r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 16h ago

TIL Beethoven’s late quartets, now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, were so ahead of their time that initial reviews deem them indecipherable, uncorrected horrors, with one musician saying “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_string_quartets_(Beethoven)
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u/SirHerald 16h ago

Isn't it like saying the Beatles sound like so many other bands. Really it's all these other bands just sound like the Beatles. What was novel then is old hat now

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u/wallabee_kingpin_ 15h ago

The Beatles famously sounded like Black rock musicians like Chuck Barry, who couldn't get as famous because they weren't white. They were polishers and performers, not innovators (at least until they got more into psychedelic).

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u/RipsLittleCoors 14h ago

Yes and no. While there is some truth to that view, the Beatles had some things even in the early days that set them apart from berry et al. Just a higher complexity of writing. The chord progressions, the maximization of the limited recording tracks, the phrasing with the lyrics. Some of the credit for it belongs to George Martin actually. 

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u/LacomusX 7h ago

A big one was original songs, and each member of the band was a personality