Bach or Beethoven

[altariel]

Lots of interesting discussions going on around the friends' list about taste in music and what this says about your personality. Let's make things easy. (Certainly easier than, say, "Jane Austen? Or Virginia Woolf?")

[Poll #946040]

Comments

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Well, that was easy. I must get round to posting a "King Crimson or Nickleback" poll...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Well, that was easy.

You still picked the wrong answer though.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Bach has his moments, but I like Beethoven better than just about anyone

Yes - Bach by no means displeases the senses, but Beethoven turns my head inside out.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

They're both fantastic, but in the end I went for Bach because I'm a Baroque whore.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I love listening to Bach, but Beethoven blows my mind.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

That is the sort of question that makes me tear my hair out. Bach *and* Beethoven! And Handel, who was a sensible fellow, and Mozart, who was not, and Dvorak, and Granger, and Liszt, the big ham, and Brahms, who is definitely the woobie of the classical music world, if also a bit of a drama queen, and Tchaikovsky, who almost threw himself into a river, but wisely wrote the 4th Symphony instead.

I can't do favourites. The only "either/or" question of this sort that I've ever been able to answer decidedly is, "Charlotte or Emily?" (Charlotte.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

"Charlotte or Emily?"

Anne! ;-)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Metallica.

Does that make me a freak?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Beethoven with feedback.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Oh great, now you've started an IRC conversation about Bach/Beethoven time-travel RPS! ;D

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh cool! (I feel as if, in a small way, I have made the world a better place!)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I thought there might be correlation with MBTI.

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

Well, that was easy! Of course I love Beethoven but he doesn't regularly make my hair stand on end as does Bach.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Easy for me too - in the opposite direction but for the same reasons! :-)

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I was going to say this even before I read the comments -

but - but - how can Bach possibly be winning? Beethoven is the best composer of all time, and Bach is just boring! How can anyone possibly listen to the Brandenburg Concertos and then Beethoven's 9th or 6th and pick Bach? If I were you, I'd have rigged the poll just to see justice done.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

That be fighting talk! *hoists the ... oh, I dunno, a cantata on a stick or something*

[edge-of-ruin.livejournal.com]

Easy? Matthew Passion versus Fidelio? I'm going to have to sleep on it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I was very intrigued as to what you would pick. I fear I may have asked you an impossible question.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Whichever one inspired "A Clockwork Orange"? Sorry, they were both before my time.

[trixieleitz]

...before my time.

Oooh, now you've gone and reminded me of an ill-remembered but delicious rant Stephen Fry made, about his encounter with some "yoof" who used that phrase to dismiss some art that Stephen thought valuable. And Google is failing me :(

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

But that one's too difficult to decide!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's all right - you don't really have to pick one! (But if you do, make sure it's Beethoven ;-D )

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I believe you've asked me this before. It used to be a standard personality-determining question of mine as a student (I never spoke to those Beethoven freaks) -- I've since come to appreciate late Beethoven a great deal, though I still go for Bach.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

You're my favourite Bach-fan. We'll keep you after the Revolution ;-)

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

Bach, Beethoven, Händel and Verdi. *grins*

And Puccini.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I can't answer the poll, sorry, because I simply don't know either well enough, and I have very bad musical recall, so when people start saying "Well, how can you say Bach's X is better than Beethoven's Y?", my brain starts shutting down, because I just cannot remember what either X or Y sound like, even if I've heard them a lot, and I start humming "Sound of the Underground" by Girls Aloud.

And I know that whatever I picked, someone would start telling me why it was wrong to like that, which is about the sum total of my entire musical experience, and probably has a lot to do with why I tend to keep any thoughts I have about music to myself. Also, I never did have much sense of belonging to any group whatsoever when I was younger, and it also probably had a lot to do with not hating a lot of music I was supposed to despise, according to one group or another, and not being totally passionate about some other kind of music, which I was supposed to be, according to the same groups. So in relation to music, I developed a sense of "Fuck everybody and the horse they rode in on", and kept it all in.

[muninnhuginn]

Neither?

Germanic and beginning with B = not my style.

OTOH, Looby Loo goes all proto-fangirl over Bach, Beethoven, Brahms....

Faure? Debussy?

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Beatles, The.

Also start with "B", but are much closer to the heart of this particular tone-deaf philistine.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-) (BTW, that is my favourite of all the iIcons, with the possible exception of iClaudius.)

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Difficult, but in the end Beethoven wouldn't have been Beethoven if it hadn't been for Bach.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Grieg.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wash your mouth out! ;-D

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Tricky question. Beethoven can be a bit overblown sometimes, can't he? And repetitive and ponderous. Actually, I wish I could take my favourite movements from his symphonies and rearrange them to make an uber-symphony - somewhat on the lines of assembling an all-time England first XI. The wonderful slow movement of the 7th is wasted there, for instance. Why not use it as the second movement of the 5th instead, replacing the yawnfest Beethoven actually wrote?

Bach, on the other hand, is wonderful and reliably so. And yet, in certain moods, listening to Bach feels a bit like getting a loose bit of clothing caught in industrial machinery, and being dragged inexorably in.

Okay. Beethoven, finally. The late quartets swing it in his favour.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I like the tactic of picking worse case and deciding which is more bearable. And yes, it's the late quartets do it.

[edge-of-ruin.livejournal.com]

OK, it's Beethoven. Definitely and no doubts;-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*applause from the gallery!*