Your Musical Esthetics in Five Words and a One-Word Summary

[Florestan]

(What I mean is not that each and every composer whose music you love necessarily have all of these five qualities, but that most of them have at least one of the five)

My five words:

Naturalness, simplicity, wit, bittersweetness, cheerfulness

My one-word summary: Haydn.

(Mozart fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in wit. Rossini fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in simplicity. Chopin fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in cheerfulness. Haydn fanatic as I am, Schubert is superior in bittersweetness, but una hirundo non facit ver.

Your turn, and thanks for reading/participating.

[Henk]

Playfulness, wit, energetic, simplicity, quirkiness.

One word: Scofield

But I need serenity too and that brings me to Bach.

If I combine all these qualities, Rossini's 'Petite messe solennelle' gets pretty close.

[hopefullytrusting]

Five: Everything Everywhere All at Once

One: Ultra-every-ness

[Symphonic Addict]

Craftsmanship
Profoundness
Quirkiness
Mystery
Heroism

Three out of five inhabit my one-word summary: Beethoven

[Karl Henning]

My ears are immeasurably big.
Listen!

[Karl Henning]

Five: Everything Everywhere All at Once

One: Ultra-every-ness

That's the spirit!

[Karl Henning]

Tangentially, let us note: Frank Zappa, "AAAFNRAA" (Anything Anytime Anywhere for No Reason At All.)

[DavidW]

At first, I thought I couldn't answer this question because I hop around so much based on mood, but actually thinking about my favorite composers, I believe there is an aesthetic that I follow.

Harmony
Color
Sharp contrasts
Emotional
Cerebral

[San Antone]

This exercise is frustrating since there are so many divergent aspects to the kind of music that I am drawn to.  I am tempted to join in the idea already expressed of "everything-ness".  But to reply to the thread in the spirit it was offered, here goes:

Variety, Humility, Craftsmanship, Restraint, Magic.

Mostly, Duruflé.

[Lisztianwagner]

Agreed it is difficult to summarize  concisely the various aspects of the styles when composers are very different from each other, but it can be a interesting try:

Titanism
Introspection
Profoundness
Inventiveness
Variety

One-word summary: Wagner

[LKB]

I currently suspect that any attempts of mine to participate here will ultimately be futile, but maybe I'm just tired and cranky atm. Let me sleep and think, and perhaps I'll return here later today. ( The thread is interesting, I'm just not all that confident l can surmount my own limitations to fulfill the stated parameters. )

[Roasted Swan]

Passion
Beauty
Sincerity
Craft
Communication

Elgar

[Henk]

Playfulness, wit, energetic, simplicity, quirkiness.

One word: Scofield

But I need serenity too and that brings me to Bach.

If I combine all these qualities, Rossini's 'Petite messe solennelle' gets pretty close.

Another five qualities I dig:
Rawness, grandeur, happy, sad, funky.

Hard to summarize these in one word.

My aesthetics in music is not one, but plural.

[LKB]

Aspirational
Sincere
Searching
Courageous
Groundbreaking

I would maintain that any serious-minded person who invests their time in an artistic appreciation ( whatever the preferred form/medium which their perceptions are most suited to ) would do well to seek out creators who exhibit at least one of these traits.

For me, the most important creator personally is Mahler, simply because he is the most accessible on the most levels. When I listen to a worthwhile recording ( or, more often, simply review a work I've memorized ) of a given Mahler composition, I'm invariably impressed by his knowledge of orchestral capabilities and colour. This is on display in Symphony no. 2, and probably most fully realized for the first time in Symphony no. 6.

As for the composer whom best embodies the balance of my stated priorities: Beethoven.

[hopefullytrusting]

In truth, I start with a much simpler protocol by asking one question: Did they compose for the sackbut/trombone/etc. or not?

I then begin sorting from there.

[LKB]

Some pretty good stuff, for a deaf guy.

[Florestan]

Some pretty good stuff, for a deaf guy.

The same can be said about works by Smetana and Faure. 

[Florestan]

(Mozart fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in wit. Rossini fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in simplicity. Chopin fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in cheerfulness. Haydn fanatic as I am, Schubert is superior in bittersweetness, but una hirundo non facit ver.

I knew I forgot something: Tchaikovsky fanatic as I am, Haydn is superior in naturalness.

[LKB]

The same can be said about works by Smetana and Faure. 

While I do have respect for both Faure and Smetana ( who could ever deny the lyric grandeur of the former's Requiem, or the latter's gift for drawing the listener into whatever story is being told ), I would be wary of comparing either of them to Beethoven in either historical significance, or the nature of the challenges each faced when their respective hearing began to degrade.

In Smetana, we have a composer who would indeed produce significant works after deafness impacted him severely. But Smetana had turned fifty when he suffered the sudden onset of his hearing loss, whereas Beethoven had been dealing with his issues for some time when he wrote his famous Heiligenstadt Testament at the age of thirty-one. And so, the bulk of his middle-period and all of his late period works required him to overcome this most existential ( and continually worsening ) impediment. Smetana had more time, as well as whatever medical advantages might have been available to someone born over fifty years later.

Faure's most important and enduring work, the Requiem, was thoroughly completed and revised by the time his deafness began to assert itself in his mid-fifties. While his affliction certainly affected his musical capabilities and enjoyment of music in general, I don't think his challenges were either as musically significant or as personally formidable as those faced by Beethoven.

And finally, there is the undeniable historical significance of Beethoven's influence on the development of Western music. While both composers produced significant works, the simple fact remains that neither Smetana nor Faure are of comparable stature.