? Don't you think it would be important to include this video? Were there others, should there be others? Yes. But, your video dismisses their genius and simply attributes their longevity to canon."_
Yes, good point. The canon isn't totally arbitrary. I feel like usually (at least these days) the classical canon is about the most "important" composers. It doesn't mean that their music is necessarily better, but it means that they had a big influence on music. Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest composers for the same reason as why Jimi Hendrix is considered to be one of the greatest electric guitar players and why The Beatles are considered to be one of the greatest pop/rock bands.
Obviously we should also give recognition to artists outside of the canon. But I think it's also important to make a distinction between what artists we subjectively like, and what artists we should appreciate, even if they didn't make my personal favorite music.
What's the point of a canon?
@@MaggaraMarine "I think it's also important to make a distinction between what artists we subjectively like, and what artists we should appreciate, even if they didn't make my personal favorite music"
But this distinction is arbitrary and entirely focused on an extremely eurocentric view of music. There's plenty in middle-eastern and other oriental musical traditions, for example, that have been large influences in our modern musical landscape, but that you'll never even hear mentioned because said influences aren't a part of western canon. This doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate the composers within this canon, but the value we apply to them excludes other equally useful influences from that level of appreciation - and, in part, due to inflexibility.
@@henriquepacheco7473 _"But this distinction is arbitrary and entirely focused on an extremely eurocentric view of music."_
Well, I thought we were talking about the Western classical canon here... That's what the video was also talking about, so I don't see why "Eurocentiricity" would be an issue in this context. The "classical canon" is by definition about Western classical music.
I'm not saying there aren't artists that would deserve more recognition. All I'm saying is that there's a difference between your own taste ("I like this random hipster band, and in my opinion, they would deserve a lot more recognition"), and the more "objective" influence/importance of certain artists ("Personally, Beethoven isn't my favorite composer, but I recognize his importance in a historical sense").
Then again, it is true that people put these big classical composers on a pedestal. Some people worship their genius and treat them as some kind of "musical gods". And I doubt these people would recognize similar talent from the music of other genres or cultures.
So, if we are talking about the "top composers/songwriters/musicians of all time", then treating Beethoven as the greatest of all time would be more questionable, because a lot of things have happened in music since him. But then again, I think a list like that would be too vague any way, and it would be comparing apples to oranges. For example why would Beethoven deserve more recognition than Jimi Hendrix? Both were hugely important figures in music, and comparing the two just wouldn't make much sense. It's easier to compare different musicians in the same style than to compare two musicians from totally different styles and eras.
But if we are only talking about the classical canon (and don't focus on the way some people treat these composers as some kind of super-humans/demigods), then Beethoven's position on the list is deserved because of his influence. It isn't just about people's opinions - it's also about his importance in general. He pretty much started the romantic period, and a lot of romantic composers were hugely influenced by his music. He was pretty much treated as the "pinnacle of music" by a lot of composers back then.
Then again, there's a discussion to be had on why it's exactly Beethoven that's seen as the most important composer in classical music. Why not someone like Monteverdi who basically started the baroque period, and was one of the innovators of opera? Why not someone like Perotin who was one of the first composers that started writing 3- and 4-part harmony? It seems like we value the opinions of 19th century classical musicians over the classical musicians from the previous centuries...
But yeah, basically I'm saying that Beethoven's position as one of the greatest classical composers is deserved, just like Jimi Hendrix's position as one of the greatest rock guitarists is deserved. I mean, Michael Angelo Batio could easily play any Hendrix song, and a lot more complex stuff than that, but that doesn't make him "greater" than Jimi Hendrix. And this is because of influence. Hendrix totally changed guitar playing. MAB on the other hand is just a technically proficient shredder, but didn't really do much to change the "meaning" of guitar music. In other words, I think there are certain names that deserve to be on these lists simply because of their importance - not because people simply like their music. Hendrix's influence is more than just someone thinking Purple Haze is a banger. And similarly, Beethoven's influence is more than just someone thinking Ode to Joy is a catchy melody. Those are just arbitrary opinions. What makes them great is not some random opinions. It is about their influence. They kind of "redefined" their own styles.
@@MaggaraMarine I think you, then, understand the point this video is making. It isn't denying Beethoven's worth, but rather pointing out that usually the western classical canon is propped up as the absolute primacy of music, to the detriment of all other music that preceded, coexisted with and that followed it - and that it does so in significant part because of the biases of the people that historically structured the academic construct of the canon.
recognizing other new geniuses does NOT require to destroy and replace old school composers! Why should we replace them, when we can just add more to the canon?
To add to that: who can say that our changes to a canon are not just as politically motivated? Sure a canon will represent the zeitgeist but I find it worrying when people say we can update or change a canon to be "correct". It will always be an imperfect tool, which luckily plenty of people already know. Contrary to what this video seems to suggest.
Nobody is getting replaced you bozo, did you even watch the video?
@@20xx-mm-dd I did watch a video, did you? The video literally suggests that Beethoven literally got on the cannon out of sheer f****** luck. It named some women composers and composers of color, but I wonder what those composers had said about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? All right, they all hail damage the greatest composers and would have never have dared to even try to compare themselves, as most composers during the nineteenth century Europe also would never have dared.
@@babygottbach2679 Once again, nobody is getting replaced. I don't know what you're getting all worked up about.
@@20xx-mm-dd If Beethoven actually sucks at music and is only on the canon as a matter of some cosmic fluke, he OUGHT to be removed. Follow the reasoning of the argument ACTUALLY being made in this video.
I feel like the solution to this is to change the way we think of the canon composers, rather than to shoehorn in a bunch of composers in to make it more inclusive.
The canons were made mostly in Germany to portray mostly German music but was later thought of to represent all music, and since classical music was the music of the upper class, the canon composers were seen as the “fanciest musicians”.
Beethoven was chosen because he not only was a good musician but he also significantly influenced German music, same with the others. The romanticist composers like Chopin and Tchaikovsky are a bit different since they weren’t really “classical” but they are known for having significant influence as well. Since classical and classical-like music (romanticist music) was made in the west, it makes sense that the canon composers would be white, similar to how the most famous jazz musicians or rap artists are black.
Changing the canon list without keeping the classical music and influence aspects would just make it loose meaning. Making the composers be seen as specifically the best classical musicians rather than the best musicians is the best way to make the composers seen with more realistic eyes.
Now do a video about why Beethoven was by far the best composer of his time.
hahaha, that wud be awesome!!! jealous u came up w/ this and i didnt!!! brilliant brilliant brilliant!!!
Judging by the video the uploader has no understanding of music and isnt fit to discuss that matter
@@rossconnolly3402
-Beethoven sucks, who has even listened to him? Its probably because hes old.
Do you like music? Well I bet you havent listened to him anyway, god forbid studied him. Etc etc etc
@@RobinJWheeler I'm a 20 year old classically trained pianist and I compose, the uploader is an idiot and not qualified to make videos about the master Beethoven.
@@rossconnolly3402 I like a lot of his other videos and he knows what hes talking about a lot more than me. Its just a bit weird for him to act like Beethoven wasn't as incredible as he was.
Begins watching video: Clickbait?
Finishes watching video: Clickbait.
He also never got his picture on bubblegum cards.
How can you say someone's great if they never had their picture on a bubblegum card?
As someone that is in the "I can hum and enjoy a few parts of 5th and 9th" group
I really enjoy in this way of thinking of not discounting the present just because I enjoy the past.
Thank you for this other point of view!
HOW DARE YOU ASSUME I WOULD GET MAD?
Take it easy, Ludwig...
Alan Barnett as a viewer and fan... :)
I've listened to classical music for over 60 years. I've continued to listen to it because it's the perfect tonic for heart and mind. In my early teens, I was a great proselytizer for classical music. I was young, enthusiastic, naive and learned some hard lessons about the varieties of taste and preference that exist. Rather soon, the proselytizing went away. I found that the person I had to please was myself and this was my goal with listening to music. Why, after all this time, does Brahm's 4th symphony still so deeply move me? I could say the same thing about the last three symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven's 7th symphony or Bach's partitas and sonatas for violin...and this is the tip of the iceberg. Why does classical music, for me, offer hope, beauty, consolation and inspiration? I don't really know, it just does and always will. Something I found about classical music is that you either "get it" or you don't. It's as though you're born with a preference for it. It may be a personality type. Perhaps Jung could explain it. It is also an integral part of European culture and mindset.
For me, classical music has been the greatest of gifts and had enriched my life beyond measure. I couldn't live, in any meaningful way, without it.
Agreed
Eh, if I wanted to hear someone work their way up and down a scale in the most boring and unimaginative way possible, I'd go to an old folks home.
@@OldManShoutsAtClouds Whatever that means. It's like the man said, you either "get it" or you don't.
I get it, i have it, and yes only classical music does it for me. I have both books of wtc memorized. That doesn’t stop me from realizing that my preference for this kind of music was predetermined by the place and people I was born into. I was born into middle class parents who wanted to signal higher class status by sending their kids to piano lessons at an early age, only listened to classical music at home and talked about european paintings and sculptures and literature, even though we are middle eastern. And I don’t know jack shit about the culture of my own country. Am I mad? No. Do I understand that me writing fugues in my spare time was influenced by all these facts? Yes. Only classical music does it for me, as I told before. But I am also cognizant of the fact that classical was the only thing I ever listened to as a kid, and to this day.
Say one thing for old Ludwig: while all the classical canon composers were rhythmically stunted as a result of not being exposed to African music (that's why I had expected this video to be about), Beethoven was shockingly funky in comparison to the others. Just listen to the rhythms in the first minute or two of Symphony 3: Mvt. I. You can find the most prevalent West African bell pattern in there and he's doing wild things with it. I'm guessing that if Beethoven had been given access to 2020 UA-cam, he would have gone wild with it. He was also considered a wildly anti-canon musical arsonist during his lifetime. In fairness, he also appears to have been one of the most appalling jackasses in history in terms of his personal life.
@@gotex2796what do you see? You should listen
I used to not care for Beethoven particularly. But his music sucked me in, deeper than any other music I have known. I didn't choose it. This is true for countless musicians and listeners. More musicians have build their careers around Beethoven than any other composer, and not because it "belongs to the cannon," so they feel they should. They so because it draws them in. Because they love the music endlessly. Its what they want to play, and its what people want to hear.
This video wasn't bad in the end. But it didn't need the dumb click-baity title. Beethoven has nothing to do with your personal problems. leave him out of it.
I feel very deeply insulted that a content creator could go so low for views, considering especially that he studies music.
Beethoven has meant a lot to me over the years. He regularly explores tragedy and hope. He’s very versatile through different stages of life. I’ve also really come to enjoy Dvorák, Rossini, and others. I try to branch out and regularly engage with music by composers other than white men. Some of it really resonates me, and some of it doesn’t. Ultimately, I believe that’s okay. If you love Beethoven and want to listen to nothing else, that’s perfectly okay. If you hate Beethoven and he does nothing for you, that’s okay too. Art is subjective. Don’t force yourself to follow someone else’s standards-and don’t force someone else to follow yours. Find what you like, and allow others to do the same. It’s beneficial to branch out sometimes, but you do you.
Mahler
I mean.. its obviously a clickbait title but you never even try to make that point. Trying to prove that Beethoven is considered great for reasons that aren't the quality of his music doesnt prove that the quality of Beethoven's music isn't great. I spent the whole video looking for an objective analysis to back up the title but it just isn't there. I love your work 12tone, but the title is too obvious of a troll, and unnecessarily agitating.
I agree the video title was clickbait, but based on the video itself, his focus wasn't on measuring the quality of Beethoven's music but on a distinct but related topic: the formation of the classical music canon. Keeping that in mind, I think his video did a great job of presenting his view on canon formation.
I think the title is really apt: the only reason the title is clickbait is because Beethoven is so accepted as one of the greats, and the video dives right into the analysis of why specific composers are considered great.
@@v2snyder654 I feel that way too. There's a layer to the title that nearly all other youtube videos lack, which is neat, but confusing.
It’s weird that Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer is what triggered such a negative reaction considering in the hip hop world Kendrick kinda is high art (though he does still crossover with the mainstream far more then, say, The Roots). But it’s not like they have a Pulitzer to Blueface or whatever.
(don’t get me wrong we also stan Blueface)
if i understand u correctly, wat ur saying is, the blueman group. my preliminary assessment is that, i got it-though further study is warranted. sorry, i’m slow.
It’s because Damn isn’t a good album.
One of the main negative reactions is that the Pulitzer had never been awarded to non-jazz/classical music.
@@mackereltacos2850 I'd lay money that the first jazz composer to win a Pulitzer stirred fights if he was Black. May have even upset people anyway, since jazz was not considered music by the ultra-snobby racist set.
@@IAmisMaster it's an OK album. The award really should have been for To Pimp A Butterfly
Seeing the title I thought I was going to see a video arguing through music about the value of Beethoven.
Unfortunately, it was nothing more than a clickbait that talks about inequality using as a vehicle a musician whose best-known work talks about the brotherhood of peoples!
In the next video, explain to us why orcs are those poor proletarians who fight for a fairer world.
This video has several of the kinds of moments that I find the most persuasive of all; where I put my agreement or disagreement to the side because what I'm hearing is so plainly-simple and good humored (I laughed at the parts about Pink Floyd) that it makes more sense than something complicated, snobbish or mean-spirited possibly could.
By 5:42, you've at least hinted at the main point. The late 1700s were a time of great worldwide class struggle, where an upper class had their elite music, and the "lower classes" still wanted to sing songs and have parties and dancing. It was two directly-conflicting ways of "owning" music (and other arts) that has for centuries been a defining aspect of the struggle for spiritual freedom.
Long live rock and roll, folk, hip-hop, and enjoying life.
I find it very interesting that in the past grave classical music was so mainstream, while today it isn't. I would make a case for a possible personality change in culture: Today there isn't much left of the "epic" gravity of the past, instead lighter and more "fun" music is appreciated much more. But in domains like video games epic music has survived: Because the narrative itself - for example a boss battle - demands "epicness" and gravity. It is ironic that video games (like Dark Souls) continue the tradition of this sort of music seemingly much more than temporary classical music. When I listen to choir music, it is most often in video games nowadays! :D
As a definite classical music fanboy (not that I scoff at other genres, I listen to all of them and enjoy them, just that _some_ classical music has found its way very deep into my heart), it seems to me that because of this stupid and untrue high art / low art distinction there was a separation of motives, with one group pursuing deep essential profundity at the cost of all surface aesthetics (the "epic gravity" thing), and another dismissing that as a fool's errand and going for just the best looks. In essence, it's like nowadays music can be either "pretty" or "deep" but not both anymore. This is truly heartbreaking for me, because these traits are not opposites, but rather, two sides of same coin. Music is the greatest form of art, not because it's the highest, but because it's simultaneously the highest _and_ the lowest, and as such, captures the full spectrum of humanity; All of my favourite composers, classical or not, understood this truth, that beauty of sound and and depth of meaning are one and the same, and purposely amputating one from the other is ultimately a disservice to both. I will leave you with a (translated) quote from my very tippity-top favourite composer, the quite apparently very misunderstood Beethoven (yes, actually):
"Music is the mediator between the sensual and the spiritual"
Classical music wasn't "mainstream" in the past, it was the music of the elites.
Normal people had always have folk music.
Also, there's some pretty uninspired "Epic" music often used in big block busters and some really deep popular music.
The distinction is not so much between 'grave' and 'serious' on the one hand, and 'light' and 'fun' on the other. The main difference lies in rhythm and physicality (and, by extension, danceability and sensuality). This is why people raised on "popular music" often find classical music unexciting and inaccessible.
@jacobpast5437 Sure, that can play a role too. Maybe more "cerebral" people who are disconnected from their body (like typical nerds) tend to prefer classical music to the more physicality oriented pop music or rock music etc, because the body orientedness fills them with some sort of "shame".
I feel like another thing that goes overlooked about the canon and the "Great Composers" is the fact that the pieces we associate them with are a very small percentage of their work. They wrote lots and lots of pieces, and only the "best" ones are the ones we associate them with. It makes it more difficult for new composers, who have to, for example deal with EACH of their new compositions being compared with the "best" pieces of Mozart's music that are sorted from ALL of his works, maybe a selection of 10 or 20 well-known pieces out of hundreds of total works. Kinda makes it hard to find your footing when the fifth piece you've written is compared to a hand-selected 1 in 600 piece from another composer. EVERY composer writes good and bad music, and it's a bit of an unfair standard to compare a blossoming composer who only has a few works to someone who's written hundreds or thousands of works to choose the "best" from.
At this point you’re almost begging for Ben Shapiro to have an opinion at you
What do you mean, "almost"?
ahhhhh shit, anotha ben shapiro/12 tone throwdown-i’ve been waiting for this!!!
Yeah we only need another stupid Ben Shapiro argument where politics is thrown in just to hide his huge musical ignorance
This guy is literally worse than Ben Shapiro at this point xd. At least Ben Shapiro knows how to structrue his speech and he speaks quality nonsense.
@@tunahankaratay1523 I don't think someone who spells speech as “speach” is much of an authority on proper rhetoric.
Guilty of exactly what you are protesting. Love watching and studying you stuff. I was VERY interested in seeing an explanation of why “Beethoven Sucks”. You did not review or evaluate in any way his music. Isn’t that the point you brought up, that people do not look at the product,, just where it came from? If you tell me that he sucks, then tell me why. For the first time, I am very disappointed with one of your works.
They weren't interested in making the object-level point ("Beethoven good/bad.") - they don't state in the video whether they actually think Beethoven sucks or not, and discussing it isn't the purpose of it.
The goal of this video was to get people to think about the meta level of this topic - How come most people say "Beethoven is Great™", despite not having listened to his works? What is a canon? Why are works in it? What are its consequences?
(Complaining about clickbait is valid, ofc - if everyone would do it willy-nilly, it makes finding videos we actually want to watch harder.)
[EDIT: Wrong pronouns, my bad. And like Leo Hecht pointed out: 11:47. My point remains that the quality of Beethoven is not relevant to this video, and the title is just an entry point.]
He says he doesn't think beethoven sucks at the end. Basically just a way to start the conversation / get people to click on the video. You missed the entire point of the video, which was very well explained by nibblrr.
Leo Hecht correct
@@leohecht6837 It's not the viewer's fault to not get the idea of a video if the title hasn't anything to do with the content of the video. At least I was watching this video with an assumption that he is going to explain why Beethoven's music is bad, because that's what the title is telling.
Pate Pulkkinen/vtec okay that’s fair, I think clickbait is kind of lame but after watching the video you should be able to realize that the title was just clickbait because the discussion in the video really is quite different than the title. The 4 word title should have less influence on your takeaway from the video than the content of the 15 minute video
As a classical musician I can say with certainty that Beethoven is just that good. He isn't great by accident he is great by his amazing and beautiful works, he'll even just playing his pieces is fun. Moonlight sonata 3rd was hard to learn but oh so fun to play. He is a musical genius and is not even slightly overrated. He might not be my personal favourite (that spot belongs to Chopin), but I do consider him the best.
I agree with this more than I do most of the other comments here! You're exactly right: nobody is famous by accident. They can be famous for what might seem to some people to be a trivial reason, but ultimately they still have or do something that a significant number of people value. A major reason there are so many German/Austrian (and also Italian) composers from the time is largely because the culture of the time in those places emphasized music. Around the same time, Britain was famous for literature for similar reasons.
Just to be clear, the early German nationalist movement (from around the 1850s onward) was NOT the same as the Nazi movement nor did it necessarily lead to it. It was initially just a push for unification of German-speaking countries/kingdoms at the time as well as for democracy in this new Germany. That being said it was nationalism all the same and you are probably right about German nationalism influencing the Canon of "great composers".
German nationalism ultimately led to the rise of the Nazis, though. Granted, the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles played a major role in that, too.
I had to pause and regain my composure after the "always has been" astronaut. LMAO
In my long distant past, I played plenty of Beethoven. "Moonlight Sonata, the first movement" was my favorite piece for decades. He's got a LOT out there, and I enjoyed him greatly.
Beethoven wasn’t such a snob himself: everyone knows about his Pastoral 6th Symphony, but he also included Folk influences in his 2nd Symphony, which I like to call the “Rodney Dangerfield” symphony because it don’t get no respect. The second Larghetto movement is gorgeous, the Scherzo is Schizoid, the final movement starts with a musical fart joke, and it’s generally quite nuts.
I'm interested in an explanation to the "fart joke" in the finale. I've been exploring Beethoven's symphonies lately, and gave the 2nd a listen. I absolutely loved the 1st movement, thought the 2nd was great too, and was disappointed in the 3rd and 4th movement.
Any Scherzo that isn't schizoid is doing it wrong. Scherzo literally means "joke" and sometime I feel like the only person who ever understood that was Dvorak who starts the scherzo for the New World with a percussionist going nuts on the triangle. :)
I've definitely always described the opening of the 2nd's finale as the musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel :)
@@5BBassist4Christ The "fart joke" isn't canonical: it's based on what people knew about Ludwig at the time, complaining about gastric problems. I see that as trying to cheer himself up and have some fun during the very difficult period when his hearing was clearly deteriorating.
But the 2nd is one of my favourites
That time was known as being an important music industry. Beethoven started earlier. He was put into this composer make machine when little. He is a product of this machine, and this evolution was directed to aim high to a point. Mozart, the same. Multicultural cities were uncommon in europe, unless we talk about ports.
Some pieces stand and others sank. What´s the most canon piece of modern days in this kind of music? John cage? Yes, the ones you can recognize. No matter how many times they play something in the radio it will die. And only because of nostalgia of bombardment will "rise" again.
The problem to address is not they were black composers in vienna or germany at the time. The problem is why europe was the center of worldwide canon. Why here in southamerica should we listen to european people playing european music and not our own? Maybe has something to do with colonialism. Or imperialism. The why i am speaking in english right now.
Of course you have heard of Luis Advis. His most famous work resonates here. But i don´t think i could be sad because the color of his skin wasn´t inclusive. I can´t see how.
At the end of the day, i only listen to music i like. And how i know i like it? I just listen, when something resonates with me, i look for the name of the song, or the piece. I want to repeat that experience.
"Wow, i shouldn´t listen to Shostakovich, today trend fashion is being anticommunist and once he was seen looking at a red flag in the beach. And is not from my country. But this is good or bad?"
BTW, your work is brilliant.
no irony, i really mean it.
Watching this again after really studying Beethoven for the past year of my life, and this video only got worse since I last watched it. Listen to the tortured fugatto of the second movement of his 3rd symphony and tell me that he was “just in the right place at the right time”. Beethoven is THAT good, and this video reeks of hatred for that fact rather than genuine investigation of it.
I'm a fan of this nuanced critique of a canon that I never gave much thought to.
Makes me glad that some of my favorite artists don't just pull from classical influences, but also non-western stuff to. I also thank peeps like Adam Neely for opening my ears to "non-standard" harmonies, scales, and rhythms.
I think it presents a one-sided portrayal of the classical canon. He does present that one side accurately, but he leaves out how the classical canon has always been contested by its participants. As Charles Rosen puts it, "The essential paradox of a canon, however-and we need to emphasize this repeatedly-is that a tradition is often most successfully sustained by those who appear to be trying to attack or to destroy it. It was Wagner, Debussy, and Stravinsky who gave new life to the Western musical tradition while seeming to undermine its very foundations."
rumor is, adam neely is a direct descendant of beethoven... so how can beethoven suk at music when mr neely is god at music??? hmmm??? just sayin...
M.L. Pianist interesting
That moment when you realize the entire video was a prolonged ad for Skill Share
1. In the cultural context I was raised in, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (the "First Viennese School" or Wiener Klassik) are regarded as the three greatest classical composers. Of these, _Mozart_ is considered the greatest-not Beethoven. This quasi-religious view has little to do with personal preference. It must always be framed as something like, "Mozart is, of course, the greatest, but personally, I prefer Beethoven."
The only composer you might be allowed to consider greater than these three is Bach, who is seen as beyond comparison-the "grandfather genius." However, voicing such an opinion might mark you as either a music nerd detached from the real world, or worse, someone just trying to appear exceptionally cultured and intellectually superior.
2. If we aim to establish a canon of the greatest Western composers from the pre-popular music era based on _objective criteria of quality,_ then characteristics like skin color, nationality, sex, and gender would, by definition, not play a role. However, it’s possible no such objective criteria can be established-and addressing that question should have been the starting point of the discussion in this video. Now if we concede there are no objective criteria, then, clearly, we also cannot claim that "Beethoven sucks at music" (or anyone else, at that).
3. On a personal note, I love a great deal of Renaissance and Baroque music and often find the classical composers who followed these periods either superficial (Mozart, for instance, in much of his work, seems to have been the frivolous pop star of his time) or deafeningly melodramatic. For me, music begins to resonate again with Rock and, more specifically, Hardcore Punk and related genres.
1.) The canon was created when concert culture started to become a thing in Europe. They needed a list of masters that would sell tickets. Mid 1800s I believe not mid 1900s.
2.) The whole reason the canon focuses on Germany is because Austria, specifically Vienna, was the musical capital of the world for the longest time during the classical and romantic period. They shaped the face of western music and understanding of harmony as we know it.
3.) Beethoven is considered the best composer because of how he mastered the principals of counterpoint and achieved flawless harmonic and melodic balance. His masterpieces specifically his 9th symphony has been played during celebrations everywhere from Germany to Japan. It is one of the most universally loved pieces of music in recorded history. It's not only played these days, but it never stopped being played since 200 years ago when it was first performed.
Edit: I've since learned new information. Beethoven is praised not only because of his music, but his impact. Critiquing him is like critiquing something like Gravity. His career was such a lynchpin in freedom of expression in music that we would not have anything like we do in the western music circle without him. That's why he's the greatest composer of all time. Not just because of his music, but because of his legacy and impact. He shook the music world to it's core in many ways as early as his 3rd symphony. He was the first truly free artist. He was free to explore whatever he wished within his time. And the 9th? That was absolutely revolutionary. He did what he wanted, and we do what we want now because of that. We should thank him for that.
10:00 "can we do something about that"? yes.
- classical german canon
- new german canon
- english canon
- french canon
- etc etc etc.
- european canon (assembled from equal number of things chosen from national canons of european cultures)
- western canon (assembled from equal number of things chose from european+english+american(+australian?) canon
- eastern cannon with similar structure under it (i'm no expert on eastern cultures so i can't enumerate it in as much detail as the western one (or even american one))
this kind of granularity basically for every subject if you want.
then every region/school/state/whatever entity people decide that is appropriate decides the primary canon of its educational institutions, and some secondaries (which are optional). students can then choose which canon they want as their primary and optional secondary, and would get education according to that.
- ...humanity canon? an extraction of all knowledge, ideals, and morals which are the intersection of everything that humanity can agree on as a whole? hm... naiive. but a nice sentiment/aspiration.
The take-home message here is that titles like 'genius' or 'greatest of all time' don't really mean anything, and say far more about those giving them than about those receiving them.
I thought this was common sense
@@iloveraisins4137 "common sense" as a concept is the mind projection fallacy - assuming that things you've learned through experience are self-evident to others.
@@notoriouswhitemoth ok
Yea, I usually just enjoy your videos but this one seems forced. The idea that there is more in music to consider as among the best than what we do (or the problematic nature of the false dichotomy of high art and folk music) is a worthy one. The approach that "you probably don't ackshually know any of Beethoven's music" is a poor one, because to be as blunt as possible, Beethoven's music is often transcendent. It doesn't matter if people might not be familiar with them, because all anyone needs to do is go to watch an orchestra. I wouldn't give him the reach around on every composition, but many of his pieces create a visceral experience that goes beyond what most music does -- even in context of other "greats." The best I can convey it is with an anecdote. I was at a production that was doing classical compositions through time, though in no particular order. There was plenty of lovely music, a brilliant Mozart concerto for example. But it was all still just music. I don't recall the specific Beethoven piece, but as soon as the strings started their rapid vamping, the air physically changed. There was an extra pressure or feeling to the space around you that didn't exist with the other compositions being played. It demanded attention and was unavoidable. It took you for a ride of experience that was beyond the ordinary. Bach had nothing on this. The rest of the music was flat and lacked a wholeness after experiencing it.
So yea, Beethoven is still recognized because many of his compositions truly were great. Was the canon perpetuated by white men and is it skewed and biased? Sure. Does that mean the ones who made the list aren't there for a reason? Not at all.
The Beethoven thing is true for playing his music too. Your body gets the chills and you know when your fingers hit that right tempo and right dynamics. It doesn't even need to be a show off piece, and can be one of his slower second movements. There's something *else* in the music he writes. I keep my own personal canon based on this. There is some music that you play, and it's great, but still just music. Then you hit the right groove on a Joplin rag or some Steve Wonder licks and the music becomes transcendent. Those are the greats.
The title is fucking clickbait. around 11:45 he says: do I think Beethoven sucks? Well no.
So you just picked a title that would get you the most views?
please look up the term "hyperbole"
This video summed up several of the classes I took in graduate school in a few minutes, well done. Something that wasn't mentioned though, is that almost all of those composers who also ended up canonized in the WAM tradition based their compositional styles on those that came before--a process which came to a hard break in the 20th ce. when musical genres exploded and became much more diversified and democratized. You kind of mention this when you comment on "cultural inertia" of the canon perpetuating itself. But it's a pretty big deal, the study of counterpoint was always one that accumulated around the study of 'good practices' of previous composers, so along with being a cultural phenomenon in his time, Beethoven's legacy was reciprocally reinforced every time a later composer either aspired to his style, or even when they attempted to get out from under his long shadow.
You answered your last question in the beginning. THIS canon(the western classical) is only one. There are many canons. Lamar may not be the best in the western classical Canon or the 20th century Rock n roll but he's the best for the modern hip hop Canon.
I agree with your basic point here, but I think it's interesting to then take that a bit further and ask, as 12tone actually does in the vid, what functions do the different canons have in our culture and why? As the video mentions, why is the western classical music canon associated with high culture and why is it almost completely white, German speaking men? Why were people upset with Kendrick Lamar, a great in the modern hip hop canon won the Pulitzer? So it's possible 12tone answered their own question, but I think they also wanted to dig a little deeper past that to try to get to something deeper in our culture. Just my take on this video.
@@theofrantz9374 At least what I think is, people are generally way close minded and usually prefers whatever they are used to (and I'm not saying it's a bad thing).
Let me make an example, an extreme one in fact. In a club, let's say I played 10 minutes of screaming and bashing, shattering and shit as a dj.
I personally value expression of emotions in music, so these are the stuffs I find musical.
How many people do you think will enjoy and dance to the track I play?
Of course, Pulitzer's decision to choose Kendrick Lamar as a winner isn't wrong in any mean. He is indeed great. But I don't think I'm shocked to see people being upset when it comes to Pulitzer, which I'm sure was a complete opposite reaction to his winning in Grammy.
The notion of musical canons is for non-musicians and low-grade weak ego musicians to feel good about themselves and have some idea of who did a great job of make notes become emotion.
When it comes to the notes put down and the sound they produce, Beethoven absolutely earned his title. For someone stuck in Europe during that time, he made sounds that even veered proto-modern, such as the Great Fugue and the variations in his Piano Sonata 32, which sounds ragtime-ish.
@@golgothatheend Kendrick Lamar may be great at what he does, but DAMN is not musically interesting. It's still interesting as a work of art, but It's like musical storytelling, a kind of hybrid artform. But take away the lyrics, and you take away the story, which makes up much of the impact of the album. If someone who wasn't an English speaker listened to DAMN, they could only derive enjoyment from the musical aspects of the work of art. Compare that to other music with lyrics, such as the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th, the Ode to Joy movement, and you would be able to derive vast enjoyment from that despite not knowing a lick of German. Nobody is going to be humming any tunes from DAMN, but the tune of Ode to Joy is almost universally recognizeable. Thus, Beethoven's 9th has a universality that Lamar's DAMN lacks.
@@babygottbach2679 Remove the strings from the 9th symphony and you will reduce drastically the enjoyment people can get from it. Remove the guitar from the Jimmy Hendrix Experience and you will reduce the enjoyment most people get from it. Remove the browns from the Mona Lisa and you will reduce the enjoyment most people get from the artwork. You can't judge an artwork's value by removing its central piece and judging only the skeleton that props it up.
And I can guarantee you some people will be humming tunes from DAMN, as they have with most popular hip-hop releases before and after.
I mean, if you just listen he is pretty freakin good lmao. It isn't like he had Pro Tools or Ableton to record his symphonies and sonatas. He even wrote great music when deaf. And the ideas and structure are about as sonically pleasing as any music from his age. That being said composers back then had to be sponsored by roaylty so of course there was tons of musical potential untapped due to lack of opportunity. But if you don't think Beethoven was all time great, just try to do some of what he did. Put away all your music tech and compose something using only paper and your memory.
Skill issue
Man predicted my reason for coming in the first 5 seconds, to the letter. If I'm going to be honest, there is so much more to classical composers than meets the eye. Like I used to think Beethoven as overrated (bcs well literally 0:43), and also bcs I tended to like Mozart more, and still do to a certain extent). But then I listened to his symphonies (all of them), his piano works and sonatas and then I found a deeper love and appreciation for his music. Same with Chopin. I honestly knew very little other than "He was a Romantic composer, and Romantic composers write big" (i.e. Berlioz and his symphonies), however I found, as a pianist, a love for his music and how expectionally free it is, much so with Liszt, who I thought was just a virtuoso and nothing more. Ofc I was wrong. Listening to more of a composer's work helps you deeply understand their music and appreciate their style.
Hey 12tone, I have a lot of respect for you and your content. I really appreciate your ability to simplify and explain somewhat complicated musical concepts in a way that is accesible to those unaccquainted. Because of this, this video came as quite a shock. I was quite surprised by the title, as I wasn't really sure how someone would make a compelling argument for Beethoven sucking at music. I was even more surprised to find out that the video actually had very little to do with Beethoven's compositional skill. While I don't neccesarily agree on all of your points, I certainly agree that the so called classical cannon is...problematic.
I won't comment on your opinions on the cannon because I don't know how much research you did for this video (my knowledge is about that of the average conservatory student). I don't know what you omitted for the sake of being concise, but many of your arguments, for their extremely, are unsubstantiated. For example, when you speak of the invisible hand, you seem to dismiss many of the ideas simply because you feel they aren't true or don't apply. From the perspective of a viewer, this leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Something I can comment on a little more directly are your thoughts on orchestral programming. I won't be presumptuous and assume that as a string player I am more intimately aware of what modern orchestras are programing, but I have seen many examples of orchestras regularly programing works by modern composers. In fact, most of the top orchestras in America include contemporary works in their programs. The majority of works programed are from the classical cannon, but I think some of the claimes you made do a disservice to the progress's that has been made.
Regarding the upsetness over the Pulitzer prize, I totally agree that people don't really have a right to be upset about a classical composer not winning, but I think this may be related to the classical cannon as well. It's not a question that pop music is far more dominant in out society than classical is. And that within classical music, the cannon is more dominant than works of contemporary composers. In a way, contemporary composers are a minority within a minority. The prize perhaps acts as a shining beacon of hope, so when it goes to a pretty famous pop artist, they and the community that supports them probably feel pretty negative emotions. I'm not trying to justify these emotions, and I agree that Kendrick's album was more than deserving of the prize.
I've gone on longer than I intended, but in summary. I totally agree that there are lots of problems with the classical cannon and the pedestal it's placed on, but I don't think that making the claim that Beethoven or Mozart or whoever sucked at music, especially if left unsubstantiated, is at all related to the problems of the cannon.
Hello I agree with what you said above very much so, but I do think progress in the so called "cannon" simply happens over a span of time that is far too long for us to appreciate the progress. As you mentioned contemporary composers are quite frequently featured in the modern orchestra programmes with a combination of the old masters, it simply takes a far longer time for more modern composers to come out into the limelight simply that good music often takes a few listens for the audience to "understand" so to speak and I am repeating myself here, that it takes time. At the same time I think there is a risk of over featuring contemporary composers so that a deeper understanding of the work may not be reached and make the audience and programme makers to fall back to safer options.
TLDR I believe the cannon shifts over time although it happens over a long period of time and high turnover of contemporary composers may result in a quick rejection and ultimately end badly.
At the same time also agree with being shocked that there was not an ounce of criticism of Beethoven's work
I don't really appreciate the intentionally deceptive clickbait title, although I think I somewhat understand what the intention behind it is. It's true that the way in which only certain classical European composers are kept in high praise, while others seemingly fade from collective memory is problematic in certain ways, but thhe discussoin, in my mind, shouldn't so much revolve around criticising the work of those composers whose work has prevailed over time as much as it should revolve around lifting up the works of others who created great music but have since been forgotten. There also are other reasons why Beethoven's music is still taught in musicology classes than just that the teachers think that he was the greatest composer of all time, like the fact that his symphonies essentially created the layout of how most symphonies were structured afterwards until today, and the model of the sonata form is largely based on his work. This influence on symphonic music is undeniable, so it makes sense to take Beethoven as an example. One doesn't have to personally like his music to understand his indirect contribution to music theory. One also generally doesn't have to like a certain style of music to analyse it and thereby gain understanding of musical structure and practice. I, for example, didn't really like the segments on Indian raga in the analysis seminar I took in my second semester of studying musicology, because listening to the music didn't speak to me on a purely subjective, aesthetic level. But the analyis of the structure of this music was still interesting to me, and I certainly learned a lot from it.
Which brings me to my last point: Disliking a certain kind of music doesn't mean that that music is "objectively" bad. It's not even really possible to objectively judge music in order to come to such a conclusion. So even if someone subjectively thought that Beethoven sucked, that wouldn't be much of an argument on its theoretical, "objective" value.
I'm mad at this title! How dare you insult the greatest composer who ever lived!
edit: damn you got me
"Invisible hand of the canon" made me laugh. She picked the perfect descriptor for that alleged process.
You know, Linus Tech Tips always gets mentioned about his segways to sponsor's messages, but man, do you modulate to those well!!
Thank you for the tip on that Trap Production class! I have a skillshare subscription and I'm always psyched when someone smart recommends a class to me.