Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

I think the difference between our tastes is that I like to become acquainted with new music, and as you’ve said, you like music which struck you and moved you in your youth. If I may, I will call the the strum und drang period of life. The first composer I played a lot was Wagner--his orchestration, not arias. He is very strum und drang. Probably moreso since that is a German expression. 

I discovered and learned to hear music all my life...

I was not at all in "sturm and drang"...

You miss my point about the  Western written tonal music...

I did not want to makes history gravitate around tonality... 

History of music is more complex than that...

I wanted to present Scriabin as the main interesting composer between two extremes : tonality and pure atonality, three regions...

By the way i am fanatic about Indian and Persian music and Jazz...

I listened much music before Bach not mainly Mozart Beethoven and the romantics...

I think Robert Simpson is a genius as Philip Glass...

Then your "strum and drang" qualification defined a nostalgia from my youth is completely  wrong... Young i listen to few poets (Ferré Dylan Joan Baez) but mostly choral music before Bach where there is no "sturm and Drang"... My discoveries of different music era and languages came later...

By the way Scriabin is not a "sturm and drang" Romantic at all save in his beginnings ... His ideal is spiritual he was a theosophist whose goal was elevate mankind soul by creativity and the sense amplification... Nothing to do with Wagner  or the first Schoenberg excessive use of the emotions by saturation... Scriabin is more sophisticated than the first Schoenberg and Wagner...Even more sophisticated than the first Liszt... Nearer the late Liszt of the Christus but with a more volcanic language...

I learned to appreciate very different musical languages and form..But i am not a person who look for novelty each listening session at all ... I goes back to all i had discovered all my life, the most important...This dont means i hear by nostalgia... I  hear to improve the depth experience of what i love... I need novelty not as a distraction for boredom, i need novelty of genius work...The new which i cannot consider total genius bore me,....

@mahgister 

Well, you do like Phillip Glass. Have you seen the film scored by him, Koyaanisqatsi? I think it means life out of balance.

I will keep trying Scriabin. It so far seems like a lot of emotion. But sometimes it takes me a long time to get used to a particular sound. As I have said, I had Flora Purim's more abstract albums for many, many years before I could appreciate them.

I did not like Beethoven that much until maybe 15 years ago. I think that sometimes he creates very short themes, such as in his Fifth, bum, bum, bum,. bum. They are not always melodic, but they are extremely versatile when he pulls them apart and puts them back together again like a great jazz musician. When you listen to his Fifth, the theme, bum, bum, bum, bum, is for all the movements. He changes the cadence and the tonality, etc. so much that you hardly realize it. Brilliant.

I think we must be careful, though, not to rule things out too quickly. Some music takes a lot of time to get used to.

As you know, I traveled through the Middle East for many months. I was in Iran for at least a month. I heard their music every day, but I guess it was their popular music. I got to like it, but I did not miss it when I left. 

The cantalever on my phono cartridge got bent, so I can't listen to records. The app that connects me to my streamer is disconnected and I can't figure out how to connect it. So I'm digging through my thousand CDs. I can't believe the music I've collected and forgotten about. All of Charlie Parker's recordings. A lot of other jazz I've forgotten about. Tomorrow I'll dig through the classical stuff.

I am slow to understand music new language too...

I was not born with the habit to prefer talking Nigerian drum...

music speaks to our feelings but to our mind too ...

I like Scriabin not because his music is emotions...

I can have emotions in many others composers or musicians...(for example the great Gesualdo)

I love him because he master the way we can make an idea sensible with sound body...

I love him because his goal was to make mankind more creative... You do not this with only music packed emotions but you do it initiating mankind  with a new language... This is why he is beside  Tonal Bach and Atonal Schoenberg in my book as a god on the same footing... 

I dont "taste" music, all things are not equal and relative for me... I had my "best" geniuses the others will bore me...times to times i discover  a new one...but i go back without end half the time to what i had discovered progressively in my life...

For example i discovered Akhnaten of Glass, and each month it is difficult not to listen to it one more time...it is why i listened the 8th book of madrigals 500 times since the moment i discovered it at 23...

This hierarchy between composers reflect my personal history, it is not universal truth for all, but one thing is sure, this musical hierarchy reflect the depth of my personal search...

@mahgister 

I think that many people, including myself, are looking for a wider spectrum of pleasure and "understanding" out of music than you are. For most of my life I could not appreciate Mozart, aside from a few pieces that were melodically pleasing. Now I appreciate him much more. I heard an interview with Juga Wang, the pianist, and she also dismissed Mozart until in her mid-thirties she now plays him.

I go to sleep listening to classical music. Often I turn on the radio in the middle of a piece and I try to guess the composer. Piano sonatas are very interesting. I begin to realize that a sonata is quite complicated. I think it must be Beethoven or maybe Schubert. (I would know Bach no matter what piece they played. He is distinct.) I think that the piece of music is too complicated for most composers. (If it were Scriabin I might guess Chopin.) One time the composer was Haydn, and that made me realize that he could write quite complex music. Other times it was Mozart. And often it was Beethoven. Schumann, of course, is also complex.

In the end, though, I listen to music for pleasure, and there are different types of pleasure. Some I would define as beautiful, others as perhaps enticing, or intriguing. I am sure there are many more words to describe beauty.

I am now listening to Beethoven's Sixth, his Pastorale. It gives me a melodic pleasure. I would say it was beautiful. And appreciating beauty, for me, is also important. Sometimes I listen to upbeat Brazilian jazz for joy. Other times I will listen to "classical" jazz (Coltrane, Miles Davis, etc.) to perk up my mind. I have many reasons for listening to music. For me, Bartok I think stimulates my intellect the most. But his structure is pretty much classical. Not in the Schoenberg 12 tone category. 

But when somebody says "so and so is their favorite composer (or film maker, etc.) I will listen or watch to see what it is they like. I have discovered many new things that way. I like to discover new things.

@mahgister 

I think that many people, including myself, are looking for a wider spectrum of pleasure and "understanding" out of music than you are.

i listen jazz extensively as  Persian/iranian masters or Indian masters ...

Not just classical...

How many composers of the period before Bach do you know as pure genius ? I will say more names than most known  composers after Bach such composers before Bach were unknown in the modern era and are known since few decades only...

I dont search for pleasures only but for spiritual discoveries...

"Wider spectrum" ? 

Do you know the didjeridoo masters?

The tabla tarang masters ?

The tanbur masters?

Etc...

Try to understand what i wrote without presuming that i did not know classical music or "wider spectrum"...

I knew since decades that Haydn  was a genius  in his masses and chamber music...

Try Tacet "tubes only"  Hadyn  quatuors recordings with Auryn quartet  superior perhaps to Mozart one...

I prefer Mozart quintet with Grumiaux magic..