Why do so many snobs?

Question

Have a bad opinion on Canon in D major. The reason people go on about it is because not many other pieces sound better. I don't care if it's simple and there are harder pieces to play, those pieces do not sound better and you know it.
It's about the music, not how fast a piece requires you to move your hands.

Answer 1

this song is the pop hit of it's time, and there's nothing wrong with that. nothing annoys me more than people claiming they don't like catchy music. that melody is so pleasing to the ears, that it's universal whether they like it or not, and if they say they don't, they're lying.

ask the beatles about beauty in simplicity. it all boils down to the melody. it's almost scientific. there's a reason crappy technical songs don't last...they don't stimulate any part of...well...anything. my theory is, if it sounds good, don't be too good to admit you enjoy listening to it. besides, we all know it's these snobs that crank the backstreet boys when no one else is around!

Answer 2

Well its not so simple if played at the speed that its supposed to be played at. The Canon is not a slow piece but has become one over the years. If played faster can become rather challenging. Arthur Fiedler (Boston Pops conductor for 50 years) did the 1st recording of the canon and coming in at 3'16" it is about twice as fast as what is usually played today. This recording was done in 1944.
Musician's usually have a bad opinion of it because they have played it so many times. Usually for weddings. Like any warhorse it can get tiring.
Most snobs don't like anything that has become popular so to prove that they are above the masses they will denigrate it because something so popular can't be good.
I on the other hand have always like the canon, and you might even give the 2nd mov't, the gigue, a try as well.

Answer 3

The Canon in D being based on a repeated bass line is rather simple, but that is OK and if you like it go ahead and listen to it. Just remember that there is a lot of classical music out there to choose from, some simple and some more complex and therefore usually more interesting. The problem with the Canon (and O Fortuna) on this forum is that they come up so often that it seems like no ever gets past them to other pieces.

A.

Answer 4

Well, I don't have a proper answer about snobs, although I do think that people ~ snobs or not ~ are a little off-put by its insistence .... it is a powerful piece, and perhaps they grow tired of it .....and I think that people who like only popular music feel it is a musical intruder upon their scene

I do know that many people do genuinely like the Pachelbel Canon in D Major ..
I do for one, I like it a great deal, as long as people play it on instrumentation that gives a good feeling for the era when it was composed ~ or, if they are performing an arrangement of it which becomes it. There is an arrangement of it with boy sopranos as part of a cooked-up introduction which I find very amusing. I think it is really nice when people like something so much that they play around with it and arrange it in different ways. The other day I heard a Christmas carol with lines of other carols worked into the arrangement: it was charming.

Also, I feel obliged to say that the degree of difficulty of a piece is *totally* dependent upon the skill of the performer(s). Most music falls within an area of reasonable playability, with a few Mt. Everests and Annapurnas thrown in for pizzazz !! This all has nothing to do with its musical worth.

There are other pieces that I like, all sort of the same genre, to my mind, a bunch of beautiful chestnuts, and lovely for this season:
* Bach: Air on the G String - from one of his
Orchestral Suites (which are beautiful, btw)
* Handel: Air from his Water Music
* Albinoni: Adagio in G Minor - there's a great performance of it conducted by von Karajan on YouTube
* Barber: Adagio for Strings

Now, I am not going to say that these are more *difficult* than the Canon, and even if they are, it is no reflection upon the genuine worth of the Canon...... I do think it takes more to pull off the Barber or the Albinoni, and I am not certain that they do not sound better, what EVER that means ... you see, the Canon is with us forever, and no one can take it back, nothing matches its beauty, because there is only one of them .............I am not into picking an argument on this point, and in any case, it would be like preferring one of your own children over the others.

And, if I may support your argument, I do not know how anything could be more simple than Schumann's Traumerei, and yet......Horowitz played it in concert........ or the Brahms Intermezzo in A major ..... or Liszt's Consolation No. 3.in D-flat major ....or Debussy Arabesque #1 .....all irreplaceable, all really simple, technically .... all beautiful

I think people are frightened by the Canon's presence among us, as if it is a reminder that classical music really is beautiful. I think it causes anxiety because people feel that they ought to now become acquainted with classical music.....and the task looks insurmountable

In fact, it is insurmountable. There is an enormous amount of gorgeous classical music. It seems endless, especially since new musicians come along all the time, dust it off, and make it all sound new and even more beautiful. That makes it sound as though there is twice as much as there is in actuality !

But there is nothing that says you have to shovel all the sand on the beach into the sea, there is nothing that says you have to eat all the spaghetti on your plate, and there is nothing that says that just because something is written on the wall that you must obey it. And if there is, skip it !!!

xxx

Answer 5

I agree with HM 10--that musical snobs refuse to agree with the general public no matter what.

In fact, I can give two other examples. Example number one: When Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic, he had a TV program which was popular with the general public, and therefore unpopular with musical snobs. When Bernstein discontinued that TV program and moved to Los Angeles, he came to be considered a great conductor.

Example number two: During Schweitzer's lifetime, it was fashionable to sneer at Schweitzer as a Bach scholar, since Schweitzer was so widely known as a missionary doctor. But when I was assigned to give a report on the Bach Saint Matthew Passion, I noticed that other Bach scholars stole Schweitzer's ideas without acknowledgement. I know the ideas were original with Schweitzer because Schweitzer's book had the earliest copyright date.

I can give one more possible reason: because the Pachelbel canon has more harmony and less counterpoint than one would expect from a canon. It has a continuo part with the chords marked in figured bass, which is unusual for a canon. In fact, the canon begins with block chords in quarter note rhythm.

In circles of musical snobbery, counterpoint is good and harmony is bad.

Answer 6

I have no problem with it, actually I really like it. Tunes like that are popular for a reason. It's not like I only like the really popular stuff, I love lots of more unusual and complicated pieces too but I hate it when people decide to dislike a piece of music just because it seems simple and they wan't to sound impressive. I love Adiemus and all the highbrow musicians on my course are like "Oh anyone could write it, it's so obvious, not real classical music blah blah blah". As far as i'm concerned if music makes you feel something and you like it there's nothing wrong with it.
Sorry I've gone off on a rant, it's just that i totally agree with you.

Answer 7

It might pertain to the fact that the piece has been over-played so much. It had a lot of great popularity a few years ago, and now there seems to be a resurgence of interest in it. Simply, some people are tired of hearing it (just as they get tired of continually hearing the same "popular" classical favourites), and there is so much other music to discover.

Answer 8

The people to who you refer may or may not be snobs. Many of them do not have a bad opinion of Canon in D as a piece of music, rather they are tired of hearing about it referred to in such deferential terms. It is a pretty piece that has become stale through over exposure. In general it is quoted as a favorite piece by people who have limited exposure to the rest of the world of classical music. There are certainly better pieces around. It is far from the greatest piece of classical music ever written.
If you regarded it so highly, that's fine - just bear in mind that its like admiring one leaf and ignoring the whole tree.

Answer 9

Well some people may not agree, but you are entitled to your opinion. If you don't like a piece of music, then ignore it.

Answer 10

We are just sick to death of it. It is nothing to do whether it easy or hard.

Many other pieces sound better....hundreds of thousands of pieces sound better....that is why it infuriates us ; because people like you never bother to listen to the great works of Bach , Beethoven or Mozart.
You only hear what gets played on the toilet paper commercials on television.

PS I am not a snob ; I am just sick of it hearing it played when there are thousands of other pieces to choose from.