>>126760985
>Nonsensical argument.
Not at all. Lyricism is a part of music, but I'm talking about OVERRELIANCE. It's a valid critique. Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert never fell into that trap because their lyricism is integrated into highly sophisticated forms, motivic development, and structural variety. Rachmaninoff too often leans on broad, sweeping, sentimental melodies without the same level of developmental rigor. Too much of one device, however beautiful in isolation, becomes repetitive and uninteresting across works.
>Scriabin's harmonic language isn't better, original =! better.
The question isn't simply "better" or "worse", that's quite subjective, but rather about variety and exploration. Rachmaninoff largely remains within a narrower late-Romantic idiom. Scriabin is basically Rachmaninoff but more = clearly more interesting and varied. Rachmaninoff = less varied = limited.
>c# minor prelude
Firstly, you don't know what "for beginners" means. Try an early Mozart minuet, not that. As for virtuosity: you're missing the point. It's not about writing "the hardest possible music", but using virtuosity as a gesture and substance, as a kind of content in itself. Compare that with Chopin or Scriabin, where virtuosity is more tightly fused to the musical substance rather than being a self-repeating surface effect.
>>>historical redundancy
I'm referring to his position within his own time, not today. He was already redundant back then. And no, Beethoven and Wagner were not the "last major innovators", whatever that means. Entirely new developments occurred in orchestration (this is a big one), rhythm, harmony, and texture well into the 20th century. Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartรณk, and others radically expanded the language of music.
