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Talk:World History Lecture Nine (view source)
Revision as of 15:26, April 6, 2009
, 15:26, April 6, 2009→Non-German 'Great' Composers
:::::I am not interested in political correctness, or in censoring the truth. I am glad that you share my opinion. My statements on Beethoven, I repeat are: first, that the title of "world's greatest composer", unlike the title of "world's tallest building", cannot be awarded with truthful objectivity. Your preference for Beethoven is an opinion, not a fact. It would be better to describe Beethoven as being "one of the greatest composers". Second, that what you say about Beethoven is rather vague and conveys little useful information, and would be better and more interesting if it were made more specific. Third, that it is historically imprecise to describe him as German, and that it is potentially misleading to draw the conclusions you did. --[[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 09:58, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
:::::I am not interested in political correctness, or in censoring the truth. I am glad that you share my opinion. My statements on Beethoven, I repeat are: first, that the title of "world's greatest composer", unlike the title of "world's tallest building", cannot be awarded with truthful objectivity. Your preference for Beethoven is an opinion, not a fact. It would be better to describe Beethoven as being "one of the greatest composers". Second, that what you say about Beethoven is rather vague and conveys little useful information, and would be better and more interesting if it were made more specific. Third, that it is historically imprecise to describe him as German, and that it is potentially misleading to draw the conclusions you did. --[[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 09:58, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
Andy, can a musicologist jump in here? I, for one, find nothing contentious about calling Beethoven the "greatest composer" - in fact, my dissertation is over Beethoven, so I'm completely in sympathy with this statement. (That being said, it's been my perception that just as many musicians and music lovers say that either Bach or Mozart are the greatest.) However, I feel that the other posters here bring up a fair point, in that it's problematic to call Beethoven a German, since his heritage was Dutch, and because he found his success from an early age in Vienna, where he lived for most of his life. It's the same problem with Handel, who was German, but most people think of him as an English composer, because he wrote the ''Messiah''.
As far as "most of the great composers" being German, you can only say that if you're willing to leave out a great deal of the most beloved composers: Mozart, Haydn, Schubert (all three Austrians), Chopin (a Pole working in France) Verdi and Puccini (Italians), Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff (Russians), etc. If you polled classical music-lovers, your top ten list would surely include Germans like the "3 B's," but you'd definitely also have Mozart, most likely Chopin, as well as the aforementioned Russians and Italians.
There's nothing "politically correct" about this point. This is about accuracy. Beethoven (or Bach or Mozart) is widely considered to be the greatest composer, but right up there nearby are a pantheon of Russian, French, Italian, Polish, and Czech composers. Why is this such a contentious point? [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 11:26, 6 April 2009 (EDT)