I do find this conversation interesting and I hope you don’t take my responses as hostile or combative even if we disagree. Before I respond to your comment I just want to ask, what specifically do you find boring about Beethoven? You mentioned his 9th symphony, what about shorter pieces? Are you able to articulate exactly what it is that you find boring?

Your response leads me to believe that you think I was saying this is what you have to do to enjoy classical music. That’s not true. Tons of people love Beethoven without understanding anything about music theory, form/structure, or music history.

My point was that giving the music that extra attention helps people to love and enjoy it. People who find Beethoven boring usually aren’t following the form and have limited music theory knowledge. Of course there are exceptions, but most trained musicians at the least have respect for Beethoven if they don’t outright enjoy him. I’m a musician and I’m passionate about music. I personally enjoy music more when I give it lots of love and attention. That love and attention doesn’t have as far to go if it’s directed towards pop music because it’s not as complex. And that’s not a criticism against pop music, I think all genres of music have their place. And if you’re the type of music listener that wants to just listen without all the thinking, then someone like Beethoven may not be for you, but I see it as more of a flaw of the listener than a flaw of the composer.

And already the music has failed. Nobody wants to read a book to enjoy music. I don't need to familiarize myself with the life of Swift, Kesha or i don't know the Rolling Stones to like their music.

I do just want to respond to this one point. I think I view this as backwards. I reject the idea that a composer should cater towards an audience. I personally get the most out of music when I take my responsibility as a listener seriously. There’s a reason why it’s easy to enjoy Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones, and Kesha without knowing anything about music history or music theory, and it’s not because they’re brilliant composers. It’s because the music is simple. You can enjoy it on its surface without knowing anything about music. That’s not a dig towards the music, I like all sorts of simple music, and writing something simple yet catchy is a skill in and of itself. But similarly, the complexity of a piece of music doesn’t make it boring. If someone isn’t getting Beethoven because it’s too complicated, then it shouldn’t be Beethoven’s responsibility to water his music down for them. It should be the listener’s responsibility to educate themselves a bit. Some people may not be willing to do that, which is totally fine, but then they shouldn’t act like they’re criticism of the music as boring actually means anything when they aren’t understanding what it is they’re criticizing in the first place.

We all are entitled to our subjective opinions. Tons of people aren’t interested in Beethoven, and that’s fine. But when they say Beethoven is boring, then my question becomes “how much of this music are you understanding and what specifically do you find boring?” I don’t feel composers should give much weight to the opinions of the layman when they’re not writing for them.

I know that opinion sounds snobbish or elitist, but music seems to be a subject where people with little understanding/education hold strong opinions.

I also think it’s important to make a few distinctions. There are objectively bad composers (the ones forgotten to history, or students/amateurs, etc), then there are the composers who are objectively important and influential. There’s a difference between disliking a composer for reasons of personal taste vs assigning objective qualities to their music (like “boring.”).