Beethoven

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Better trained? I think you depreciated the expertise of musicologists a couple of posts ago, saying that training alone doesn't qualify for anything. "Musicologists who cannot compose music as sophisticated as that of Brahms or Beethoven will not be able to understand Mozart and Bach as well as Brahms and Beethoven no matter how many facts and theories they have accumulated. It takes a genius to truly understand one."-> See, that's why I assumed you were talking about geniuses to judge other geniuses. Since according to you they're the only ones who can truly judge other geniuses. But SSC has already pointed out that composers of the last centuries inherently were less trained in certain musical aspects than we are today. Not only had they no clue about all the musical developments that happened after their time until today, they usually also had a very limited knowledge of music history and knew next to nothing about music in other cultures. Not even to mention the lack of knowledge about acoustics. Their knowledge might have been excellent in their particular musical field, but it was a specialised and narrow knowledge in comparison to what is expected from the average musicologist and musician today.

Far more accomplished? What does that mean? Famous? Able? If you mean the latter, we're already back in the realm of the undefineable.

You haven't named any real criterion why Brahms and Beethoven should be better suited at judging "geniuses" than less famous people. Or are you just going to give us a list of people who are in your opinion able to classify others as geniuses? And what if they disagree with each other?

Sorry, but I just find it a bit naive to think famous composers automatically have a perfect ability to judge themselves and others accurately. They are subjective individuals too, born into a certain culture, grown up with certain music and certain teachers, with individual characters and tastes (and not even just musically: just see how Mendelssohn's Judaism made Wagner depreciate his music). There's no "supreme council of composers" who all share the same musical ability and are able to judge who's a good composer and who isn't. It's a lot of individuals, all with individual weaknesses and individual ideas about what music should be. Vincent d'Indy might have classified different composers as geniuses than Pierre Boulez, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Jean Baptiste Lully or Leonin.

This entire post is based on the confusion of style with substance. To understand the difference between the two (by taking style out of the comparison), listen to the Robert Levin completion of Mozart's requiem.

You have an overly active imagination.

You are letting your personal bias show.

Which of course, removes a great deal of crediblility from your stance on this whole discussion.

Simply because you are unable to appreciate the Beethoven for what it is, a masterpiece, and have the perfectly subjective notion that the Mozart is "more polished", will not make it an objective comparison nor material to support a stance like the one you've been promoting in this thread.

All that to say that, basically, you have just proven yourself wrong with a single phrase.

According to you, saying Mozart's 29th is more polished than Beethoven's 7th means:

1) that I am not capable of appreciating the 7th as a masterpiece

2) that since you believe otherwise that everything I've said is wrong

3) that I am somehow biased against Beethoven (or at least towards Mozart, I'm no relation, I promise)

4) that since I do not subscribe to your limited idea of what makes an "objective comparison" that I have not provided evidence for my stance

What it really shows is that you didn't read my post before attempting to discredit my stance.

Here's what I actually said:

"I'm not saying Mozart's 29th is better music (it's certainly less ambitious)"

Which means:

1) Mozarts 29th isn't necessarily a better piece of music

2) That it clearly isn't as ambitious as the Beethoven's 7th

I respect your musical knowledge but in a discussion like this it really is important to read carefully before jumping to conclusions.

This thread has survived considerably past its usefullness... and will now be closed.

I suggest to some of the participants that they learn how to discuss matters without resorting to name-calling or insults, and to others to be careful about circular reasoning and "absolute declarations" regarding music.

Thread now closed.