Re: Music you personally dislike, but still respect

[Julietta Anne Rabens]

One more for now: I also always struggled with Karlheinz Stockhausen, although his lectures on music inspired me and challenged my thinking like few have. He conceived the continuity from tone to form. The natural waves pulses in a tone when slowed down become rhythm, which when expanded is form. I doubt I could have ever conceived of that on my own. He also noted that tonal music with regular periodicity (regular, periodic phrase lengths) like a Beethoven or Mozart symphony when sped up to a single second, produce a vowel sound. Whereas a piece that is dissonant with irregular phrasing produces a consonant when sped up. Understanding such fundamental relationships in the physics of sound opens up so many doors to comprehesion.

I know Stockhausen is brilliantly intelligent. I also know his music is aesthetically challenging to a point that bewilders me. There are examples I “dislike”. It is abrasive, irregular, erratic. Which do you think is more likely that I am so intelligent as to be able to see through him as an expressive idiot? Or is his work something I am not fully comprehending? Is it my lack or his? As far as society goes, he has achieved a much higher level of respect professionally than I ever will. Is that relevant? Is this all completely subjective? Or is there a way to investigate and form some type of estimation on his work that falls outside my opinion of it?