Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

@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..

@mahgister 

I was not talking about a wider spectrum of music itself. I was talking about a wider spectrum of reasons to listen to music. A wider spectrum of responses. I was talking about listening to music for beauty. Or listening to music for joy. Or listening to music for intellectual stimulation. You seem to focus on listening to music for "spiritual discoveries." I think I do also, but that is not the only reason. I also listen for the reasons I've mentioned above.

When you love a woman for example, you love her for spiritual reasons, not only for his body, for his intellectual state, for his economical attitude, for his appartenance to the same tribe or because she is the mother of your unborn child etc..

The first most important reason may be his body but the last most important reason cannot be his body but "spiritual reasons"...

 It is the same for music...

We all love a woman and music for many reasons the most important one being spiritual reasons, knowing it or not...

What is love without spiritual reasons and music experience with no spiritual discoveries and motives ? 

It is fun. Mere fun. It is pleasure and boredom. It cannot be meaning. When we discovered meaning in an activity or in a phenomena,or being, there is no more boredom or just pleasure... There is sustenance  and continuous support of our being like eating sacred bread after communion or the bread offer by the father to his son, by the wife or mother each day with the soup. Bach is sacred experience, not fun merely but joy...Even Bob Dylan must be like that if i enjoy him time to time yet after 60 years...Pleasure did not compare to joy anyway even in music...

I was never bored to listen "the art of the fugue" 1000 times at least in my life...

Then it is spiritual sustenance  of a new kind who attracted me to Bach, Scriabin or Bruckner, not just fun, even if the sensual dimension was there ...

Even Jazz attracted me first for unknown spiritual reason : i begin with Chet Baker long ago my jazz awakening, surprised to hear so strong emotions coming from a jazz musician..It awake my sense for a new musical language i never spoke nor heard before...Spiritual reasons not fun or boredom was the reason i was attracted to Baker then to  the pianist Bill Evans as his unknown brother the rest is my history through jazz...( it begun with Armstrong but at 13 i was attracted to his singing not to jazz per se)

Those who never have spiritual experience listening music had never hear what music is...

@mahgister 

I was not talking about a wider spectrum of music itself. I was talking about a wider spectrum of reasons to listen to music. A wider spectrum of responses. I was talking about listening to music for beauty. Or listening to music for joy. Or listening to music for intellectual stimulation. You seem to focus on listening to music for "spiritual discoveries." I think I do also, but that is not the only reason. I also listen for the reasons I’ve mentioned above.

@mahgister 

I agree with you that music can have deep spiritual meaning. I don't agree, however, that for me all music, whether I enjoy it for beauty or melody or just for fun, must have spiritual depth underneath. Since it just seems to be you and me talking now, we cannot ask others what they think. I listened to the Eagles today because I like their melodies and the band. I don't think there was anything spiritual beneath that. You might be talking about what music means to you, but not necessarily to others.