Hard to believe..
Ian Pace
Christopher Culver
> Go to www.lachenmann.co.uk , click on 'Enter', then click on
> 'Lachenmann for Beginners'.
Another fine resource from the London Sinfonietta. Their guide to
Boulez's "Derive" has long impressed me.
Too bad there's so much "hype" there, though. For example, the line
"his work rewrites the definition of music, exploring instrumental
effects beyond anything you have ever heard before..." is just silly,
you could say that about many contemporary composers. Is this what you
have to do to get an audience these days?
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Samuel Vriezen
> Go to www.lachenmann.co.uk , click on 'Enter', then click on 'Lachenmann for
> Beginners'.
UEBERCOOL!!!!
I love it.
But it also seems to resonate with what I've also often suspected of Lachenmann,
that for all his radical image, he might in fact among the avantgardists prove
to be one of the more easily 'recuperable' composers for mainstream use. Because
his stuff sounds pretty, and his way of putting together phrases and gestures is
in the end not difficult to follow, and it gives you an attractive sense of
sophistication.
--
samuel
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sqv/ - homepage, soundclips
http://blogger.xs4all.nl/sqv - weblog in Dutch
Nobody out there but us. And I can never figure out who that was or will be,
much less is.
- Charles Bernstein
Ian Pace
"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.do....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:453bfdd6$0$324$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
> Ian Pace wrote:
>
>> Go to www.lachenmann.co.uk , click on 'Enter', then click on 'Lachenmann
>> for Beginners'.
>
> UEBERCOOL!!!!
>
> I love it.
>
> But it also seems to resonate with what I've also often suspected of
> Lachenmann, that for all his radical image, he might in fact among the
> avantgardists prove to be one of the more easily 'recuperable' composers
> for mainstream use. Because his stuff sounds pretty, and his way of
> putting together phrases and gestures is in the end not difficult to
> follow, and it gives you an attractive sense of sophistication.
>
Huber or Mathias Spahlinger in that respect?
Ian
redcat_events
His music is transcendent?
We only use strings [of a cello] to make music?
Every piece rewrites the rules?
What are we doing?
aaron
Samuel Vriezen
I'm less familiar with their works, particularlu Huber whose work I've only
heard once or twice at festivals - and it struck no immediate note with me, but
the exposure was definitely not sufficient. Spahlinger I've heard only little
more of - & nobody plays him around here - but what I heard seems to me to be
more radical indeed with regard to form. That may make a difference.
But probably, sooner or later, everything outlandish will be caught up with by
marketing strategies, I guess. It's very interesting to see such a process. Or
to do things like that yourself even - I'm right now in the process of writing
an article for an important mainstream Dutch weekly about the quite out-there
music of Wandelweiser composers such as Manfred Werder and Antoine Beuger.
Now of course, the interesting thing about marketing lachenmann, or I suppose
eventually, marketing Spahlinger, is the strong appeal they seem to make to -
let's call it difficulty. Werder, who has pieces with just two notes in it or
pieces that go on for weeks with just six second sounds and random silences,
seems more easy to explain. (though not more easy to get to the bottom of, I guess)
Ian Pace
> Ian Pace wrote:
>
[stuff about appropriation of Lachenmann snipped]
>>
>> How do you feel about other comparably radical figures such as Nicolaus
>> A. Huber or Mathias Spahlinger in that respect?
>
>
> I'm less familiar with their works, particularlu Huber whose work I've
> only heard once or twice at festivals - and it struck no immediate note
> with me, but the exposure was definitely not sufficient. Spahlinger I've
> heard only little more of - & nobody plays him around here - but what I
> heard seems to me to be more radical indeed with regard to form. That may
> make a difference.
Well, to the best of my knowledge, Lachenmann has never written with
anything other than through-composed forms, not even introduced the levels
of indeterminacy that you found in the 'open form' works of Stockhausen,
Boulez, Amy, Kagel, Bussotti, etc. As a way of getting away from mere 'sound
effects' (though that cartoon would suggest precisely the opposite),
Lachenmann takes care to integrate every sound he makes into these highly
dialectical and quasi-symphonic structures. That's to me why his music,
certainly that from about 1980 onwards ultimately sounds very 'traditional'
(not that that's a bad thing, necessarily) - earlier works such as Gran
Torso (a particular favourite) or Schwangkungen am Rand seem rather more
'out there'. Spahlinger seems more relaxed about large scale integration and
is happier to allow the fragmentary, the discontinuous, the spontaneous and
even the indeterminate into his music (to make grandiose analogies, I might
say that Lachenmann is more like Brahms, Spahlinger more like Schumann). I
suppose it's easier at first listening to make sense of Lachenmann's
symphonic structures than Spahlinger's alienated, fragmentary compositions -
yet the music of the latter resonates more readily (to my ears) with
elements of free jazz and other non-'classical' music, yet it's also
somewhat more acerbic. Huber even more so (I do recommend looking up the
various discs that exist of his work, several on col legno) - he's closer to
Stockhausen in many ways (I don't particularly see Lachenmann or Spahlinger
as having more than a tangential relationship with Stockhausen), interested
in 'pure sound', but less from the perspective of quasi-spiritual idealism
than from a certain obsessive relentlessness (try his string quartet
informationen ueber die toene e-f, for example) that has a certain element
of defiance about it. All three are, to my mind, offering their own personal
responses to the commodification of music (Spahlinger is particularly
vehement about this and about 'value-free post-modern pluralism' and the
like). All seem to me to be attempting strategies of resistance in this
respect - Lachenmann by resisting idly fetishing novelty through processes
of absorption, integration, development and immanent critique, Spahlinger
through some of the same, but with a greater surface resistance to
appropriation within what Lachenmann himself would call the 'philharmonic'
tradition, Huber more by building upon the achievements of the post-war
avant-garde in a more radical manner after those have become relatively
institutionalised. As Lachenmann sounds the most 'traditional' (tradition
itself seems radical to him, more so than to the other two) that might be
why he's the most acceptable to the international festival circuit. All
three are very great composers, though (so are Schnebel, Staebler, Hespos,
Heyn and others).
>
> But probably, sooner or later, everything outlandish will be caught up
> with by marketing strategies, I guess.
Well, that's a big question that I'm forever debating with leftist fellow
travellers who have an interest in aesthetic matters. Can *anything* be
appropriated, or can anything resist such a process? And if the former is
true, what's the point in doing anything other than writing for the market,
so to speak? That would be a bleak prospect.
> It's very interesting to see such a process. Or to do things like that
> yourself even - I'm right now in the process of writing an article for an
> important mainstream Dutch weekly about the quite out-there music of
> Wandelweiser composers such as Manfred Werder and Antoine Beuger.
I'd be very interested to see it.
>
> Now of course, the interesting thing about marketing lachenmann, or I
> suppose eventually, marketing Spahlinger, is the strong appeal they seem
> to make to - let's call it difficulty. Werder, who has pieces with just
> two notes in it or pieces that go on for weeks with just six second sounds
> and random silences, seems more easy to explain. (though not more easy to
> get to the bottom of, I guess)
>
Yes, 'difficulty' can become a fetish as well - this has been done (and
still is to some extent) with the 'complex' composers as well. Also on the
basis of a certain machismo - there is a difficult line to navigate between
writing a music that resists commercialism and shallow populism, and
creating that which appeals primarily on the basis of its 'hard man'
quality. The latter can easily become a marketing strategy as well, another
type of 'lifestyle' music. A number of 'complex' composers seem amazingly
unaware of how this process works or alternatively are quite happy to milk
it. When you have a strain of right-wing thought emerging primarily from
America that portrays high commercialism as being more 'diverse',
'feminine', 'gay-friendly', or the like (some such
writers/thinkers/composers would do Milton Friedman proud in their
idolisation of the market), then the process all gets very complicated.
There undoubtedly *is* a not inconsiderable body of opinion out there that
would argue that the 'complexity' and 'difficulty' of Barrett, Redgate,
Dench, Mahnkopf, even Ferneyhough to an extent is simply an expression of
'frustrated masculinity' or the like. There various forms of antipathy to
the terribly fabby post-modern world of music reduced to fast-food-style
bite-sized chunks of exotic 'styles' are portrayed as some form of dinosaur
like-reaction against a more 'pluralistic' world. I think those arguments
are total rot for the most part, certainly as applies to most of the
composers I mention (though it would be disingenuous to deny that there does
exist a certain macho subculture within that world), but they are
increasingly prevalent, certainly in the English-speaking world, blithely
and uncritically accepted by so many.
A favourite quote, from Naomi Klein: ' The need for greater diversity - the
rallying cry of my university years - is now not only accepted by the
culture industries, it is the mantra of global capital. And identity
politics, as they were practiced in the nineties, weren't a threat, they
were a gold mine. "This revolution," writes cultural critic Richard
Goldstein in The Village Voice, "turned out to be the savior of late
capitalism." And just in time, too.' ('Patriarchy Gets Funky', in No Logo,
p. 115).
Ian
Ian Pace
"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.do....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:453cc27b$0$320$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>
> Now of course, the interesting thing about marketing lachenmann, or I
> suppose eventually, marketing Spahlinger, is the strong appeal they seem
> to make to - let's call it difficulty. Werder, who has pieces with just
> two notes in it or pieces that go on for weeks with just six second sounds
> and random silences, seems more easy to explain. (though not more easy to
> get to the bottom of, I guess)
>
Maybe it has something to do with the particular construction of
'difficulty' that's being applied. The type of 'difficulty' that is used to
say 'look - if you 'understand' this you can feel yourself to be terribly
sophisticated, a connossieur, not like one of those awful proles out there'
is nothing more than a mannerism if it has no other meaning or relevance.
Now, I don't think Lachenmann's music is like that by any means, though it
can be marketed in that sort of superficial manner, and be received and
'appreciated' merely on that extremely superficial level (the same can be
true of Ferneyhough's 'difficulty'). But what you are describing in Werder
sounds a very different type of 'difficulty' not least because it raises the
question of 'why' rather than simply 'what'. That's to bring in the terribly
unfashionable concept of intentionality into things - I do not believe that
category should be jettisoned, though. The 'death of the author' is much
more about the total domination of the industry over the artistic subject
than it is about something supposedly more plural and egalitarian.
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
>>I'm less familiar with their works, particularlu Huber whose work I've
>>only heard once or twice at festivals - and it struck no immediate note
>>with me, but the exposure was definitely not sufficient. Spahlinger I've
>>heard only little more of - & nobody plays him around here - but what I
>>heard seems to me to be more radical indeed with regard to form. That may
>>make a difference.
>
>
> Well, to the best of my knowledge, Lachenmann has never written with
> anything other than through-composed forms, not even introduced the levels
> of indeterminacy that you found in the 'open form' works of Stockhausen,
> Boulez, Amy, Kagel, Bussotti, etc. As a way of getting away from mere 'sound
> effects' (though that cartoon would suggest precisely the opposite),
> Lachenmann takes care to integrate every sound he makes into these highly
> dialectical and quasi-symphonic structures. That's to me why his music,
> certainly that from about 1980 onwards ultimately sounds very 'traditional'
> (not that that's a bad thing, necessarily) - earlier works such as Gran
> Torso (a particular favourite) or Schwangkungen am Rand seem rather more
> 'out there'.
indeed, that's how I heard Lachenmann. (My own favourites are probably Ein
Kinderspiel and Pression, so far). And indeed, the cartoon presentation has to
distort things a little. Now...
>>But probably, sooner or later, everything outlandish will be caught up
>>with by marketing strategies, I guess.
>
>
> Well, that's a big question that I'm forever debating with leftist fellow
> travellers who have an interest in aesthetic matters. Can *anything* be
> appropriated, or can anything resist such a process? And if the former is
> true, what's the point in doing anything other than writing for the market,
> so to speak? That would be a bleak prospect.
You're more deeply into these matters than I am, but I'm tempted to argue that
the whole problem of the market is mostly that we have a problem with dominant
markets and dominant players on those markets, who are perverting descriptive
market theories into prescriptive ideologies mostly designed to - oh - give
Halliburton billion dollar reconstruction contracts, and that sort of thing. But
markets are also simply things you live and deal with, because they're not that
much other than the people in the world around you, who don't all have the
possibilities always to give their full attention to what we're offering.
But of course, Huber and Spahlinger, and also more obscure figures such as
Werder, and all of us in the arts, we're always selling things, if not to big
$$$ record stores then perhaps to people we meet, or grant committees, or people
who exploit concert halls, or magazines. And we always have to make them somehow
enthusiastic for our product without already giving them the product. The gap of
marketing that has to degenerate what we offer is always there. We just do our
best to let the appropriation be done by the kinds of market that we feel won't
ultimately destroy whatever it is that is's all about for us.
>>It's very interesting to see such a process. Or to do things like that
>>yourself even - I'm right now in the process of writing an article for an
>>important mainstream Dutch weekly about the quite out-there music of
>>Wandelweiser composers such as Manfred Werder and Antoine Beuger.
>
>
> I'd be very interested to see it.
If it's all done, I'll consider making a translation - shouldn't take more than
a few hours.
I'll be looking out for Huber discs and the other composers you mention!
Samuel Vriezen
I have to say that with "difficulty" I meant to very vaguely and generally
indicate many strategies of resistance, appeal to the non-facile, etc. And
because that seems to be important in those musics, it's interesting to see how
the marketeers have to take that, and somehow translate it into something more
or less readily comprehensible. And of course, the cartoon is missing vital
points in Lachenmann, but it's not entirely incorrect either of course. Though
if on the basis of the cartoon I'd be expecting a sonic freak show, I would be a
bit disappointed I suppose...
The difficulty in Werder and Wandelweiser are certainly there. It wasn't easy to
write about them (and it's all being read now so I might have to change half of
it...)
These are basically composers from all over the world banding together to form a
very specific sort of composing, performing and listening community which so far
hardly has had to define itself explicitly. They're just functioning as a tiny
experimental music industry of their own, complete with concerts all around the
world and a very nice CD-label. Writing about them, I've mostly restricted
myself to describing how they function, what kinds of thing they do, and a bit
of where they're coming from. I've not tried to develop their esthetics too much
for the general reader. The first objective was simply to make 20.000 readers
slightly surprised to learn that these strange things are happening, and
possible a couple of readers actually want to find out more.
If people just know that the world is not merely everything that is the case in
the shop around the corner, then that's a good start, of the kind that you need
to get over and over!
jimj
> Beginners'.>
I couldn't believe it either, but it doesn't change the music itself,
no matter
what is used to market it, so no harm done. For me what is troubling
is
tailoring programs and writing music in the manner of that ad.
Lachenmann
didn't tailor his music for the ad, and the performance is most likely
not
tailored to the ad either.
jimj