Another classicstoday.com anti-modernism rant
Thomas Muething
"Salonen's music, while not particularly tuneful, is flush with the
exuberance of tonality rediscovered, as if newly freed from serialism's
thorny fetters. Yes, there are still a few craggy modernists on the
scene along with their staunch advocates (in his first season as music
director James Levine is giving Boston Symphony audiences a particularly
hardscrabble musical diet of Wuorinen and his ilk); but Salonen is one
of a contemporary breed of crag-free composers (John Adams, Jennifer
Higdon, Michael Daugherty) who produce music that's thought-provoking
and challenging yet allows you to leave your antidepressants at home."
So we get the message: entertaining and upbeat, goooood. Introvert and
thoughtful, baaaad. The Republicans will lap it up. :)
Thomas
eye...@aol.com
Symphony audiences a particularly hardscrabble musical diet of Wuorinen
and his ilk"
Clearly, Levine's need for a new 'musical diet' is the result of
countless years of working with such 'tonally exuberant' music such as
Verdi's and Harbison's
Dan Koren
message news:d1luo6$5o8$05$1...@news.t-online.com...
Gauleiter,
I'm afraid you are over-reacting.
Salonen's music is well below the
radar of any political party or
denomination.
dk
Thomas Muething
And there is nothing particularly "barren" about Wuorinen's music either.
Thomas
Ivailo Partchev
election. With 12 postings on the legendary Cheryl Studer every day, I
am really craving for some more OT stuff...
Samuel Vriezen
> this time by one Victor Carr, in a review of Salonen's recent disc:
>
> "Salonen's music, while not particularly tuneful, is flush with the
> exuberance of tonality rediscovered, as if newly freed from serialism's
> thorny fetters.
That's another great critical cliché that seems never to
lose its power: Finally A Composer Who Refuses To Write
Serial Music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the Babbula Franca of incompetent criticism, avant-garde
art usually goes straight from being 'a fad that will soon
pass' into 'dated'. The funny thing though is that for
critics like the above, even today, some fourty years after
the epic ground-breaking works of serial music were written,
serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music,
and serialism today is paradoxically most strongly supported
by all those bad critics who in every review they write seek
credibility by telling us serial music is over now.
Such critics make every impression of not having heard new
music since 1950.
> Yes, there are still a few craggy modernists on the
> scene along with their staunch advocates (in his first season as music
> director James Levine is giving Boston Symphony audiences a particularly
> hardscrabble musical diet of Wuorinen and his ilk); but Salonen is one
> of a contemporary breed of crag-free composers (John Adams, Jennifer
> Higdon, Michael Daugherty) who produce music that's thought-provoking
> and challenging yet allows you to leave your antidepressants at home."
>
> So we get the message: entertaining and upbeat, goooood. Introvert and
> thoughtful, baaaad. The Republicans will lap it up. :)
You missed the snare. Salonen's music is called
'thought-provoking'. This critic was clever enough not to
assign the thoughtful category to 'baaaaaaad' exclusively.
--
samuel
http://composers21.com/compdocs/vriezens.htm
Every Now and Then, MP3s available at:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sqv/vriezen_mp3.html
Nobody out there but us. And I can never figure out who that
was or will be, much less is.
- Charles Bernstein
William Sommerwerck
Ransoming" and "Concerto for Cello" (BIS CD 989). I just heard them and was
mightily impressed.
By the way, this was yet another $2 CD from BMG. * If it had not been available
for such a low price, it's unlikely I would have bought it and listened to it.
* I assume cheap BMG Music recordings _not_ from BMG labels are mostly titles
that have run their course as full-priced releases. The companies that produced
them are thus willing to license the recordings to BMG at a low fee that makes
$2 disks possible.
Simon Smith
> This posting is a good excuse for recommending James Macmillan's "The
> World's Ransoming" and "Concerto for Cello" (BIS CD 989). I just heard them
> and was mightily impressed.
Then get BIS-CD-990 (Symphony: Vigil) to complete the triptych :)
Tremendous stuff.
--
Simon Smith "I am myself only in music. Music is enough
for a whole lifetime - but a lifetime is not
enough for music." (Sergei Rachmaninov)
Kimba W. Lion
>So we get the message: entertaining and upbeat, goooood. Introvert and
>thoughtful, baaaad.
How is this article any different at heart than the New York Times "I
don't want emotional expression in music" article that's been bandied
about lately?
jony...@earthlink.net
pianist thing. The second was a review of Argerich's Beet PC 2 & 3
where Tommassini opened by quoting his hot-but-out-of-control slam
word-for-word from the first article (great originality, right?), then
went on to praise the disc for all the parts, he seemed to imply, where
Abbbado could "control" his soloist. The only part where Martha went
out of control, he said was in the cadenza for the 3rd -- where there
was no man to reign her in, you think he's saying?
Maybe Tommassini could use the acronism IMFOSO (In My Full Of Shit
Opinion)when he writes things like this?
jy
Richard Schultz
: . . . but Salonen is one
: of a contemporary breed of crag-free composers (John Adams, Jennifer
: Higdon, Michael Daugherty) who produce music that's thought-provoking
: and challenging yet allows you to leave your antidepressants at home."
What thoughts does Daugherty's music provoke other than "boy is this
piece of music really stupid"?
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"[Horenstein] couldn't control an orchestra if his reputation depended on it,
which it didn't."
-- spoken by an anonymous "fan"
Josep Vilanova
Josep (who hasn't heard anything composed by Salonen and doesn't feel like
spending any money in discovering him, unless he has more compelling
evidence of it's qualities)
Simon Roberts
>
>The classicstoday trashing of Norrington was quite refreshing to read.
Were you also refreshed on reading their lavish praise of his Beethoven on
Haenssler?
Simon
William Sommerwerck
> "I don't want emotional expression in music" article that's been
> bandied about lately?
That isn't what the writer said. He was asking for moderation, not elimination.
ink...@yahoo.com
art usually goes straight from being 'a fad that will soon
pass' into 'dated'. The funny thing though is that for
critics like the above, even today, some fourty years after
the epic ground-breaking works of serial music were written,<<
Was this a typo Samuel? I'm not really into serialism but I thought
it's hayday was closer to seventy years ago -- Schoenberg, basically.
What pieces are you speaking of?
>>serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music,<<
Hmmm, maybe, I'd have to say I'm more impressed and interested in the
Spectralists though. I prefer music with great sound over music with
great cerebrallity. Yes I know you can have both, but even THE MASTER
Bach wrote better sounding preludes than his three and four part fugues
IMO. Sometimes I really don't think puzzles and logic bring out the
best of what music can be. Really, if someone wants to create complex
and intricate puzzles, wouldn't visual art ala Escher be a more
immediatly recognizable and clearer way to show your logical workings
to an audience?
>>Such critics make every impression of not having heard new
music since 1950.<<
Again -- 1950? When I think of the last half of the last century I
think of Ligeti, Cage, maybe some of the better minimalists.
ljk...@aol.com
ask the writer, What thoughts exactly did this music provoke in you?
Larry Kart
ink...@yahoo.com
art usually goes straight from being 'a fad that will soon
pass' into 'dated'. The funny thing though is that for
critics like the above, even today, some fourty years after
the epic ground-breaking works of serial music were written,<<
Was this a typo, Samuel? I'm not really into serial music but I
thought the groundbreaking work was done by Schoenberg in the 1920s.
>>serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music, <<
Hmm, maybe, but I think the spectralists and "timbrelists" such as
Crumb and Ligeti are on to something much more interesting. I still
prefer music that simply sounds great to music with great cerebrallity.
Yes I know you can have both, such as with Schoenberg's chamber
symphony, but ultimatly I love that work because of the way it sounds,
not because of any theory behind it. IMO music that becomes too
concerned with puzzles and logic can start to take away from the music
itself. Even with THE MASTER of all time, Bach, I prefer his preludes
to his three and four part fugues, which sound kind of dead to me. If
someone is out to create intircate logic puzzles, wouldn't visual art,
ala Escher be a more immediatly understandable and transparent way to
show off your workings? I guess I'll always be more of a Romantic at
heart.
>>Such critics make every impression of not having heard new
music since 1950.<<
Again -- 1950? When I think of the last half of the last century I
think of Ligeti, Cage, perhaps some of the better minimalists. Which
pieces are you thinking of?
ink...@yahoo.com
and
thoughtful, baaaad. The Republicans will lap it up. :)<<
Why give them such a compliment? Republicans can't even tell the
difference between fantasy and reality, why assume they could
differentiate Adams from Carter? Besides, if it was up to them, all
the arts would be eliminated forever so we could all better spend our
time worshipping Jesus. Bastards.
Samuel Vriezen
> Was this a typo Samuel? I'm not really into serialism but I thought
> it's hayday was closer to seventy years ago -- Schoenberg, basically.
> What pieces are you speaking of?
That's a bit of confusion that often comes up. I think it's
European habit vs. American habit. For Americans, serialism
often refers to Schoenberg's practice; here in Europe, it's
more often understood as related to Darmstadt practice (and
possibly Milton Babbitt), and the Schoenbergian technique is
referred to as 12-tone or dodecaphonic technique.
>>>serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music,<<
>
>
> Hmmm, maybe, I'd have to say I'm more impressed and interested in the
> Spectralists though.
Well, exactly, but do you think those critical nitwits know
anything about this, or could even tell the difference
between Grisey and Wuorinen?
(please note that for me, it is not remotely true that
"serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music".
My point was that it *does* seem to be true for all those
endless waves of dumb critics who pronounce it dead. If
Boulez had gotten a nickel for every time his music was
pronounced dead, he'd be... wait a minute, perhaps he *does*
get a nickel every time...)
> I prefer music with great sound over music with
> great cerebrallity. Yes I know you can have both, but even THE MASTER
> Bach wrote better sounding preludes than his three and four part fugues
> IMO. Sometimes I really don't think puzzles and logic bring out the
> best of what music can be. Really, if someone wants to create complex
> and intricate puzzles, wouldn't visual art ala Escher be a more
> immediatly recognizable and clearer way to show your logical workings
> to an audience?
Complex music isn't always meant as some sort of 'audible
puzzle' in which the audience decodes the structure the
composer has set up. In fact, the only music I know that
seems to think that way is not complex - it's the extremely
simple, transparent and IMO very beautiful music of Tom
Johnson, for instance, that does this, and sometimes plays
jokes on it ("Music with mistakes", "Same or Different?",
"Predictables", "Rational Melodies" etc)
Schoenbergian dodecaphony is more related to classical
motivic development and sonata form than to puzzle
complexity. In Darmstadt serialism, the aim seems rather to
be to get to a sense of informality, to a 'formlessness' of
sound, which I find a very romantic way of thinking really.
I think Webern and Babbitt may be a bit closer to the sort
of audible puzzle music you describe. Webern's work
certainly has this great clarity about it; Babbitt's is too
complex to get, but you do at least sense a similar clarity.
However, in both, I find that all sorts of
not-strictly-structural considerations ("sound", expression,
balance, rhythmic drive, etc) seem to be more immediately
foregrounded musical concerns.
>>>Such critics make every impression of not having heard new
>
> music since 1950.<<
>
> Again -- 1950? When I think of the last half of the last century I
> think of Ligeti, Cage, maybe some of the better minimalists.
Only those should already be enough not to herald some
Salinen as the Heroic Refuter Of Serialism. And then there's
so much more... Feldman, Nancarrow, Lucier, the Spectralists
you mentioned, Xenakis, Sciarrino, Barry, Volans, [add
composer name here]
But then, sadly, so much criticism is just total crap.
Josep Vilanova
On 21/3/05 7:39 pm, in article d1n7t...@drn.newsguy.com, "Simon Roberts"
<sd...@comcast.net> wrote:
Not much lavish praise for the Missa Solemnis, that got a 2... But the
praise for the symphonies does seem to be surprising when compared with the
other reviews.
josep
David Hurwitz
>
This is because the Missa was horrible and the symphonies were excellent. I know
it is a novel concept here, where the standard rule is often to love or hate
artists irrespective of what their recordings actually sound like, but we
actually listen to the music before we talk about it. Unlike this thread, for
example. Novel idea, huh?
Dave Hurwitz
Tom D.
inke...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Was this a typo Samuel? I'm not really into serialism but I thought
> it's hayday was closer to seventy years ago -- Schoenberg, basically.
> What pieces are you speaking of?
My impression is that the ideological "heyday" of serialism was the
Darmstadt School of the 1950s, particularly with regard to the
serialization of parameters other than pitch. Boulez was also active in
this area at the time, but I'm not sure how formally he can be
identified with Darmstadt.
ink...@yahoo.com
hour plus delay right now and I thought my firt post didn't make it
through.
Ian Pace
"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.do....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:4241649b$0$141$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
> Tom D. wrote:
>
>> Boulez was also active in
>> this area at the time, but I'm not sure how formally he can be
>> identified with Darmstadt.
>
>
Boulez taught at Darmstadt for a whole twelve years, from 1955 to 1967. He
(together with Stockhausen and Nono in particular) is absolutely central to
the early history of the institution.
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
> Boulez was also active in
> this area at the time, but I'm not sure how formally he can be
> identified with Darmstadt.
Very much so.
ink...@yahoo.com
the
> Spectralists though.
Well, exactly, but do you think those critical nitwits know
anything about this, or could even tell the difference
between Grisey and Wuorinen?
(please note that for me, it is not remotely true that
"serial music remains the ultimate measure of modern music".
My point was that it *does* seem to be true for all those
endless waves of dumb critics who pronounce it dead. If
Boulez had gotten a nickel for every time his music was
pronounced dead, he'd be... wait a minute, perhaps he *does*
get a nickel every time...) <<
Ahh, I see. I thought when you siad that you meant it as how you
really felt yourself, but what you were really doing is making a bit of
sarcasm by speaking as if you were one of these critics. That makes a
lot more sense!
>>Complex music isn't always meant as some sort of 'audible
puzzle' in which the audience decodes the structure the
composer has set up. In fact, the only music I know that
seems to think that way is not complex - it's the extremely
simple, transparent and IMO very beautiful music of Tom
Johnson, for instance, that does this, and sometimes plays
jokes on it ("Music with mistakes", "Same or Different?",
"Predictables", "Rational Melodies" etc)
Schoenbergian dodecaphony is more related to classical
motivic development and sonata form than to puzzle
complexity. In Darmstadt serialism, the aim seems rather to
be to get to a sense of informality, to a 'formlessness' of
sound, which I find a very romantic way of thinking really. <<
Wow, you know I never really knew that. I always just assumed they
wanted their audiences to be able to follow along with what they were
doing. I thought this was asking quite a lot of them, IMO. Someone
posted on one of the Rec.Classical groups once stating that none of the
serialists ever really wanted their audiences to count off the rows
going by, but then I have to wonder, why bother with such a difficult
and confining technique if you never even really want it to be
recognized? Do they believe that the harder the music was to write,
the more legitmate it becomes? And I think you can achieve
'formlessness' without relying on serialism or even atonality.
Ligeti's 'White on White' for piano comes to mind. One could say the
key signature of that work is C Maj, but one could never really say the
piece is 'in' C, if that makes any sense. I suppose I just always
assumed that any kind of 'logical restraint' from the birth of
imitative counterpoint onwards was really a way of showing off how well
you can work in a restricted area, rather contortion-esque. Nowadays,
also, most works seem to be written 'by composers for composers' too,
which also makes me think theres a bit of code being given back and
fourth. Is this really not the case?
>>I think Webern and Babbitt may be a bit closer to the sort
of audible puzzle music you describe. <<
Inexplicably, when I listen to Webern he always sounds very Romantic to
me. A poet writing in free verse. I know that ignores the fact that
he was a serialist, but you know what, if I hadn't been told he was so,
and if I hadn't set down with a score or two of his, I probably never
would have guessed.
>>Such critics make every impression of not having heard new music
since 1950. But then, sadly, so much criticism is just total crap. <<
"If you cant do, teach. If you can't teach -- criticize." I wish
there was some kind of 'critics liscense' one would have to get, and
that part of the examination was just simply to write a piece or two.
Someone else on this thread or another stated that they thought it was
ridiculous to assume that a critic should have to be able to do what he
was criticising, but I think it's quite the opposite. Take good
carpentry for example. If you've never tried to make dovetail joints
and perfectly fit corners, its very unlikely you have any idea how hard
it is and whether or not someone has really done it 'right.'
Ian Pace
<ink...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1111624680.6...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
The technique is a means to an end rather than necessarily the end itself.
To equate the work with its techniques is to adopt a position of high
formalism.
Do they believe that the harder the music was to write,
> the more legitmate it becomes?
No more so than Josquin or Gesualdo or Bach or Brahms did.
And I think you can achieve
> 'formlessness' without relying on serialism or even atonality.
> Ligeti's 'White on White' for piano comes to mind. One could say the
> key signature of that work is C Maj, but one could never really say the
> piece is 'in' C, if that makes any sense. I suppose I just always
> assumed that any kind of 'logical restraint' from the birth of
> imitative counterpoint onwards was really a way of showing off how well
> you can work in a restricted area, rather contortion-esque. Nowadays,
> also, most works seem to be written 'by composers for composers' too,
> which also makes me think theres a bit of code being given back and
> fourth. Is this really not the case?
There is certainly some work that does that (perhaps some Babbitt is
vulnerable to that sort of charge), but by no means the majority amongst
atonal/pan-tonal (call it what you like) composers. I first encountered
Stockhausen and Cage's music when I was 9 or 10, with no idea of how it was
put together, but it gripped me from the beginning. Knowing much more as I
do know about the techniques involved is mostly of interest simply to remove
one layer of mystique.
>
>>>I think Webern and Babbitt may be a bit closer to the sort
> of audible puzzle music you describe. <<
>
> Inexplicably, when I listen to Webern he always sounds very Romantic to
> me. A poet writing in free verse. I know that ignores the fact that
> he was a serialist, but you know what, if I hadn't been told he was so,
> and if I hadn't set down with a score or two of his, I probably never
> would have guessed.
Webern sounds very Romantic to me also - so in varying ways, do Stockhausen,
Xenakis, Nono, Ligeti, Scelsi, Ferneyhough, Lachenmann, Spahlinger,
Radulescu, Murail, Grisey, Dusapin and numerous others. Modernism and
Romanticism aren't diametrically opposed categories in my book, and there's
no intrinsic reason why serial techniques can't be employed in the service
of a romantic vision. On the other hand, it does depend upon how one defines
'romantic' - to me the term suggests something monumental, otherwordly,
transcendent (rather like a Casper David Friedrich painting) rather than
implying particular affective categories.
A relevant quote here:
'I may yet be provoked into attempting a cultural interpretation of the
systematic belittling one of the great musical geniuses of the
twentieth-century, Vladimir Horowitz, has suffered at the hands of critics
committed to norm-seeking modernist values like performance practice and
reified "structure". The situation is complicated, though; there would have
to be a companion piece called "Horowitz Defended against
His Devotees." And there would have to be a concomitant study of Glenn Gould
reception, to discover why this equally arrogant Alberich has enjoyed
modernist adulation. (short answer: He epitomized unworldliness
[transcendence] and abstraction [formalism], whereas Horowitz particularized
and concretized; and he upgraded modernist indifference to the audience to
the point of anhedonia while Horowitz aimed to please; all of which is to
say that of the two, Gould was by far the truer romantic)'.
Richard Taruskin, 'Last Thoughts First', in Text and Act (Oxford, 1995).
pp.17-18
>
>>>Such critics make every impression of not having heard new music
> since 1950. But then, sadly, so much criticism is just total crap. <<
>
> "If you cant do, teach. If you can't teach -- criticize." I wish
> there was some kind of 'critics liscense' one would have to get, and
> that part of the examination was just simply to write a piece or two.
> Someone else on this thread or another stated that they thought it was
> ridiculous to assume that a critic should have to be able to do what he
> was criticising, but I think it's quite the opposite. Take good
> carpentry for example. If you've never tried to make dovetail joints
> and perfectly fit corners, its very unlikely you have any idea how hard
> it is and whether or not someone has really done it 'right.'
>
Is that taken from Robert Hughes?
Ian
ink...@yahoo.com
> there was some kind of 'critics liscense' one would have to get, and
> that part of the examination was just simply to write a piece or two.
> Someone else on this thread or another stated that they thought it
was
> ridiculous to assume that a critic should have to be able to do what
he
> was criticising, but I think it's quite the opposite. Take good
> carpentry for example. If you've never tried to make dovetail joints
> and perfectly fit corners, its very unlikely you have any idea how
hard
> it is and whether or not someone has really done it 'right.'
Is that taken from Robert Hughes?<<
"If you can't do, teach" is lifted from someone, quite possibly Hughes.
I've heard the phrase since I was a kid. "If you can't teach --
critisize," was my own little addition. At least as far as I know, HA!!
ramseytheii
> someone is out to create intircate logic puzzles, wouldn't visual
art,
> ala Escher be a more immediatly understandable and transparent way
to
> show off your workings? I guess I'll always be more of a Romantic
at
> heart.
>
>
No - and since when is anything immediately understandable better?
You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man.
Walter Ramsey
ink...@yahoo.com
You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man.<<
A medium that provides more transparent and immediatly understandable
cognition thus also provides for the very same reasons the ability to
take the ideas to farther extremes while still mainting said cognition.
Only boys and people who were abused by their fathers talk about doing
anything 'like a Man.' Get out of here with that macho bullcrap.
Samuel Vriezen
some way or other? I find it hard to distinguish between
quoted text and your own text.
ink...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Wow, you know I never really knew that. I always just assumed they
> wanted their audiences to be able to follow along with what they were
> doing. I thought this was asking quite a lot of them, IMO. Someone
> posted on one of the Rec.Classical groups once stating that none of the
> serialists ever really wanted their audiences to count off the rows
> going by, but then I have to wonder, why bother with such a difficult
> and confining technique if you never even really want it to be
> recognized?
Writing 'informal' music, music that seems very chaotic and
shapeless, is not something you can do just like that.
> Do they believe that the harder the music was to write,
> the more legitmate it becomes? And I think you can achieve
> 'formlessness' without relying on serialism or even atonality.
Well, perhaps; there is not generally one single solution to
some artistic problem.
> Ligeti's 'White on White' for piano comes to mind. One could say the
> key signature of that work is C Maj, but one could never really say the
> piece is 'in' C, if that makes any sense. I suppose I just always
> assumed that any kind of 'logical restraint' from the birth of
> imitative counterpoint onwards was really a way of showing off how well
> you can work in a restricted area, rather contortion-esque. Nowadays,
> also, most works seem to be written 'by composers for composers' too,
> which also makes me think theres a bit of code being given back and
> fourth. Is this really not the case?
I don't know.
I definitely don't write my music with an audience
consisting of composers in mind. In The Netherlands, had I
chosen to do so, I'd write in some style that would to some
extent be a derivation/variation of Andriessen's De Staat,
probably; it might for exampler be clearly influenced by
baroque textural thinking and Stravinskian harmonic thought
and have lots of brass and some electric guitars; I wouldn't
waste too much time on timbral richness; the pieces I'd
write would be 'commentaries' on music history; in addition,
it would probably involve certain 'multi-media' aspects, but
only of the type that I know composers in this country
recognize. If I'd write for the composers here, I would by
all means avoid Babbitt-like writing. Atonality I wouldn't
avoid, but a sense of contrapuntal/formal rigour, I would.
In other environments, writing for composers would be
something different again.
Over the past year I've been more interested in the company
of poetry and theatre people anyway.
Samuel Vriezen
Ramsey is deliberately provoking; he doesn't really believe
that. In fact, he believes Schoenberg killed music.
Ian Pace
> >
> I definitely don't write my music with an audience consisting of composers
> in mind. In The Netherlands, had I chosen to do so, I'd write in some
> style that would to some extent be a derivation/variation of Andriessen's
> De Staat, probably; it might for exampler be clearly influenced by baroque
> textural thinking and Stravinskian harmonic thought and have lots of brass
> and some electric guitars; I wouldn't waste too much time on timbral
> richness; the pieces I'd write would be 'commentaries' on music history;
> in addition, it would probably involve certain 'multi-media' aspects, but
> only of the type that I know composers in this country recognize. If I'd
> write for the composers here, I would by all means avoid Babbitt-like
> writing. Atonality I wouldn't avoid, but a sense of contrapuntal/formal
> rigour, I would.
>
of what a composer might best write if aiming at a British audience of
representatives of Faber Music in particular, the London Sinfonietta, Nash
Ensemble, etc., and most of the critics, and wanted to curry favour with
them? :)
Ian
Ian Pace
"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.do....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:4242d7f0$0$141$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>
> in mind. In The Netherlands, had I chosen to do so, I'd write in some
> style that would to some extent be a derivation/variation of Andriessen's
> De Staat, probably; it might for exampler be clearly influenced by baroque
> textural thinking and Stravinskian harmonic thought and have lots of brass
> and some electric guitars; I wouldn't waste too much time on timbral
> richness; the pieces I'd write would be 'commentaries' on music history;
> in addition, it would probably involve certain 'multi-media' aspects, but
> only of the type that I know composers in this country recognize. If I'd
> write for the composers here, I would by all means avoid Babbitt-like
> writing. Atonality I wouldn't avoid, but a sense of contrapuntal/formal
> rigour, I would.
>
for German music (especially that of Schoenberg), indeed of most things
German, not to mention a major renunciation of any type of self-expression
in your work? Tracing an artistic lineage that features Bach, Stravinsky,
Mondrian and be-bop jazz above all, and also placing a clear warning to the
audience that this is going to be very LOUD? :)
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
Well, I have to say that in Holland there is, apart from the
Hague School music market, a market for music that is
"Absolutely Not The Hague School". This tends to be of the
academic atonal lyricism type that is I think not too
dissimilar from the mean British modern art music fare. I
think there does exist a sound world that can accomodate
both Colin Matthews and Klaas de Vries.
In fact, the Schoenberg Ensemble had two principal
conductors who were very influential on Dutch new music
awareness: Reinbert de Leeuw (for The Hague School and
related generally chorale-based music, such as Messiaen and
Vivier) and Oliver Knussen (for the Scones of Music). And we
now have our own local British composer in the form of Robin
de Raaff who studied first with Loevendie and then with
George Benjamin. He was probably part of the exchange
program that gave you Steve Martland :-).
On cloudy days (and we have a lot of those) I do sometimes
feel that 90% of the Serious Music Composers in Holland can
be described as a vector in the musical space set up by
those two axes: Andriessen and Knussen.
For me personally, the Hague School is of course much
closer, having studied at that conservatory and having had
quite a few lessons with a good many of its major figures.
But I do think my own music has wandered far from it.
Samuel Vriezen
That wouldn't be derivative of Louis any more - it would be
Louis himself!
Interestingly, many of our Hague School post-Louis
conceptual composers are vocal admirers of German
romanticism and in fact, a deep vein of grand pathos runs
through the entire esthetic. Hidden by the noise and the
seeming constructivism, of course. Actually, I'd say that
most of the Germanic romantic composers and their successors
feature much less sentimentality than most of the music from
the Hague School line.
ink...@yahoo.com
some way or other? I find it hard to distinguish between
quoted text and your own text.<<
I'm trying, Samuel, honest. I begin every quote now with a forward
double carrot '>>' and end every quote with a backwards one '<<'. Are
they not showing up in your reader?
Samuel Vriezen
They are, but the standard best thing to do is:
Start every line - not just every paragraph - with ">".
ramseytheii
Samuel Vriezen wrote:
> ink...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >>>No - and since when is anything immediately understandable better?
> >
> > You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man.<<
> >
> > A medium that provides more transparent and immediatly
understandable
> > cognition thus also provides for the very same reasons the ability
to
> > take the ideas to farther extremes while still mainting said
cognition.
> >
> > Only boys and people who were abused by their fathers talk about
doing
> > anything 'like a Man.' Get out of here with that macho bullcrap.
> >
>
> Ramsey is deliberately provoking; he doesn't really believe
> that. In fact, he believes Schoenberg killed music.
>
> --
> samuel
> http://composers21.com/compdocs/vriezens.htm
I confess there seems to be a difference of opinion concerning Bach's
Preludes vs Fugues, as one poster here said the fugues were "dead"
compared to the preludes, whereas Glenn Gould thought the Preludes
"perfectly perfunctory."
I have to rally behind Gould here, and other masters of the true art of
music, counterpoint, and repeat my original - quoted - statemet :
"You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man." How else would anyone
have come to "like" Schoenberg, in the first place?
Walter Ramsey
Samuel Vriezen
> I have to rally behind Gould here, and other masters of the true art of
> music, counterpoint, and repeat my original - quoted - statemet :
> "You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man." How else would anyone
> have come to "like" Schoenberg, in the first place?
Oh, well, in my own case no more or less stretching of the
ear was necessary to come to like Schoenberg and Stockhausen
than was necessary to come to like Mozart and Chopin. For
Brahms, my ear has started to stretch, but the process has
not finished yet. Only with very few composers was love
immediate: Xenakis, Nancarrow possibly, Scarlatti I think.
--
samuel
http://composers21.com/compdocs/vriezens.htm
ink...@yahoo.com
> double carrot '>>' and end every quote with a backwards one '<<'.
Are
> they not showing up in your reader?
They are, but the standard best thing to do is:
Start every line - not just every paragraph - with ">".<<
Yes, I know that's standard, and its one thing when you have a good
newsreader which puts those in on every quoted line automatically. But
google doesn't and it's quite a pain in the ass to go through every
single line and add a carrot, especially when you don't know where the
carriage returns will show up once you've posted and you're likely to
put them in the wrong places anyway. Would regular bouble quotation
marks work beter for you?
Samuel Vriezen
We should complain to Google about that!
Perhaps it's more readable if you have, say:
Me:
blablabla
[2 or 3 white lines]
You:
yaddayaddayadda
etc.
ink...@yahoo.com
Perhaps it's more readable if you have, say:
Me:
blablabla
[2 or 3 white lines]
You:
yaddayaddayadda
etc
Works for me.
Ian Pace
"Wayne Reimer" <wr...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1cad585f5...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net...
>> In article <1111624680.6...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>> ink...@yahoo.com says...
> <...>
>> Someone
>> posted on one of the Rec.Classical groups once stating that none of the
>> serialists ever really wanted their audiences to count off the rows
>> going by, but then I have to wonder, why bother with such a difficult
>> and confining technique if you never even really want it to be
>> recognized? Do they believe that the harder the music was to write,
>> the more legitmate it becomes?
>
> occurred to me just a couple of days ago. I was delving into various
> web-based
> material having to do with 12-tone and serial composition, including
> course
> materials for university composition courses, plus some essays on the
> subject.
> After some hours, I took a breather and the thought came to me completely
> out
> of the blue that some "difficult" composers were actually very insecure
> about
> the value of what they were writing, and hoped that explaining how complex
> and
> hard the music was to put together would prove its worth, or at least
> would
> show the composer to be serious. I even sensed in some composers a sort
> of
> macho "my technique is more rigorous and more abstruse than your
> technique"
> attitude, as if that were a musical value.
That phenomenon certainly exists, amongst lesser composers, but isn't
generally true, I think especially with respect to Schoenberg, prolific
writer as he was. Plenty of composers have ventured into new possibilities
for music, the results and possibilities of which can be quite an unknown
variable at first. What's wrong with trying to articulate the nature of such
musical experiments in words?
>
> There is no doubt that the amount of verbalization and explanation of each
> piece of music on the part of some composers is a phenomenon less than a
> hundred years old.
Maybe in terms of explaining specific works it's new, but verbalisation on
the part of composers (and some performers) isn't new.
And a huge amount of it is has a sort of mathematical or
> philosophical cast, for some odd reason, as if humans made music for
> mathematical or philosophical reasons (well, some do pretend to do that).
> I
> don't think that Bach wrote tomes five times larger in bulk than the Well-
> Tempered Clavier to explain what he was doing in the WTC, as a contrasting
> example involving some fairly complex music.
No, but Rameau wrote large tomes as well as composing.
>
> Anyway, I think you are on to something, even though the chances that
> anyone
> involved in it would admit as much are pretty slim.
>
Discourse about music exists and always has existed (isn't that precisely
what we are engaged in here?). The composers who write extensively are
simply participating in that discourse, attempting to widen, enrichen and
refocus the range of discursive possibilities.
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
> There is no doubt that the amount of verbalization and explanation of each
> piece of music on the part of some composers is a phenomenon less than a
> hundred years old.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
John Harrington
> ramseytheii wrote:
>
> > I have to rally behind Gould here, and other masters of the true
art of
> > music, counterpoint, and repeat my original - quoted - statemet :
> > "You've got to stretch your ears, like a Man." How else would
anyone
> > have come to "like" Schoenberg, in the first place?
>
> Oh, well, in my own case no more or less stretching of the
> ear was necessary to come to like Schoenberg and Stockhausen
> than was necessary to come to like Mozart and Chopin. For
> Brahms, my ear has started to stretch, but the process has
> not finished yet. Only with very few composers was love
> immediate: Xenakis, Nancarrow possibly, Scarlatti I think.
Every composer worth anything offers you at least something on first
hearing.
J
Samuel Vriezen
> It may not be a question of rightness or wrongness, but it would seem to me
> that the necessity for verbal explanation can be and sometimes has been a
> crutch used justify works that, as you point out, may be experimental in
> nature, and, like experiments in other fields, maybe should not be carried out
> in public. I would hope (and it's almost for certain a false hope) that in
> general composers would attempt to make their music comprehensible enough so
> that it would stand on its own.
I agree with your sentiments, but some remarks:
1. It's easy to dismiss music because you think it can't
stand on its own when you get a lengthy program note. But
the program note should not always be taken as a 'defense'
of the piece, I think. Whenever I write about my music, I
think of the writing as something in addition to the piece -
sometimes I choose to explain technical things because I
think people might enjoy such an explanation; sometimes I
'write around' the idea of the piece in a fanciful way;
usually I just try to crack a couple of jokes.
2. You would like music to 'stand on its own' and so do I,
but the problem is, what does that mean really? Punditism
might have us believe that not even Beethoven's music
'stands on its own' - we really need to know a lot about the
classical tradition before we can appreciate the great c
sharp minor quartet, etc. To what extent do we actually need
context? If we do, and the context is 'part of' the piece,
why not let the composer provide some?
> By the way, isn't the very idea of "experimental" music rather odd? I mean,
> can't the composer do the experiment, decide whether it is a success, maybe
> pass it around a few colleagues to get their reaction, and if it still seems a
> success, present it to the public not as an experiment, but as full-fledged
> music?
I think someone like Cage actually did work with this sort
of self-reflection. Note that 'experimental' can also mean
that all sorts of things are only determined in the
performance itself, but even in such indeterminate pieces,
you would expect the composer to have done some thought and
not just put whatever on stage.
> Of course, this would mean that non-successful experiments would have
> to be trashed, and that might put off some composers. But just think - the
> embarrassment of the total serialization fiasco could have been entirely
> avoided if it had been treated as a genuine experiment,
I disagree it's a fiasco. There are some pieces of total or
at least highly serial writing that I rather enjoy listening to.
> But I have been to many a concert
> of new music where that sort of thing is not only common, but seems to be a
> badge of the "seriousness" of the piece. And the harder to understand it is,
> the "better" the music. Sorry, I know you don't like hearing this kind of
> thing, but that's my experience. Why all new music must be a major
> intellectual challenge in order to be worthwhile is a strangely Calvinistic way
> of seeing things, to my way of thinking.
I don't think I know a single composer who would be so
rigorous as to demand that all performance be a major
intellectual challenge (unless you might hold that all music
is a major intellectual challenge by definition).
But there definitely seems to exist this aesthetic of music
that is interested in the difficult. Is that a problem? What
if you just see the difficult as one more modality of music.
You can have difficult and easy music just as you can have
fast and slow music. Difficult music can give you feelings
easy music won't give you and the other way round. So I
think that's a good reason to be interested in difficult
music. And also to be interested in easy music.
I really don't think the difficult aesthetic is a very new
phenomenon either, BTW. We don't have Ockeghem's program
notes any more, but we sure know his stuff is very, very,
very difficult!
Gramm...@mindspring.com
I mean,
> can't the composer do the experiment, decide whether it is a success,
maybe
> pass it around a few colleagues to get their reaction, and if it
still seems a
> success, present it to the public not as an experiment, but as
full-fledged
would have
> to be trashed, and that might put off some composers. But just think
- the
> embarrassment of the total serialization fiasco could have been
entirely
it never
> would have seen the light of day. The downside in that particular
case would
> be that folks like me wouldn't have had the opportunity to observe
that, for
> all their fancy theorizing and philosophy, the composers actually had
no real
> idea of what they were doing. I still don't know that subsequent
composers
> quite got the lesson out of that example that is to be learned.
Interesting thought. But that would leave the judgement of success or
failure with the composer, or with the colleagues he chose to show it
to, rather than audiences or posterity, or an audience of one somewhere
who liked it and didn't care what anyone else thought.
In that sense, all music is experimental.
I wonder when music began to be called "experimental"? Did compsers
actively think "Gee, I want to write music that people aren't used to.
I'll experiment with that." Or was it labelled that by people who were
puzzled by it?
ink...@yahoo.com
between your text and mine on this last post. Apparently google takes
out anymore than one automatically -- nice. I'll figure something out.
ink...@yahoo.com
It's very interesting to me that you said that, because the very same
idea
occurred to me just a couple of days ago. I was delving into various
web-based
material having to do with 12-tone and serial composition, including
course
materials for university composition courses, plus some essays on the
subject.
After some hours, I took a breather and the thought came to me
completely out
of the blue that some "difficult" composers were actually very insecure
about
the value of what they were writing, and hoped that explaining how
complex and
hard the music was to put together would prove its worth, or at least
would
show the composer to be serious. I even sensed in some composers a
sort of
macho "my technique is more rigorous and more abstruse than your
technique"
attitude, as if that were a musical value.
>>>>>>>>
It is rather ridiculous isn't it? "My technique is so advanced and
complicated NO ONE will EVER understand it! Ha ha ha!!! This will
certainly insure my music will be appreciated forever! Ha ha ha!!!"
Ian Pace
>> In article <42455210$0$143$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
>> sqv.do....@xs4all.nl says...
>> Wayne Reimer wrote:
>>
>> > It may not be a question of rightness or wrongness, but it would seem
>> > to me
>> > that the necessity for verbal explanation can be and sometimes has been
>> > a
>> > crutch used justify works that, as you point out, may be experimental
>> > in
>> > nature, and, like experiments in other fields, maybe should not be
>> > carried out
>> > in public. I would hope (and it's almost for certain a false hope)
>> > that in
>> > general composers would attempt to make their music comprehensible
>> > enough so
>> > that it would stand on its own.
>>
>> I agree with your sentiments, but some remarks:
>>
>> 1. It's easy to dismiss music because you think it can't
>> stand on its own when you get a lengthy program note. But
>> the program note should not always be taken as a 'defense'
>> of the piece, I think. Whenever I write about my music, I
>> think of the writing as something in addition to the piece -
>> sometimes I choose to explain technical things because I
>> think people might enjoy such an explanation; sometimes I
>> 'write around' the idea of the piece in a fanciful way;
>> usually I just try to crack a couple of jokes.
>>
> necessarily be seen as defensive, or as an indication that the piece is
> not
> musically valid own its own terms. I should have distiguished those that
> seem
> to be from those that may not be. I am not sure how to describe those
> that
> are, at least as far as I am concerned, but generally speaking, if they
> are in
> terms that will readily make sense only to to grad students in composition
> but
> not to folks who haven't had the time or inclination to learn the
> intricacies
> of the concepts and lingo for every substyle from electroacoustic
> interaction
> to the further reaches of serialization to spectralism to who knows what
> else,
> then I think there's a problem.
I think this is a caricature. The majority of programme notes I see aren't
particularly analytical in this manner. More often they are either simply
descriptive or elucidate influences, musical or otherwise, and other ideas
behind a work.
>The sort of thing I'm thinking of are those
> who take Milton Babbitt as a role model of how to relate to the listener.
> But
> even someone like Elliot Carter, whose music is relatively approachable to
> me
> these days, has said that he simply has no consideration for the listener
> at
> all. I'm sorry, but as a listener, that kind of talk really puts me off.
Could you give a source for this comment of Carter (I'm not necessarily
denying it's true)? It should perhaps also be pointed out that the title of
Babbitt's notorious article 'Who Cares If You Listen?' was given by a
sub-editor, not by Babbitt himself (having had titles that I wouldn't choose
given to articles of my own, and finding out too late to change them, I know
how often this occurs).
> I mean, I'm sophisticated enough to understand how some composers feel
> that they
> are working at such Olympian heights that consideration of the listener
> just
> can't enter into the picture without some compromise of their work.
> That's
> fine, I know how that could be the case, and there are ways to explain
> that
> point of view to the listener. But to insult listeners by simply
> dismissing
> them is, IMHO, stupid.
But I do think this is a straw target. There are few composers who are
pretty dismissive of audiences outside of their immediate circle, or
contemptuous of those either ill-equipped or uninterested in either the
inner technical workings of a piece or it's meta-musical references to other
music, but I don't think they are in the majority. And of course it should
be pointed out that there are plenty of extra-musical levels of reference
(through numerology and the like) in the work of Bach and Mozart as well.
>
>> 2. You would like music to 'stand on its own' and so do I,
>> but the problem is, what does that mean really?
>
> You are right - when looked at closely, it is not obvious what 'standing
> on its
> own' means. Certainly it depends greatly on environment (in fact, I think
> much
> of what I'm griping about here has to do with environment). If you played
> the
> Chopin Preludes in any concert hall any where in the world, I think they
> could
> stand on their own, and program notes would be essentially an
> embellishment to
> the listening and not really be needed. However, if you played the Chopin
> Preludes to a crowd of football hooligans in a trashy bar, there's a very
> good
> chance the music would not stand on its own, even if propped up with the
> best
> program notes in the world.
There are many ways of listening to a piece of music. Sometimes, with a
quite obscure work of music which may seem esoteric to those unfamiliar with
its idiom and concerns, a programme note can simply suggest a way of
listening that the listener might find productive.
Incidentally, what do you feel about 'performance notes' (which one finds
particularly in some HIP recordings)?
>
> But I'd like to think that for its natural audience (that would be people
> who
> are interested in classical music generally and in new music specifically,
> but
> who are not necessarily professional musicians or educators), the idea of
> music
> standing on its own means that the music doesn't require explanation
> outside of
> itself in order to be understood.
But do you really feel any music is quite so self-contained to the point
that not even some gentle nudging is productive to those coming at it very
much 'from outside'? The number of 'people who are interested in classical
music generally' is falling all the time, perhaps related to the decline of
musical education in schools. Those who do enjoy it generally have some sort
of background in the form of continued exposure to classical music and/or
some knowledge of its history, position in Western culture, etc. To those
who remain outside of this, the whole rituals surrounding classical
music-making, including the basic forms, instrumentations, styles,
theatrical rituals in a live concert, etc. (and especially the vocal idioms
in opera) seem 'foreign' and alien, and these can occupy their attention
more than the music's inner qualities (as we might find when encountering
certain types of non-Western music, or even some of the more arcane reaches
of popular culture). A fair amount of contemporary music inhabits realms of
experience that for the uninitiated can seem correspondingly arcane without
a prior context. Programme notes are one of various means to help new
listeners find a context from which to make sense of what they are hearing.
If it does require explanation, it is some
> form of program music in the old sense, even if the "program" is, for
> example,
> elaborate set theory.
'Explanation' is a tricky concept in a medium like music that doesn't have a
clear semantic level. Directing listeners towards ways of being able to
engage with music is by no means the same thing as 'explaining' some
'meaning'.
>
>> Punditism
>> might have us believe that not even Beethoven's music
>> 'stands on its own' - we really need to know a lot about the
>> classical tradition before we can appreciate the great c
>> sharp minor quartet, etc. To what extent do we actually need
>> context? If we do, and the context is 'part of' the piece,
>> why not let the composer provide some?
>>
> My experience is that I haven't needed any verbal explanation at all to
> appreciate late Beethoven, and that was from a fairly young and musically
> naive
> age. All I needed to do was pay lots of attention. I'd be very hard
> pressed
> indeed to come up with any definition of the context that allowed me to
> listen
> to late Beethoven and have it speak to me, other than an extremely general
> context consisting of a learned-by-osmosis sensitivity to the musical
> procedures of classical music, with a little added experience playing it
> on the
> piano.
You inhabit a world where some of the music from Beethoven and others of the
time is continually available. That music, or other work following on from
it, can be heard in the background all over the place. A friend of mine
teaches children and plays them music like Lachenmann, Ferneyhough,
Sciarrino, Grisey and finds they frequently respond well, not least because
they can relate some of the unusual sonic material to things they have heard
in films and the like. Of course this is hardly intricate structural
listening, but it's at least a way in. Only when they get older do certain
social pressures 'teach' them what is acceptable according to peer pressure
(similar results have been found with different age-groups when introducing
them to all sorts of foodstuffs).
The basic musical materials from which Beethoven's work, including the late
pieces, is constructed, is all around us, so it's perhaps less surprising
that you were able to find a way in if you paid attention.
By the way, I hit upon the music of Stockhausen and Cage when very young
without particular verbal explanation - I just found the sounds and the
experiences provided by their accumulation and the unfolding of a work over
time to be fascinating, deeply imaginative, electrifying and affecting.
Obviously I have a much deeper appreciation of this work now, but that's
mainly as a result of just having listened more and more.
>
> Your suggestion that the composers might provide a sort of
> self-referential
> context for their music is not bad as far as it goes, but it cannot
> create,
> instantly and on the spot at a concert, the kind of intuitively absorbed
> context that I'm talking about. I'm not sure they are even similar in
> kind.
I do believe it can, at least on some levels. Whether the sorts of
experiences it provides are ones that some people desire is another matter,
of course.
>
>> > By the way, isn't the very idea of "experimental" music rather odd? I
>> > mean,
>> > can't the composer do the experiment, decide whether it is a success,
>> > maybe
>> > pass it around a few colleagues to get their reaction, and if it still
>> > seems a
>> > success, present it to the public not as an experiment, but as
>> > full-fledged
>> > music?
>>
>> I think someone like Cage actually did work with this sort
>> of self-reflection. Note that 'experimental' can also mean
>> that all sorts of things are only determined in the
>> performance itself, but even in such indeterminate pieces,
>> you would expect the composer to have done some thought and
>> not just put whatever on stage.
>>
>> > Of course, this would mean that non-successful experiments would have
>> > to be trashed, and that might put off some composers. But just think -
>> > the
>> > embarrassment of the total serialization fiasco could have been
>> > entirely
>> > avoided if it had been treated as a genuine experiment,
>>
>> I disagree it's a fiasco. There are some pieces of total or
>> at least highly serial writing that I rather enjoy listening to.
>>
> David Gable could engage you on this point with far more expertise than I,
> but
> whether there is some totally serialized writing that you enjoy or not
> isn't
> really the point; the point is that it was pretty much abandoned by the
> big
> name composers when they realized that it all came out sounding the same.
> I
> get a laugh out of that.
High serialism was a relatively short-lived movement (so was the rococo
style, say), but many of its achievements continued to inform subsequent
musical developments. I also like listening to some of the pieces from the
period, which constituted a particular response to a specific historical and
cultural moment.
>
>> > But I have been to many a concert
>> > of new music where that sort of thing is not only common, but seems to
>> > be a
>> > badge of the "seriousness" of the piece. And the harder to understand
>> > it is,
>> > the "better" the music. Sorry, I know you don't like hearing this kind
>> > of
>> > thing, but that's my experience. Why all new music must be a major
>> > intellectual challenge in order to be worthwhile is a strangely
>> > Calvinistic way
>> > of seeing things, to my way of thinking.
>>
>> I don't think I know a single composer who would be so
>> rigorous as to demand that all performance be a major
>> intellectual challenge (unless you might hold that all music
>> is a major intellectual challenge by definition).
>>
> Well, yes, I did get carried away and said "all" without really meaning
> it.
>
>> But there definitely seems to exist this aesthetic of music
>> that is interested in the difficult. Is that a problem? What
>> if you just see the difficult as one more modality of music.
>> You can have difficult and easy music just as you can have
>> fast and slow music. Difficult music can give you feelings
>> easy music won't give you and the other way round. So I
>> think that's a good reason to be interested in difficult
>> music. And also to be interested in easy music.
>>
> I have no problem with music being difficult; I have a problem with
> difficulty
> being equated with value in any direct way. I also have a problem when a
> listener who is uninterested in difficulty as an esthetic is sneered at
> for
> that reason (I'm guilty of this myself at some level, sometimes).
Well, I think some things in rock and jazz can be equally 'difficult' in
their own way. And parallel debates exist between opposing movement
espousing various degrees of 'difficulty' or 'accessibility' in these fields
as well.
But what all
> this really gets to is "what the purpose of music?", and people have very
> divergent ideas about that. It has a myriad of purposes and meanings for
> me,
> and that makes it pretty hard to discuss in any coherent way.
>
>> I really don't think the difficult aesthetic is a very new
>> phenomenon either, BTW. We don't have Ockeghem's program
>> notes any more, but we sure know his stuff is very, very,
>> very difficult!
>>
> Ockeghem isn't that difficult to listen to if you aren't trying to hear
> the
> compositional underpinning of the music, is he? Do you know if he
> actually
> expected his audience to follow his compositional procedures? I'd think
> not;
> I'd think he'd only expect musical colleagues to be interested in that
> stuff.
>
There are audible processes going on in the work which can be very abstruse,
just as there are Monteverdi or Bach or Beethoven or Brahms. All these are a
direct result of compositional procedures.
Ian
Ian Pace
> In article <1111894999.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> ink...@yahoo.com says...
>
> I have to add, though, that as far as I'm concerned it's just *some*
> composers
> of complex music that strike me as using the complexity to cover up a lack
> of
> musical instinct and talent, knowing that's it's going to be virtually
> impossible for most listeners to make any reasonable assessment of the
> value of
> their work.
Who do you think does this?
> Ironically, making things complex is not all that difficult.
Creating a complex texture isn't that difficult if one has the technique;
creating a more complex musical experience is not easy at all, and
perceptive listeners familiar with a wide range of idioms can tell whether
this is the case or not.
> I
> tend to overstate the problem I see with these types, and I tend to paint
> the
> whole new music community with too broad a brush - my bad. There's plenty
> of
> fairly difficult music from the last 100 years that I do like a lot,
> whether I
> understand how it was made or not. Ligeti comes to mind, for example,
> although
> at this point he is very old hat to the new kids on the block.
>
I like quite a bit of Ligeti's work as well, though I actually wouldn't call
the experience it provides particularly complex (in comparison to Brahms,
say).
Ian
Ian Pace
<Gramm...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:1111859259.7...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
aesthetic experience. Most often they are taking a 'leap into the dark' in
this respect. If they had refrained from doing so unless they were 100%
certain of being able to second-guess how the work would appear to future
generations, then I doubt if music would have got anywhere at all.
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
>>It is rather ridiculous isn't it? "My technique is so advanced and
>>complicated NO ONE will EVER understand it! Ha ha ha!!! This will
>>certainly insure my music will be appreciated forever! Ha ha ha!!!"
>>
>
> It is.
Yes, that attitude is very ridiculous; I wouldn't know a
single composer - I can't even think of bad composers - who
really thinks that way.
> I have to add, though, that as far as I'm concerned it's just *some* composers
> of complex music that strike me as using the complexity to cover up a lack of
> musical instinct and talent,
Not unthinkable. I've certainly felt that way about some
pieces I heard. OTOH, I've also felt that some people write
'accessible' music (coming in many forms, one notable form
being rock-influenced post-minimalism) to hide a lack of
musical instinct and talent.
Ian Pace
> In article <3aiabcF...@individual.net>, i...@ianpace.com says...
> me
> that the necessity for verbal explanation can be and sometimes has been a
> crutch used justify works that, as you point out, may be experimental in
> nature, and, like experiments in other fields, maybe should not be carried
> out
> in public. I would hope (and it's almost for certain a false hope) that
> in
> general composers would attempt to make their music comprehensible enough
> so
> that it would stand on its own.
A great many composers do hope for this, but they realise the futility of
trying to second-guess the plurality of listeners' responses. There are
musical elements which I think can provide a not-too-difficult 'way in' to
even the most complex contemporary works (such as texture, sonority,
register, dynamics, all of which can be heard pretty immediately and in
their unfolding provide one structural level of the music). Then it's
possible to listen more closely to the more intricate elements. Pitch and
long-range harmonic processes aren't necessarily the most over-arching and
immediate levels, though, which is by no means to suggest that these things
aren't present and meaningful within other substrata. Western classical
music at least from the baroque period up until the early 20th century
provides for accessibility through macroscopic tonal harmonic procedures;
regular exposure to it generates habits of listening. Quite a bit of 20th
century music most definitely works harmonically, but as the writing is so
intricate and ever-shifting in this sense, it uses other means to provide
structural delineation. This suggests that changing attitudes to listening
to those which may have become culturally ingrained are more productive.
>
> By the way, isn't the very idea of "experimental" music rather odd? I
> mean,
> can't the composer do the experiment, decide whether it is a success,
> maybe
> pass it around a few colleagues to get their reaction, and if it still
> seems a
> success, present it to the public not as an experiment, but as
> full-fledged
> music? Of course, this would mean that non-successful experiments would
> have
> to be trashed, and that might put off some composers.
What a few colleagues think cannot account for what meanings the music might
have in changing cultural circumstances. Musical and other artistic canons
are forever being revised in light of what people can relate to their own
historical moment. I know you're a fan of Alkan's music (so am I); his work
(like that of Berlioz) has by no means attained a stable position in a
canon. Possibly future generations might think less or more of it than we do
now.
> But just think - the
> embarrassment of the total serialization fiasco could have been entirely
> avoided if it had been treated as a genuine experiment, in which case it
> never
> would have seen the light of day.
I don't think it's an embarrassment, nor that it didn't produce some
important works. And without that musical experience, I doubt whether many
other subsequent musical developments would have turned out in the same way
(though of course you might that would be no bad thing). Stockhausen's
Klavierstuck X or Gruppen or Kontakte or even the later Mantra are not
strictly total serial works, but the evolution of their idioms would have
been quite different without the experience of Kreuzspiel, in my opinion.
But which pieces precisely do you see as constituting 'the total
serialisation fiasco'?
> The downside in that particular case would
> be that folks like me wouldn't have had the opportunity to observe that,
> for
> all their fancy theorizing and philosophy, the composers actually had no
> real
> idea of what they were doing.
They had a very clear idea of what they were doing and a sense of historical
necessity. And the almost frightening otherworldly experiences they created
as a result still haunt many composers to this day.
> I still don't know that subsequent composers
> quite got the lesson out of that example that is to be learned.
>
>> > There is no doubt that the amount of verbalization and explanation of
>> > each
>> > piece of music on the part of some composers is a phenomenon less than
>> > a
>> > hundred years old.
>>
>> Maybe in terms of explaining specific works it's new, but verbalisation
>> on
>> the part of composers (and some performers) isn't new.
>>
> I understand that musicians and musical scholars have always discussed
> music
> amongst themselves and have written explanations for each other's
> edification,
> but I don't know of any instances in the 19th century where the
> concert-goer
> hearing new music (and, interestingly, in that era they more often heard
> new
> music than not) would receive as part of the program notes a detailed
> technical
> exigesis of, say, a new sonata by Schumann. But I have been to many a
> concert
> of new music where that sort of thing is not only common, but seems to be
> a
> badge of the "seriousness" of the piece.
Again, I'd like some examples here.
>And the harder to understand it is,
> the "better" the music. Sorry, I know you don't like hearing this kind of
> thing, but that's my experience. Why all new music must be a major
> intellectual challenge in order to be worthwhile is a strangely
> Calvinistic way
> of seeing things, to my way of thinking.
Isn't there an important place in any artistic field for that which attempts
to expand and enrich perception rather than simply pandering to
already-existing perceptions? Haven't composers done that throughout
history? Music whose simple 'difficulty' is its only real quality,
penetration of the 'difficulty' not resulting in any particularly unique
experience, isn't anything particularly worth writing home about, but I
don't believe that much of the finest contemporary work is like that. Don't
go by what some of the rather anal theorists of serial music have to say
about it; many of them are often concerned simply to elevate the status of
particular types of academic analysis into a pseudo-scientific discipline
that exists purely for its own sake.
>
>> And a huge amount of it is has a sort of mathematical or
>> > philosophical cast, for some odd reason, as if humans made music for
>> > mathematical or philosophical reasons (well, some do pretend to do
>> > that).
>> > I
>> > don't think that Bach wrote tomes five times larger in bulk than the
>> > Well-
>> > Tempered Clavier to explain what he was doing in the WTC, as a
>> > contrasting
>> > example involving some fairly complex music.
>>
>> No, but Rameau wrote large tomes as well as composing.
>
> He did, but I don't think he expected all of his listeners to have read
> them in
> order to understand his music, do you?
>
No, and I don't think that's true of Boulez or Stockhausen's writings
either. Though reading the writings of composers from the past, and relating
them to their work. is something I find very interesting.
>> >
>> > Anyway, I think you are on to something, even though the chances that
>> > anyone
>> > involved in it would admit as much are pretty slim.
>> >
>> Discourse about music exists and always has existed (isn't that precisely
>> what we are engaged in here?). The composers who write extensively are
>> simply participating in that discourse, attempting to widen, enrichen and
>> refocus the range of discursive possibilities.
>>
> Eeekk! Get me out of here!
>
Well, when we write plentiful quantities of words here about music, why
should we be so concerned when some composers do the same, albeit in a
different manner?
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
[program notes]:
> I am not sure how to describe those that
> are, at least as far as I am concerned, but generally speaking, if they are in
> terms that will readily make sense only to to grad students in composition but
> not to folks who haven't had the time or inclination to learn the intricacies
> of the concepts and lingo for every substyle from electroacoustic interaction
> to the further reaches of serialization to spectralism to who knows what else,
> then I think there's a problem.
I know what you mean, but is that a problem of the music
itself? A lot of composers are just very bad writers, and I
think some writing training would be very good for musicians
to develop in the course of their studies.
Much the same thing applies to writing biographies. These
are often entirely meaningless and exclusively written for a
professional audience, one which knows all about what award
means what and which school is where.
> The sort of thing I'm thinking of are those
> who take Milton Babbitt as a role model of how to relate to the listener. But
> even someone like Elliot Carter, whose music is relatively approachable to me
> these days, has said that he simply has no consideration for the listener at
> all. I'm sorry, but as a listener, that kind of talk really puts me off.
Makes sense, but isn't there perhaps a bit of
misunderstanding here as well? Ian has already pointed out
that it wasn't Babbitt himself who came up with that article
title; more generally, 'not caring about the listener' can
mean many different things. It needn't mean that the music
should be hardly understandable. For example, it could just
mean that Carter doesn't take your *taste* into account,
doesn't write for people who'd rather hear Mozart. And
rightly so. Why would a composer write for an audience who
already knows in advance what they want to hear? There are
better ways to make money outside of music, you know.
Myself, I would perhaps say I write for audiences that share
my curiosity about music.
> But I'd like to think that for its natural audience (that would be people who
> are interested in classical music generally and in new music specifically, but
> who are not necessarily professional musicians or educators), the idea of music
> standing on its own means that the music doesn't require explanation outside of
> itself in order to be understood.
'Natural' almost always means that the necessary context has
been so thoroughly institutionalized as to become a given,
be almost invisible. The Concert Hall itself is one such
invisible institution; but it's by no means the only
environment for music and is of course really a relatively
recent invention.
> If it does require explanation, it is some
> form of program music in the old sense, even if the "program" is, for example,
> elaborate set theory.
What do you think of the idea that the 'program' of Mozart's
sonatas is sonata form? (or if not Mozart, then at least the
'program' of Stravinski's Symphony in C is "the classical
symphony")
> Your suggestion that the composers might provide a sort of self-referential
> context for their music is not bad as far as it goes, but it cannot create,
> instantly and on the spot at a concert, the kind of intuitively absorbed
> context that I'm talking about.
It can't, because your intuitively absorbed context is
usually, I believe, a naturalized (made invisible)
institution, and the context a composer brings in is by
definition visible and can't therefore ever feel natural.
> whether there is some totally serialized writing that you enjoy or not isn't
> really the point; the point is that it was pretty much abandoned by the big
> name composers when they realized that it all came out sounding the same. I
> get a laugh out of that.
It's a complex topic. Perhaps true Total Serialism did never
really exist, there's always some sort of arbitrary choice
in any composition. However, let me point out that I tend to
enjoy Boulez' early essays in that direction more than his
recent work, which I find less adventurous.
I also don't think it all sounds the same. Radical
serialization produced quite different music with
Stockhausen, Boulez and Babbitt.
> Ockeghem isn't that difficult to listen to if you aren't trying to hear the
> compositional underpinning of the music, is he?
Well, personally, I hardly find any music difficult to
listen to - certainly if I'm not trying to hear the
compositional underpinnings. The last time I can remember
finding a piece of music hard to listen to was a couple of
years back when I heard Berg's chamber concerto in concert.
That's an exhausting piece, but it's great. And then there
are bad pieces, those I find hard to listen to as well.
> Do you know if he actually
> expected his audience to follow his compositional procedures? I'd think not;
> I'd think he'd only expect musical colleagues to be interested in that stuff.
Well, as I pointed out, the only music of which I am fully
certain that the idea is that the audience follow the
processes of the form is stuff like Reich's early process
pieces and the music of Tom Johnson (like "Music with
Mistakes").
Ian Pace
> Wayne Reimer wrote:
>
[lots of stuff I essentially agree with snipped]
>>
> Makes sense, but isn't there perhaps a bit of misunderstanding here as
> well? Ian has already pointed out that it wasn't Babbitt himself who came
> up with that article title; more generally, 'not caring about the
> listener' can mean many different things. It needn't mean that the music
> should be hardly understandable. For example, it could just mean that
> Carter doesn't take your *taste* into account, doesn't write for people
> who'd rather hear Mozart. And rightly so. Why would a composer write for
> an audience who already knows in advance what they want to hear? There are
> better ways to make money outside of music, you know.
>
> Myself, I would perhaps say I write for audiences that share my curiosity
> about music.
And one can write something that one believes oneself to be of importance
and let listeners come to their own decisions. 'Saying something' (for all
the problems in that term) one believes to be of significance rather than
just trying to give an audience what one thinks they want is surely a quite
fundamental factor separating art from entertainment. I find those composers
who rather cynically pander to pre-existing expectations or fashion in the
name of making a big splash on the first performance (I'm sure you know the
type of people I mean) are in general some of the weakest and most shallow
ones.
>
>
>> But I'd like to think that for its natural audience (that would be people
>> who are interested in classical music generally and in new music
>> specifically, but who are not necessarily professional musicians or
>> educators), the idea of music standing on its own means that the music
>> doesn't require explanation outside of itself in order to be understood.
>
> 'Natural' almost always means that the necessary context has been so
> thoroughly institutionalized as to become a given, be almost invisible.
> The Concert Hall itself is one such invisible institution; but it's by no
> means the only environment for music and is of course really a relatively
> recent invention.
I've known more than a few people interested in the wilder reaches of jazz
and rock who can 'click in' to the music of Stockhausen or Xenakis or
Lachenmann or whoever, who aren't necessarily so interested in the more
standard classical repertoire. Also some who have an interest in pre-baroque
music and contemporary work but less so in the repertoire from the 18th and
19th centuries. That core audience for the standard classical repertoire
(who, as I said before, are shrinking and getting older all the time) aren't
the only key constituency that contemporary music might appeal to.
>
>> If it does require explanation, it is some form of program music in the
>> old sense, even if the "program" is, for example, elaborate set theory.
>
> What do you think of the idea that the 'program' of Mozart's sonatas is
> sonata form? (or if not Mozart, then at least the 'program' of
> Stravinski's Symphony in C is "the classical symphony")
>
>
>> Your suggestion that the composers might provide a sort of
>> self-referential context for their music is not bad as far as it goes,
>> but it cannot create, instantly and on the spot at a concert, the kind of
>> intuitively absorbed context that I'm talking about.
>
> It can't, because your intuitively absorbed context is usually, I believe,
> a naturalized (made invisible) institution, and the context a composer
> brings in is by definition visible and can't therefore ever feel natural.
>
The term 'intuitively absorbed context' is very important, as you point out.
It was absorbed from somewhere. If 'difficult' contemporary music were
performed, broadcast, taught at schools, etc. more frequently than is the
case nowadays, more people would probably absorb a context for that. That
requires a musical infrastructure that places such ideals over and above
short-term audience figures. This is one reason why the marketplace alone is
hardly satisfactory in this respect.
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
> I find those composers
> who rather cynically pander to pre-existing expectations or fashion in the
> name of making a big splash on the first performance (I'm sure you know the
> type of people I mean) are in general some of the weakest and most shallow
> ones.
Yes, I'm starting to be in music long enough to see careers
develop. So many variations! Superficial composers managing
to be presented as radical innovators, talented composers
getting just a little to good a reception for the good of
their artistic development, good composers in conservative
styles getting good careers, good composers in conservative
styles getting nowhere, very original composers having a
hard time, original composers who really want to get
recognized by the establishment...
> I've known more than a few people interested in the wilder reaches of jazz
> and rock who can 'click in' to the music of Stockhausen or Xenakis or
> Lachenmann or whoever, who aren't necessarily so interested in the more
> standard classical repertoire. Also some who have an interest in pre-baroque
> music and contemporary work but less so in the repertoire from the 18th and
> 19th centuries. That core audience for the standard classical repertoire
> (who, as I said before, are shrinking and getting older all the time) aren't
> the only key constituency that contemporary music might appeal to.
Absolutely, not to mention people from totally different
artistic disciplines. In fact, selling new music to
classical audiences as 'just like classical music but just a
little strange' as has often been done (sandwich formula
programming, etc) is entirely pointless, I think.
I don't write classical music. Many insults can be leveled
at me but not that one. And really, I don't think Mozart
wrote classical music, either. I can't imagine such a thing
to have existed at the time.
Here's a question I asked just a few days ago on the Dutch
classical music group - do we have books investigating the
marketing of Mozart during his lifetime and after his death?
> The term 'intuitively absorbed context' is very important, as you point out.
> It was absorbed from somewhere. If 'difficult' contemporary music were
> performed, broadcast, taught at schools, etc. more frequently than is the
> case nowadays, more people would probably absorb a context for that. That
> requires a musical infrastructure that places such ideals over and above
> short-term audience figures. This is one reason why the marketplace alone is
> hardly satisfactory in this respect.
This is quite true, though I also like the idea of 'weird
art' as some sidetrack of culture that the lucky ones
discover for themselves and come to treasure.
(I like to think of what is usually termed the 'avantgarde'
really as the 'side guard': we're not leading culture to a
glorious future of weird art but we're flanking it, and
we're so well camouflaged that nobody really can tell if
we're in or out...)
Ian Pace
>
> Here's a question I asked just a few days ago on the Dutch classical music
> group - do we have books investigating the marketing of Mozart during his
> lifetime and after his death?
>
a matter, but I can't think of references to hand. One of my university
colleagues is a Mozart expert, I'll e-mail him and get back to you on that.
Best,
Ian
David Hurwitz
>
>
>"Samuel Vriezen" <sqv.do....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>news:4246db85$0$155$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>> Here's a question I asked just a few days ago on the Dutch classical music
>> group - do we have books investigating the marketing of Mozart during his
>> lifetime and after his death?
You can find all of the information that you need is Didier Schlussnuss's
"Walmart: A Documentary History (1734-1850)". Later volumes in the series will
include a fascinating study of the replacement of Bruckner symphonies as gas
station giveaway items in favor the more familiar steak-knives in the 1950s.
Dave Hurwitz
ink...@yahoo.com
By the way, isn't the very idea of "experimental" music rather odd? I
mean,
can't the composer do the experiment, decide whether it is a success,
maybe
pass it around a few colleagues to get their reaction, and if it still
seems a
success, present it to the public not as an experiment, but as
full-fledged
music?
>>>
I think you are right, and so did Varese, almost one hundred years ago:
"Of course, like all composers who have something new to say, I
experiment, and have always experimented. But when I finally present a
work it is not an experiment -- it is a finished product. My
experiments go into the wastepaper basket. People are too apt to
forget that in the long chain of tradition each link has been forged by
a revolutionary, a pioneer, and experimenter of a previous period."
I have to say that I have never come across a work titled be the
composer as experimental. I think we have to, yet again, thank the
critics for the nomiker and not the composers.
ink...@yahoo.com
But do you really feel any music is quite so self-contained to the
point
that not even some gentle nudging is productive to those coming at it
very
much 'from outside'?
>>>
Absolutly! Beethoven's Ninth symphony comes immediatly to mind.
Almost everyone I have know who has heard it likes it and liked it
immediatly, learned or not. Of course I only really know westerners.
Can't speak for the Asian continent, South America, the Africans, or
aboriginal people from the west Pacific.
>>>
The number of 'people who are interested in classical
music generally' is falling all the time, perhaps related to the
decline of
musical education in schools. Those who do enjoy it generally have some
sort
of background in the form of continued exposure to classical music
and/or
some knowledge of its history, position in Western culture, etc.
>>>
Yes, but don't put the carriage before the horse. It'd be quite a hard
sell to say that eveyone involved in classical music studied the theory
and got turned on by the theory before they ever heard anything they
liked. I know that's not exactly what you said but it's what it
amounts to. People hear something that intrigues them and then they
might try and figure out what's really going on, which in turn may
intrigue them even more or it may not, but the pure joy of sound comes
first and foremost to everyone. I think of it as seeing something off
in the distance that interests you, something sparkling. You are drawn
to it first in a base and primordial way, knowing nothing at all about
it, and only then do you venture off towards it to see what it really
is. It'd be ludicrous to say that a person must study anatomy fully
and completely before they would be drawn to an attractive member of
the opposite sex, and the same goes for 'sexy' music.
Ian Pace
<ink...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1111975760....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>>>
> But do you really feel any music is quite so self-contained to the
> point
> that not even some gentle nudging is productive to those coming at it
> very
> much 'from outside'?
>>>>
>
> Absolutly! Beethoven's Ninth symphony comes immediatly to mind.
> Almost everyone I have know who has heard it likes it and liked it
> immediatly, learned or not. Of course I only really know westerners.
> Can't speak for the Asian continent, South America, the Africans, or
> aboriginal people from the west Pacific.
>
don't like it, and find it 'classical' and thus alien. What is the
predominant class of your acquaintances?
How many of those people you're referring to come to like it from listening
to the whole symphony, or just the big tune in the finale? And don't many of
them simply want to hear that over again, and skip all the rest of it?
Certainly a radio station like Classical FM over here has found that and as
such plays classical music in fragments, single movements if we're lucky.
>>>>
> The number of 'people who are interested in classical
> music generally' is falling all the time, perhaps related to the
> decline of
> musical education in schools. Those who do enjoy it generally have some
> sort
> of background in the form of continued exposure to classical music
> and/or
> some knowledge of its history, position in Western culture, etc.
>>>>
>
> Yes, but don't put the carriage before the horse. It'd be quite a hard
> sell to say that eveyone involved in classical music studied the theory
> and got turned on by the theory before they ever heard anything they
> liked. I know that's not exactly what you said but it's what it
> amounts to.
No it's not, not at all. I'm talking simply of exposing people to it and its
context, which is quite distinct from the technical theory.
> People hear something that intrigues them and then they
> might try and figure out what's really going on, which in turn may
> intrigue them even more or it may not, but the pure joy of sound comes
> first and foremost to everyone.
Most young people find that much more readily in popular music. And
classical music often seems dated or wilfully highbrow to them.
> I think of it as seeing something off
> in the distance that interests you, something sparkling. You are drawn
> to it first in a base and primordial way, knowing nothing at all about
> it, and only then do you venture off towards it to see what it really
> is.
All true of popular music as well (much more sophisticated often than
classical music lovers will grant). By these standards, you render classical
music automatically a poor relation of that.
> It'd be ludicrous to say that a person must study anatomy fully
> and completely before they would be drawn to an attractive member of
> the opposite sex, and the same goes for 'sexy' music.
>
That's a ridiculous parallel. It's not about studying anatomy, it's about
seeing quite a number of people of the opposite sex, then one is made more
aware of which one is most attracted to.
Ian
Ian Pace
>> In article <3anmmrF...@individual.net>, i...@ianpace.com says...
> music
> concert I attended here in San Francisco. I don't remember his name but
> do
> remember that he was/is a well-known figure in the new music establishment
> in
> these parts, and it was almost pathetic what a dead spot his austere-but-
> complex music created in the concert, 90 percent of which was music
> written
> within the last five years. At intermission, I heard another composer say
> to
> him something like: why don't you learn to relax; nobody wants to hear
> that
> kind of writing anymore. The complicated composer simply scowled and
> turned
> away. I was interested that it wasn't just me, that a professional also
> found
> his music not very worthwhile, but my sense was that the complicated
> composer
> simply couldn't write any other way without totally giving away his lack
> of
> talent.
Well, while I don't think the very recent past (i.e. the last 10-15 years)
has been a particularly fruitful one compared to previous decades, it's
taking a big leap from a concert like this to imply general comments about
music of the last 5 years (I'm not sure if you meant that, though). The sort
of conversation you describe goes on between aesthetically 'territorial'
composers all the time - not that worth paying much attention to. And
reputations occur for different reasons in different places. I've certainly
heard plenty of music that may be inhabiting a central position with regard
to some or other idiom or aesthetic but doesn't make much of an impression.
But I'm sure that would have been true at any time in history.
>
>> > Ironically, making things complex is not all that difficult.
>>
>> Creating a complex texture isn't that difficult if one has the technique;
>> creating a more complex musical experience is not easy at all, and
>> perceptive listeners familiar with a wide range of idioms can tell
>> whether
>> this is the case or not.
>>
> There is the issue - if they don't live within the new music ghetto, the
> listener probably is not going to have that familiarity.
There is (especially as of recently) a great deal of such music available on
CD to listen to. And isn't this a good argument for making more performances
of a wide range of contemporary music available?
Classical music listeners per se constitute a ghetto as well (albeit a
larger one), don't forget.
> I have to say that
> here in rmcr, my impression is that at least half of the folks who post
> with
> any regularity in regards to newer music are professionally involved in
> it; of
> course, there are several people who post on the subject whose occupation
> is
> unknown.
I know there are certainly quite a number who aren't, as well. I've also
found that at some concerts as well (more so in Europe than in the UK), a
not-at-all inconsiderable number of listeners who have no professional
involvement at all. Granted, amongst such people there is a bias in favour
of other types of artists and intellectuals, but not everyone is one of
those things.
> At any rate, in many cases I don't think I can tell what experience
> the composer had in mind, which is frustrating.
But couldn't that just be because the experience is very unfamiliar?
> I know others who feel the
> same way, and they often just end up ignoring new music because of it; the
> basic feeling I've heard expressed is that they think they are being made
> fools
> of by the composers and they don't like it.
Well, I'm certainly not interested in any music that would do that. And yes,
certainly such stuff exists.
>
>> > I
>> > tend to overstate the problem I see with these types, and I tend to
>> > paint
>> > the
>> > whole new music community with too broad a brush - my bad. There's
>> > plenty
>> > of
>> > fairly difficult music from the last 100 years that I do like a lot,
>> > whether I
>> > understand how it was made or not. Ligeti comes to mind, for example,
>> > although
>> > at this point he is very old hat to the new kids on the block.
>> >
>> I like quite a bit of Ligeti's work as well, though I actually wouldn't
>> call
>> the experience it provides particularly complex (in comparison to Brahms,
>> say).
>>
> Hmm, my reaction is different.
Well, for example, don't you find the harmonic working a lot more
generalised (with some exceptions of course)? Often the pitches are more
filling a particular harmonic space rather than being loaded with such a
weight of structural potential as they are in Brahms? Earlier works such as
the Second String Quartet, Atmospheres, the Chamber Concerto, contain plenty
of stuff that's essentially 'textural', spanning a texture over a period of
time with a few localised variations during the course of that span. The
first of the piano Etudes, Desordre, essentially sets a few processes going
and lets them run their course with a few interventions (the result is
compelling, though). But the overall trajectory of the piece, rhythmically
and harmonically, seems relatively straightforward to me, compared to a
Brahms Intermezzo, say. The Ligeti works do generally inhabit a more
dissonant world (though with differing degrees of dissonance) which might
account for a particular perception of complexity. But simply because I've
heard plenty such work, I'm struck less by the overall amount of dissonance
(though that still colours the total experience, gives it part of its
particular flavour) than by the inner variations and processes in this
respect.
> But then, I grew up and had my musical
> sensibilities formed in a time and environment that would seem
> unimaginably
> primitive to you and, additionally, I'm not a professional musician,
I'd never call anyone's time and environment primitive in that respect. That
is true of few cultural backgrounds, they just differ in specific natures.
Also, I don't think my being a professional musician makes my judgement per
se any more valid.
> so maybe
> we're just too different in how we experience music and the world to be
> able to
> have anything more than the most shallow of discussions.
>
Those can actually be some of the more fruitful discussions. It's tedious
just discussing with people who bring the same implicit assumptions as
oneself.
Best,
Ian
Ian Pace
> In article <4246a917$0$146$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> sqv.do....@xs4all.nl
> says...
>> Wayne Reimer wrote:
>>
>> >>It is rather ridiculous isn't it? "My technique is so advanced and
>> >>complicated NO ONE will EVER understand it! Ha ha ha!!! This will
>> >>certainly insure my music will be appreciated forever! Ha ha ha!!!"
>> >>
>> >
>> > It is.
>>
>> Yes, that attitude is very ridiculous; I wouldn't know a
>> single composer - I can't even think of bad composers - who
>> really thinks that way.
>>
> they are
> faking it. But there have been some fairly well-known cases of composers
> who
> have admitted that they composed in a style that was personally not
> meaningful
> because of the pressures of the music world - Rochberg and Harrison come
> to
> mind, but I know I've heard of more that I can't recall right now. Even
> Boulez
> and Carter have sort of backed off as time passed. How many have never
> "come
> out" and still continue to compose in a style they don't really believe in
> because of social and professional factors?
I've known the converse more than a few times, those who composer in a style
that they don't really believe in because of social and professional
factors, but so as to create more superficially 'accessible' music.
> Who knows, but I would guess there
> are some. They could, in theory, even be quite famous.
Some of those who've done what I describe above have become famous as a
result.
>
>> > I have to add, though, that as far as I'm concerned it's just *some*
>> > composers
>> > of complex music that strike me as using the complexity to cover up a
>> > lack of
>> > musical instinct and talent,
>>
>> Not unthinkable. I've certainly felt that way about some
>> pieces I heard. OTOH, I've also felt that some people write
>> 'accessible' music (coming in many forms, one notable form
>> being rock-influenced post-minimalism) to hide a lack of
>> musical instinct and talent.
>>
> So, you're prejudiced against rock-influenced post-minimalism? That's
> okay;
> we've all got our likes and dislikes.
I think Samuel (and do correct me if I'm wrong) is referring to those who
simply know how to master the essentials of a fashionable style, add a few
different decorative elements so as to make it 'their own', when this seems
an opportune thing to do in careerist terms, rather than expressing
something deeper or demonstrating any wider abilities. This can happen in
all sorts of styles, but is certainly prominent in rock-influenced
post-minimalism.
>
> As far as accessible music being used as camouflage for a lack of instinct
> and
> talent - it's seems to me that it would be more difficult to pull off such
> a
> feat in idioms that are more generally understood than those that aren't.
> Maybe I'm assuming that something is obvious that isn't.
>
It happens all the time, more possible in a soundbite culture than ever
before.
Ian
ink...@yahoo.com
definitely
don't like it, and find it 'classical' and thus alien. What is the
predominant class of your acquaintances?"
American. Not classically trained. 17-35 yrears of age. If they can
differentiate classical art music from any other type they are already
pretty far along. I'm talking about complete newbies.
"How many of those people you're referring to come to like it from
listening
to the whole symphony, or just the big tune in the finale? And don't
many of
them simply want to hear that over again, and skip all the rest of it?"
That hasn't come up. I imagine it could be the case for some of them.
If so, so what? Perhaps what that really means is that the finale is
the strongest part. Are you saying that becuase they want to
fastforeward to a certain part and enjoy that part that they really
don't like any of it? Is it really all or nothing for you?
"No it's not, not at all. I'm talking simply of exposing people to it
and its
context, which is quite distinct from the technical theory."
Well, perhaps that's what you meant, but this is what you said:
"Those who do enjoy it generally have some sort of background in the
form of continued exposure to classical music and/or some knowledge of
its history, position in Western culture, etc."
One doesn't have to be continually exposed to and/or know the history
of classical music to enjoy it. Perhaps some of the more esoteric
stuff yes, but not things like Beethoven's Ninth, not in my experience
anyway. Or the Shostakovich prelude and fugues for piano, or
Shostakovich's eigth string quartet arranged for chamber orchestra, or
the Bartok string quartets, or Barber's Adagio for Strings, or Air on
the G String, or the opening chorus of the St. John Passion, or, or,
or... I'm sure if you really looked around you could find plenty of
people who like certain classical pieces (again, not all of classical
music) who don't know the difference between sonata form and an alto
cleff.
"> It'd be ludicrous to say that a person must study anatomy fully
> and completely before they would be drawn to an attractive member of
> the opposite sex, and the same goes for 'sexy' music.
That's a ridiculous parallel. It's not about studying anatomy, it's
about
seeing quite a number of people of the opposite sex, then one is made
more
aware of which one is most attracted to. "
If you really believe that you must not have a single hormone in your
body. Gimme a break. Sexual attraction is immediate and completely
uncerebral. What is the exact number of females a teenage male must
evaluate before he gets a hard on? 56? What a load.
Ian Pace
>> In article <3anm6iF...@individual.net>, i...@ianpace.com says...
>>
> <...>
> didn't
> say they were.
>
>> >The sort of thing I'm thinking of are those
>> > who take Milton Babbitt as a role model of how to relate to the
>> > listener.
>> > But
>> > even someone like Elliot Carter, whose music is relatively approachable
>> > to
>> > me
>> > these days, has said that he simply has no consideration for the
>> > listener
>> > at
>> > all. I'm sorry, but as a listener, that kind of talk really puts me
>> > off.
>>
>> Could you give a source for this comment of Carter (I'm not necessarily
>> denying it's true)? It should perhaps also be pointed out that the title
>> of
>> Babbitt's notorious article 'Who Cares If You Listen?' was given by a
>> sub-editor, not by Babbitt himself (having had titles that I wouldn't
>> choose
>> given to articles of my own, and finding out too late to change them, I
>> know
>> how often this occurs).
>>
> his
> string quartets that I attended a month. Could also have been in from
> some
> online source, too, since I did some browsing of Carteriana that way. I
> don't
> annotate my surfing, so I'm not sure.
>
> Babbitt's article may have been somewhat sabotaged by the title, but as
> far as
> I know, he could still care less if I understand his music. But from what
> I've
> heard about him and by him, I could care less if I ever hear any more of
> his
> music. There's too much good stuff to be had to be concerned with him.
Well, I'm not a huge Babbitt fan myself, though I like a few pieces. I think
this fetishisation of technique sometimes independently of musical result
(which can often sound very generalised) is rather particular to the
Columbia-Princeton School, a certain type of 'university composer'
phenomenon.
>
>> > I mean, I'm sophisticated enough to understand how some composers feel
>> > that they
>> > are working at such Olympian heights that consideration of the listener
>> > just
>> > can't enter into the picture without some compromise of their work.
>> > That's
>> > fine, I know how that could be the case, and there are ways to explain
>> > that
>> > point of view to the listener. But to insult listeners by simply
>> > dismissing
>> > them is, IMHO, stupid.
>>
>> But I do think this is a straw target. There are few composers who are
>> pretty dismissive of audiences outside of their immediate circle, or
>> contemptuous of those either ill-equipped or uninterested in either the
>> inner technical workings of a piece or it's meta-musical references to
>> other
>> music, but I don't think they are in the majority. And of course it
>> should
>> be pointed out that there are plenty of extra-musical levels of reference
>> (through numerology and the like) in the work of Bach and Mozart as well.
>> >
> It doesn't matter whether they are in the majority - all it takes is one,
> especially if that one is held in great esteem by the musical
> establishment.
But who exactly here is the 'musical establishment'? I've found it varies
quite markedly from country to country or even within different regions of a
country. Babbitt et al aren't held in such high esteem overall in Europe
than in America, certainly. Even Carter isn't quite so universally seen as
at the pinnacle of the contemporary music world - in Austria, say, there
doesn't seem to be quite the same level of admiration for his music as you
find in America or Britain or France and Holland to an extent. Boulez and
Stockhausen and Berio are pretty generally recognised as primary figures in
most of Europe (perhaps slightly less so in America); Nono as well, though a
little less so in Britain. Xenakis, Kagel, Feldman as well, with a few
detractors in each case. Also Ligeti and Kurtag, though neither perhaps seen
as so especially avant-garde as the others. Cage is played very frequently,
but remains a controversial figure to many (and not really regarded highly,
say, by the mainstream British establishment). With those whose reputations
were generated slightly later, there are degrees of concordance but by no
means unanimity. Lachenmann, Rihm, Andriessen, Murail, Grisey, Dusapin,
Donatoni, Sciarrino, Clementi, Ustvolskaya, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies are
all composers whose standing and perceived importance varies considerably
from one European musical community to another - it seems to me as if none
of these with the exception of Birtwistle and perhaps Maxwell Davies have
had so much impact in America. Dieter Schnebel has an immense reputation in
the German-speaking world, but considerably less elsewhere. The most
prominent figures in Britain - Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, Simon
Bainbridge, George Benjamin, Mark-Anthony Turnage, James Macmillan, Julian
Anderson, Thomas Ades, and a few others - are by no means regarded anything
like so highly in much of continental Europe. Benjamin has a big reputation
in France, Knussen in Holland, but this isn't shared in many other European
countries. James Dillon is seen as a slightly marginal figure in Britain,
but in much of Europe (especially France and Germany) he is regarded as
amongst the most important of British composers. Turnage and Ades have had a
fair amount of exposure in Germany recently, not least because of the
advocacy of Rattle, but there is a considerably greater degree of scepticism
about their work there than there is in Britain. Ferneyhough has not lived
in Britain since the late 1960s, and is still played more in Europe than
Britain (though that gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years). Finnissy is
viewed as a fringe figure practically everywhere - for the British his
avant-garde influences mark him out as marginal, for the Europeans it's
because of perceived links with an English lyrical tradition in his work.
The prominent Scandinavian composers - Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, Bent
Sorenson, Per Norgaard, Poul Ruders, etc. - are more highly regarded in
Britain and some of Eastern Europe, I think, then in the Central European
countries. Very little Belgian music is widely played outside of Belgium;
the same is true for composers from Spain and Portugal. Since the rise of
Ligeti, Kurtag, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, and more belatedly (in terms of
reputation in the West) Ustvolskaya, Gubaidulina and Schnittke, the only
Eastern European music to have made a major impact throughout Europe has
been that of Part, Gorecki, etc., the so-called 'holy minimalists'. Few of
the various modern musical establishments in Europe hold these composers'
works in high regard.
So all I'm saying is that it's more problematic to hold the 'musical
establishment' responsible for putting listeners off, when there is such a
degree of disunity within the various establishments.
> My complaint is not at all with program notes in and of themselves. I
> love
> good long ones that give me lots of information I can use or that I find
> interesting.
>
>> > But I'd like to think that for its natural audience (that would be
>> > people
>> > who
>> > are interested in classical music generally and in new music
>> > specifically,
>> > but
>> > who are not necessarily professional musicians or educators), the idea
>> > of
>> > music
>> > standing on its own means that the music doesn't require explanation
>> > outside of
>> > itself in order to be understood.
>>
>> But do you really feel any music is quite so self-contained to the point
>> that not even some gentle nudging is productive to those coming at it
>> very
>> much 'from outside'?
>
> I have the feeling at this point that you've completely departed from
> anything
> I said. "Gentle nudging" is not at all the sort of thing I was
> describing.
>
> Here's a real-life example which - although in many ways not really
> appropriate
> to what I'm saying since I don't think it's the composer's fault or intent
> that
> it keeps coming up - and that is that I've found that virtually every
> program
> note writer for any music by Messiaen says something about
> non-retrogradable
> rhythms. After seeing that term many times, I finally researched it to
> find
> out what was meant, but I don't think most concert goers are going to find
> that
> terminology in the notes helpful and more likely will find it alienating,
> as
> in, "what the hell are those?", "it sounds like they think I know what
> they are
> talking about but I don't", and "if it's important to his music and I
> don't
> know what it is, what am I doing here?".
Well, a lot of writers on Messiaen simply paraphrase some of his own
technical writings on his work, replete with jargon terms. I suppose when
writing programme notes, they implicitly assume that most people who'll come
to a concert will already have some familiarity with his work and will have
come across the term before (a facile and unproductive assumption). A
non-retrogradable rhythm is not a particularly complex concept, simply a
rhythm that sounds the same if played backwards, but the jargon entails some
mystification. And they are means to an end rather than ends in themselves,
I think. It's possible that Messiaen may have thought differently (composers
tend to make a fetish of their own technical procedures). But in my book
those things that are entirely meaningless without reference to particular
extraneous knowledge are in general of secondary importance. This may seem
to contradict some of the other things I've been saying, but I don't believe
it does intrinsically. I don't mean such a statement dogmatically, and
recognise that some music simply seems very 'foreign' or 'dated' (in the
sense of belonging to another historical era) to some listeners.
Nonetheless, I simply believe that these obstacles can be overcome mainly by
repeated listening, rather than requiring other information. A study of the
historical and cultural context for a work can sometimes simply be a
short-cut in this respect - after all, historical contextualising of any
period is something undertaken after the event and represents an attempt to
draw some boundaries around a mass of 'raw material' to facilitate
comprehension.
I should perhaps make clear that I very profoundly agree with you with
respect to programme notes and the use of a technical vocabulary. It helps
bolster the notion that this music is only for those 'in the know', which is
something I don't believe to be the case as a general rule. And it plays to
an innate sense of superiority amongst those well-versed enough in the
technical terms, thinking snidely how much more learned they are than the
rest of those plebs they perceive with patronising contempt. One reason on
my own part for continually looking for metaphors and vocabulary drawn from
social questions is an attempt to resist this, as a means of arguing the
case (which I profoundly believe) that music, old or new, isn't a
hermetically-sealed or merely self-referential medium, it really does have
meaning in a wider context.
>
>> The number of 'people who are interested in classical
>> music generally' is falling all the time, perhaps related to the decline
>> of
>> musical education in schools. Those who do enjoy it generally have some
>> sort
>> of background in the form of continued exposure to classical music and/or
>> some knowledge of its history, position in Western culture, etc. To those
>> who remain outside of this, the whole rituals surrounding classical
>> music-making, including the basic forms, instrumentations, styles,
>> theatrical rituals in a live concert, etc. (and especially the vocal
>> idioms
>> in opera) seem 'foreign' and alien, and these can occupy their attention
>> more than the music's inner qualities (as we might find when encountering
>> certain types of non-Western music, or even some of the more arcane
>> reaches
>> of popular culture). A fair amount of contemporary music inhabits realms
>> of
>> experience that for the uninitiated can seem correspondingly arcane
>> without
>> a prior context. Programme notes are one of various means to help new
>> listeners find a context from which to make sense of what they are
>> hearing.
>>
> I agree - it's the notes have the opposite effect that I'm talking about.
See above - as I say this relates to a particular mode of self-serving and
narcissistic discourse that occurs amongst the cognoscenti.
> True enough now, but not nearly so true when (and where) I was a kid.
But other forms of tonal music (in popular music, etc.) were also around,
surely? Whilst obviously very different to Beethoven, surely some of the
archetypal chord progressions contained within relate more closely to
Beethoven than to avant-garde modernist work. So an absorption of (usually
pretty straightforward) tonal progressions is something that most people
will do (whether they would be able to assign such things technical terms is
of course a different matter).
>
>> A friend of mine
>> teaches children and plays them music like Lachenmann, Ferneyhough,
>> Sciarrino, Grisey and finds they frequently respond well, not least
>> because
>> they can relate some of the unusual sonic material to things they have
>> heard
>> in films and the like. Of course this is hardly intricate structural
>> listening, but it's at least a way in. Only when they get older do
>> certain
>> social pressures 'teach' them what is acceptable according to peer
>> pressure
>> (similar results have been found with different age-groups when
>> introducing
>> them to all sorts of foodstuffs).
>
> And I've heard "pop" electronica that astonishes me with what seems to be
> acceptable to non-classical listeners - and not just as novelty sounds.
> Sampling and the vast array of effects available to any musician with a
> computer has really changed everything.
>
> Typing this reminded of something - do you know of anyone who has done a
> realization of Messiaen bird-song music that involves samples of the
> actual
> birdsongs he transcribed? I know, it's sort of a low-grade and tacky
> idea, but
> it's still interesting to me.
That would be interesting. There are a bunch of Messiaen specialists all
based at a university where I'm going to play in a couple of weeks, I'll ask
if anyone there know of such work. Messiaen's birdsong transcriptions were
at source very literal (at least compared to earlier composers), but his
realisation of them was more metaphorical. After all, birds generally can
only sing one note at a time, whereas their cries are frequently polyphonic
in Messiaen's music. In a sense he was working his subjective reaction to
the experience of hearing the birds into his rendition of their cries, by
means of harmonisation and instrumental timbre. The representations of the
Grive des bois in Oiseaux Exotiques, to me suggesting a combination of
sadness and ecstasy simultaneously, in a harmonised
Db'-Db'-Db'-C''-G'-E''-C'' figuration, amounting to a Db chord with the
addition of a fifth, seventh and augmented ninth and augmented eleventh
(excuse technical vocabulary here, just a shorthand for describing the
harmony when I just have words here, not in a position to play it to
illustrate this message), played with 'un peu rubato, laissez longuement
vibrer', are extremely different to the appearance of the same bird in the
tenth movement of Des Canyons aux Etoiles, in a simple C-major
C'-C'-C'-C'-G'-E''-C'' (which I actually find really annoying at that
moment!). In either case Messiaen is trying to encapsulate something more
than a mere naturalistic rendering of the birdsong. In the more active
sections of these and other works, he simultaneously uses multiple songs of
birds from very distinct regions of the world. Unless there's some
particular sanctuary to which all of these migrate that only he knows about,
it would suggest that he's presenting some imaginary communion between these
various species rather than representing a literal experience.
>
>>
>> The basic musical materials from which Beethoven's work, including the
>> late
>> pieces, is constructed, is all around us, so it's perhaps less surprising
>> that you were able to find a way in if you paid attention.
>>
>> By the way, I hit upon the music of Stockhausen and Cage when very young
>> without particular verbal explanation - I just found the sounds and the
>> experiences provided by their accumulation and the unfolding of a work
>> over
>> time to be fascinating, deeply imaginative, electrifying and affecting.
>> Obviously I have a much deeper appreciation of this work now, but that's
>> mainly as a result of just having listened more and more.
>>
> Clearly, you were weird. You should realize that if you are the sort of
> person
> with the knack, nervous system, sensibilities, in-born talent, or whatever
> innate thing it is that means you become professionally involved with
> music, I
> don't think you can assume that your reactions to music are much like
> those of
> non-musicians.
Well, this is a big subject but I don't believe, in mine and other cases,
that moving in such a direction was the result of anything 'innate' in the
sense of having special perceptions, simply attitudes and preferences. The
music presented certain sorts of experiences which I do believe can be
elucidated with some degree of objectivity; personally I liked those
experiences and wanted to pursue them further. More a question of desire
than ability.
> I didn't turn into a professional musician, but at an early age
> my overtly keen responses to music stuck out like a sore thumb in the
> community
> where I lived. And through my whole life, I've been constantly reminded
> that
> my interest in classical music is not the norm.
>
I'm sure most people have aspects to themselves that are not 'the norm'.
Maybe many others in your community were capable of partaking of the
experiences provided by classical music, simply they weren't their own
preferences? And conformist pressures run deep in all sorts of communities.
Where I grew up there was a perception that amongst young people that liking
classical music was a thing you did if you wanted to seem 'posh' (and in
some cases I think that's not untrue, there can be a snob value attached to
it, though I find this truer in Britain than in other places in Europe). As
such, it diminished one's street-cred. Also in Britain (and I believe in the
US as well) there can be a perception that a taste for classical music
signifies something effete or signifying a lack of virility. As such, some
boys will steer clear of it because of fear that people will think them gay
as a result. Of course these perceptions are ridiculous and represent
nothing more than ingrained homophobia - and why after all do you assume
that gay men are any less virile, just because their sexual desires are
directed towards their own gender rather than the opposite one?
In certain sectors of the British new music world, there are unspoken
assumptions that those drawn to more serious, challenging and sometimes
obscure modernist work are simply some sorts of anoraky types, or social
outcasts, or in need to demonstrate their machismo, or whatever. And those
who go for more light-toned, eclectic, ephemeral or 'camp' music are much
more up-to-date and 'with it', in the spirit of Blairite times. The
directions that various not-so-strongly-minded composers and performers take
can and very often are influenced by such factors, wanting as they do to
have a subcultural arena in which to belong that can at least seem
moderately chic.
Last example of this: on the British series about a group of young lawyers,
'This Life' (did it make it over to the US? Not so unlike 'Friends' in some
ways) there was one scene where two lawyers were in a trendy London bar,
talking about what music they liked. One guy said 'I like Harrison
Birtwistle', followed by stunned silence. After a few seconds he said 'Don't
worry, I'm only joking', or something of the like. Birtwistle's name has a
certain meaning in Britain, mostly as a result of his detractors! In 1994
one highly conservative composer organised groups of people called 'The
Hecklers' to go and boo at concerts of Birtwistle and others perceived as
modernist. The most prominent event of this type was the revival of a
performance Birtwistle's 'Gawain' (not a bad piece, I think, if a little
over-uniform texturally) at the Royal Opera House. This was heavily covered
in the national press, actually resulting in much-increased ticket sales and
generally a much higher profile for the event than would have been the case
otherwise. Also, when his pretty uncompromising and harsh saxophone and
percussion concerto 'Panic' was played at the Last Night of the Proms in
1995, it was written about and denounced quite extensively in the press
outside of the arts pages, not least by the former right-wing Conservative
cabinet minister Norman Tebbitt in The Sun. These events all played a part
in registering the name of Birtwistle as an archetype of difficult modern
music for the general public, whether or not they had heard any of the work.
It was in this context that 'This Life' could mention his name on the
assumption that its implicit meaning would be communicable to viewers. I
think the underlying assumption of this exchange between the two characters
in the drama was that only some real weirdo would ever like, or admit to
liking, music like that of Birtwistle. Quite possibly those who make this
assumption haven't heard much or any of Birtwistle's music, it just has an
iconic meaning - liking it would have as much cred as admitting a love for
flared trousers or Gracie Fields or Ford Capris (though no doubt each of
these will have or have had their moments of glory once more as part of some
variety of retro-chic). What I'm trying to say is that the factors involved
in whether individuals pursue interests, at least openly, in certain areas
are surely conditioned by a wealth of associated cultural connotations over
and above what might be perceived to be 'intrinsic' to the work in question.
Best,
Ian
Samuel Vriezen
>>Absolutly! Beethoven's Ninth symphony comes immediatly to mind.
>>Almost everyone I have know who has heard it likes it and liked it
>>immediatly, learned or not. Of course I only really know westerners.
>>Can't speak for the Asian continent, South America, the Africans, or
>>aboriginal people from the west Pacific.
>>
>
> I certainly have come across plenty of people, westerners, who definitely
> don't like it, and find it 'classical' and thus alien. What is the
> predominant class of your acquaintances?
>
> How many of those people you're referring to come to like it from listening
> to the whole symphony, or just the big tune in the finale? And don't many of
> them simply want to hear that over again, and skip all the rest of it?
I've also met countless people who love the piece - up to
that movement.
Samuel Vriezen
>
> "> It'd be ludicrous to say that a person must study anatomy fully
>
>>and completely before they would be drawn to an attractive member of
>>the opposite sex, and the same goes for 'sexy' music.
>
>
> That's a ridiculous parallel. It's not about studying anatomy, it's
> about
> seeing quite a number of people of the opposite sex, then one is made
> more
> aware of which one is most attracted to. "
>
>
> If you really believe that you must not have a single hormone in your
> body. Gimme a break. Sexual attraction is immediate and completely
> uncerebral. What is the exact number of females a teenage male must
> evaluate before he gets a hard on? 56? What a load.
>
Now, how long do they stay teenagers and think that way?
Samuel Vriezen
> Babbitt's article may have been somewhat sabotaged by the title, but as far as
> I know, he could still care less if I understand his music. But from what I've
> heard about him and by him, I could care less if I ever hear any more of his
> music. There's too much good stuff to be had to be concerned with him.
I can't speak for how much Babbitt cares about you, I did
read some interviews with him & could look it up if he
actually addresses the question.
However, I don't usually follow all the layers of structure
and symmetry and permutation in his music when I listen to
it; I have never analysed a piece of his; yet I find that
music really highly enjoyable on the whole, because it's
like no other music, it's catchy and excentric. As to the
techniques, I don't hear what he's doing in detail but I do
hear that somehow it gives the music its crisp sharpness,
and just a little attention to the pitches will tell you
that there's *some* sort of kaleidoscopic thing happening
all over the place.
>>There are few composers who are
>>pretty dismissive of audiences outside of their immediate circle, or
>>contemptuous of those either ill-equipped or uninterested in either the
>>inner technical workings of a piece or it's meta-musical references to other
>>music, but I don't think they are in the majority.
>
> It doesn't matter whether they are in the majority - all it takes is one,
> especially if that one is held in great esteem by the musical establishment.
It might be helpful now to find some clear quotes, because I
can't think of any composers held 'in great esteem' -
which I suppose would at least mean they somehow get income
from composing or teaching - who dismiss their audience. If
you mean Carter, we should really try to find that Carter
quote because I'd like to know more about the context.
Babbitt likewise. If you're talking about another composer,
I'd be interested to know who.
> Here's a real-life example which - although in many ways not really appropriate
> to what I'm saying since I don't think it's the composer's fault or intent that
> it keeps coming up - and that is that I've found that virtually every program
> note writer for any music by Messiaen says something about non-retrogradable
> rhythms.
Well, Messiaen wrote extensively on his own techniques, so
if program note writers then come up with that term, at
least it's on Messiaen's own authority.
> After seeing that term many times, I finally researched it to find
> out what was meant, but I don't think most concert goers are going to find that
> terminology in the notes helpful and more likely will find it alienating, as
> in, "what the hell are those?", "it sounds like they think I know what they are
> talking about but I don't", and "if it's important to his music and I don't
> know what it is, what am I doing here?".
Again, that mostly indicates a bad writer of program notes.
Samuel Vriezen
> After all, birds generally can
> only sing one note at a time, whereas their cries are frequently polyphonic
> in Messiaen's music.
Actually, this is not entirely far-fetched as some birds can
operate two vocal chords independently. But it's hardly all
in tune to some Mode a transpositions limités. However, I
just came home from a walk where I heard a beautiful
repeated bird duet which had Ab-Db-C descending in the first
voice answered by a clear descending Gb-C in the second, all
very much in tune.
Samuel Vriezen
>>Makes sense, but isn't there perhaps a bit of
>>misunderstanding here as well? Ian has already pointed out
>>that it wasn't Babbitt himself who came up with that article
>>title; more generally, 'not caring about the listener' can
>>mean many different things. It needn't mean that the music
>>should be hardly understandable. For example, it could just
>>mean that Carter doesn't take your *taste* into account,
>>doesn't write for people who'd rather hear Mozart. And
>>rightly so.
>
>
> Yes, all that makes sense, but the issue is the arrogance of the composers in
> "how" they explain their position. But then, maybe they really are too
> wonderful and aristocratic for me to appreciate.
Well, as I said before, not all composers are good writers
or talkers - also, it's not always possible to avoid being
seen as arrogant even if you're really not nasty.
>>Why would a composer write for an audience who
>>already knows in advance what they want to hear? There are
>>better ways to make money outside of music, you know.
>>
>
> Well, I have no problem with a composer writing music with the intent of
> pleasing the audience.
Neither do I, but I don't think I'd have much fun if that
was what my job was about. Of course there's lots of people
out there who are great tunesmiths who, I suppose, love
their work. But it's not the general case.
Take those 'tune factories' where people are paid to sit at
a desk and write 8 songs a day... a bit like the meat
industry. Fun job? If it were me, I'd quit music right away
and start reading law or business management.
>>>If it does require explanation, it is some
>>>form of program music in the old sense, even if the "program" is, for example,
>>>elaborate set theory.
>>
>>What do you think of the idea that the 'program' of Mozart's
>>sonatas is sonata form? (or if not Mozart, then at least the
>>'program' of Stravinski's Symphony in C is "the classical
>>symphony")
>
> I'm not talking about standardized forms which evolved over time through the
> activities of many composers and which lasted longer than a generation, which
> do not require the sort of explanation that I'm talking about.
Most 'music appreciation' classes work on the assumption
that they *do* need that sort of explanation - though I
agree that that says more about those classes than about
those works.
>>>Do you know if he actually
>>>expected his audience to follow his compositional procedures? I'd think not;
>>>I'd think he'd only expect musical colleagues to be interested in that stuff.
>>
>>Well, as I pointed out, the only music of which I am fully
>>certain that the idea is that the audience follow the
>>processes of the form is stuff like Reich's early process
>>pieces and the music of Tom Johnson (like "Music with
>>Mistakes").
>
>
> I'd add variation, rondo, and canonic writings, particularly from the 19th
> century and earlier, where many people seem to get what is going on without
> specific education.
Yeah, that makes sense, though in those cases the music is
not generally mostly about its structure. Well, some canons
maybe. (Reich's early process pieces are mostly canons, too).
Jack Campin - bogus address
>> of their immediate circle, or contemptuous of those either ill-equipped
>> or uninterested in either the inner technical workings of a piece or
>> it's meta-musical references to other music, but I don't think they are
>> in the majority.
> It doesn't matter whether they are in the majority - all it takes is one,
> especially if that one is held in great esteem by the musical establishment.
Sorabji is the only one I can think of. But so few of the general public
have heard of him that his eccentricities can't have had any influence on
the way modern art music is generally perceived.
============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
Samuel Vriezen
> It's speculation - as I said, it's not as if they would advertise that they are
> faking it. But there have been some fairly well-known cases of composers who
> have admitted that they composed in a style that was personally not meaningful
> because of the pressures of the music world - Rochberg and Harrison come to
> mind, but I know I've heard of more that I can't recall right now. Even Boulez
> and Carter have sort of backed off as time passed. How many have never "come
> out" and still continue to compose in a style they don't really believe in
> because of social and professional factors? Who knows, but I would guess there
> are some. They could, in theory, even be quite famous.
If this is the 'radical in the sixties, accessible in the
nineties' epidemic you're referring to, then I must say I
see that mostly as a fashion thing. Particularly if they
renounce their former ways when they were young and bla bla,
we have a good indication of a mediocre composer.
>>Not unthinkable. I've certainly felt that way about some
>>pieces I heard. OTOH, I've also felt that some people write
>>'accessible' music (coming in many forms, one notable form
>>being rock-influenced post-minimalism) to hide a lack of
>>musical instinct and talent.
>>
>
> So, you're prejudiced against rock-influenced post-minimalism? That's okay;
> we've all got our likes and dislikes.
Bloody great pieces exist in that general area. But as I
said, I think that through the 80s and 90s it had become a
very popular refuge for bad writing.
IF I have or had a prejudice, it was as a result of hearing
so many bloodless works in that style. The 90s, when I
started getting serious about music, were a terrible time
for that sort of thing. As a result, I feel I've come quite
late to quite some music that I now think is actually very
good which, by seeming to be related to this type of minimal
esthetic, I really couldn't appreciate well enough at first.
> As far as accessible music being used as camouflage for a lack of instinct and
> talent - it's seems to me that it would be more difficult to pull off such a
> feat in idioms that are more generally understood than those that aren't.
> Maybe I'm assuming that something is obvious that isn't.
You can pull it off it the audience is the same type of
fashion victim as you are yourself. I've heard really stupid
pieces being cheered merely for being loud and having a
stupid ostinato and an electric guitar.
The next stage for stupidity was Have A Veejay! - again,
here and there it works brilliantly, often it's just
meaningless.
ink...@yahoo.com
Usually until their 20th birthday. :-p
Samuel Vriezen
>>It might be helpful now to find some clear quotes, because I
>> can't think of any composers held 'in great esteem' -
>>which I suppose would at least mean they somehow get income
>>from composing or teaching - who dismiss their audience. If
>>you mean Carter, we should really try to find that Carter
>>quote because I'd like to know more about the context.
>>Babbitt likewise. If you're talking about another composer,
>>I'd be interested to know who.
>>
>
> I wasn't thinking of a specific composer. And, I'd say that from my point of
> view as a listener, going to the trouble of looking up the source of the Carter
> quote is not the sort of thing a concert-goer usually does. And that is part
> of my point - we concert-goers (and CD-buyers) are not in the business of music
> and, more often than not, don't have the time, inclination, or resources to
> track down every little bit of relevant information.
Fair enough, but when even an average concert-goer is
accusing some composer of arrogance, it's still good form to
get the quotes that he based himself on right, isn't it? Or
should we just decide the concert goer must be right about
the composer being arrogant?
> All I've retained is the
> idea that I got from somewhere that Carter has said that he never considers the
> listener when writing his music.
I still find this hard to know exactly what he means and to
draw conclusions from that. Surely, he's thinking at least
of himself as a listener or he wouldn't be as clear about
his style as he happens to be. Also, I find his forms
well-designed on the rhetorical plane, so I think that in
his architecture he actually is very much concerned with his
listeners; and the orchestration is, likewise, well-done and
it all sounds effective. So I still would like to know in
what sense, exactly, he does not consider the listener.
Lena
Wayne Reimer wrote:
> > In article <424809cb$0$153$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> > It might be helpful now to find some clear quotes, because I
> > can't think of any composers held 'in great esteem' -
> > which I suppose would at least mean they somehow get income
> > from composing or teaching - who dismiss their audience. If
> > you mean Carter, we should really try to find that Carter
> > quote because I'd like to know more about the context.
> > Babbitt likewise. If you're talking about another composer,
> > I'd be interested to know who.
> >
> I wasn't thinking of a specific composer. And, I'd say that from my
point of
> view as a listener, going to the trouble of looking up the source of
the Carter
> quote is not the sort of thing a concert-goer usually does. And that
is part
> of my point - we concert-goers (and CD-buyers) are not in the
business of music
> and, more often than not, don't have the time, inclination, or
resources to
> track down every little bit of relevant information. All I've
retained is the
> idea that I got from somewhere that Carter has said that he never
considers the
> listener when writing his music. And that is sufficient for me to
form the
> idea that in some way, at some level, he's pretty cavalier about his
audience.
> Maybe I've taken it completely out of context and am being unfair to
him, but
> the question then arises of why is it my responsibility to ensure
that his PR
> is working properly.
One quote from Elliott Carter: (about composing String Quartet #1)
"The First Quartet was 'written largely for my own satisfaction and
grew out of an effort to understand myself,' as the late Joseph Wood
Krutch (a neighbor during the 1950-51 year of this quartet) wrote of
his book The Modern Temper." [...]
"Among the lessons this piece taught me was one about my relationship
with performers and audiences. For as I wrote, an increasing number of
musical difficulties arose for prospective performers and listeners,
which the musical conception seemed to demand. I often wondered
whether the quartet would ever have any performers or listeners. Yet
within a few years of its composition it won an important prize and
was played (always with a great deal of rehearsal) more than any work
I had written up to that time. It even received praise from admired
colleagues. Up to this time, I had quite consciously been trying to
write for a certain audience-not that which frequented concerts of
traditional music, nor that which had supported the avant-garde of the
'20s (which in the '40s had come to seem elitist) but a new, more
progressive and more popular audience. I had felt that it was my
professional and social responsibility to write interesting, direct,
easily understood music."
"With this quartet, however, I decided to focus on what had always been
one of my own musical interests, that of "advanced" music, and to
follow out, with a minimal concern for their reception, my own musical
thoughts along these lines. Now, in 1970, I think there is every
reason to assume that if a composer has been well taught and has had
experience (as was true of me in 1950), then his private judgment of
comprehensibility and quality is what he must rely on if he is to
communicate importantly."
End of quote.
(FWIW, I think that what he says makes sense, and I don't think he's
expressing a cavalier attitude towards the audience. But, as
always...)
Lena
Simon Roberts
says...
>I wasn't thinking of a specific composer. And, I'd say that from my point of
>view as a listener, going to the trouble of looking up the source of the Carter
>quote is not the sort of thing a concert-goer usually does. And that is part
>of my point - we concert-goers (and CD-buyers) are not in the business of music
>and, more often than not, don't have the time, inclination, or resources to
>track down every little bit of relevant information. All I've retained is the
>idea that I got from somewhere that Carter has said that he never considers the
>listener when writing his music. And that is sufficient for me to form the
>idea that in some way, at some level, he's pretty cavalier about his audience.
>Maybe I've taken it completely out of context and am being unfair to him, but
>the question then arises of why is it my responsibility to ensure that his PR
>is working properly.
What do you mean in your last sentence, exactly? That Carter's PR (whatever that
is) is responsible for the transmission of false or misleading information re
Carter by others?
Anyway, suppose what you retained is true; would it matter (except perhaps in
evaluating his personality) if his music "works" (i.e. has an appreciative
audience)?
Simon
Ian Pace
>> In article <d2a13...@drn.newsguy.com>, sd...@comcast.net says...
> roughly
> referring whatever public perception of his attitude might be, you know,
> as in,
> 'public relations'. I don't think I picked up this idea of his disregard
> for
> the listener from some "I HATE CARTER" website; I think it was within an
> approving or neutral context that was just conveying his thoughts.
>
>> Anyway, suppose what you retained is true; would it matter (except
>> perhaps in
>> evaluating his personality) if his music "works" (i.e. has an
>> appreciative
>> audience)?
>>
> quote
> Lena furnished, it clearly helped him turn into the composer he's known as
> today, when he stopped considering his audience. Who knows, maybe that
> sort of
> statement has the positive effect of keeping away the type of listener who
> would hate it anyway. But, generally, the this part of the thread was
> about
> listeners being intimidated/alienated/angered by composers' statements vis
> a
> vis the listener, not about the music or its success, per se.
>
I'm not convinced that composers of any period have consistently considered
their audience in the way you seem to be accusing Carter of not doing.
Trying to second-guess listeners' reactions can be totally fruitless. Surely
a great many important composers simply write the music they believe in most
sincerely rather than trying to think about what an audience expects and
trying to deliver that up? And the same goes for many performers as well.
Would we really have had Orfeo, or Die Kunst der Fuge, or Beethoven's late
quartets, or Winterreise, or Schumann's Phantasie, or the Ring, or Jeux or
whatever if the composers concerned didn't write simply according to their
own convictions?
Ian
David Hurwitz
>
>Would we really have had Orfeo, or Die Kunst der Fuge, or Beethoven's late
>quartets, or Winterreise, or Schumann's Phantasie, or the Ring, or Jeux or
>whatever if the composers concerned didn't write simply according to their
>own convictions?
>
>Ian
>
Yes. Absolutely.
David Hurwitz
ex neo-con
culture among the Republican base, I think you make a huge mistake by
assuming that the only people who worship Jesus are Republicans.
I think there's a strong theological case to be made for high
modernism: works of the likes of Schoenberg, Weber, Carter, and Boulez,
offer a critique of the very same modernity that's compromised so much
of American Christianity (and which is one of the factors driving
fundamentalism and many strains of traditonal evangelicalism). The
starting point for such a critique lies in Adorno, who was vastly more
perceptive about modernity than many Christiasn who style themselves as
critics of modernity. Admittedly, Adorno's views are ridiculously
Germano-centric, and his views of popular culture are also problematic.
But he was really onto something....
ex-neo-con
sorabji...@lineone.net
Wayne Reimer wrote:
> > In article <4248139e$0$138$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
sqv.do....@xs4all.nl says...
> > Wayne Reimer wrote:
> >
> > > It's speculation - as I said, it's not as if they would advertise
that they are
> > > faking it. But there have been some fairly well-known cases of
composers who
> > > have admitted that they composed in a style that was personally
not meaningful
> > > because of the pressures of the music world - Rochberg and
Harrison come to
> > > mind, but I know I've heard of more that I can't recall right
now. Even Boulez
> > > and Carter have sort of backed off as time passed. How many have
never "come
> > > out" and still continue to compose in a style they don't really
believe in
> > > because of social and professional factors? Who knows, but I
would guess there
> > > are some. They could, in theory, even be quite famous.
> >
> > If this is the 'radical in the sixties, accessible in the
> > nineties' epidemic you're referring to, then I must say I
> > see that mostly as a fashion thing. Particularly if they
> > renounce their former ways when they were young and bla bla,
> > we have a good indication of a mediocre composer.
> >
or is
> mediocre, these days for me the only measure of that when listening
to
> relatively new composers is the level of interest I personally can
muster for
> the music, which can be subjective and whimsical in the extreme.
Whether it is
> in fashion isn't really too much a factor, since I mostly don't even
know what
> is and isn't in fashion. I don't, for example, know what the
rock-influenced
> post-minimalism is that you mention (although just from the label, I
suspect
> I'd like it).
>
> Speaking of not knowing, today I've been listening on and off to a
7-hour (!)
> broadcast of 40 sax quartets on Concertzender, the oldest being from
1969, the
> newest from 2003. What I don't know is whose music I'm listening to
at any
> given moment, since, although there is a listing of all the quartets
on the web
> site, the damn program is being played without any announcements of
the pieces
> at all, they are just being played one right after another in such a
way that I
> was immediately lost. Some of them sound as if they might be
rock-influenced
> post-minimalism. Some are rather wonderful; some aren't.
personal
> variation on the style, use a strap-on synth instead of a guitar,
which I don't
> play.
>
> > The next stage for stupidity was Have A Veejay! - again,
> > here and there it works brilliantly, often it's just
> > meaningless.
> >
was some
> joint project involving a video by his SO.
>
> wr
The only point at issue when a composer says - or is quoted as having
said - or is alleged to have said - that he/she does not consider
his/her audiences when writing music is that it is quite simply
impossible - or at the very least unrealistic - to do so with any
genuine expectation of success. Why? Becuase we composers just do not
know who will listen to our music and when. The very fact that
composers as different as Carter, Birtwistle and Sorabji are on record
as having made some comment about not considering their respective
listeners does not of itself prove this but does illustrate that the
acceptance of reality on this front has manifested itself in a number
of composers of quite different persuasions. As another copntributor
has already pointed out, this does not necessarily mean that the music
itself is difficult to grasp (and, after all, performers can in any
case make all manner of difference to the ease or otherwise with which
certain music may be grasped by its listeners). I can certainly admit
that I do not consider my audiences when composing; I wouldn't know how
to do so. That does not mean that I seek to alienate listeners, any
more than it does in Carter's, Birtwistle's or Sorabji's case. Another
more famous quote from Carter is that he writes the kind of music that
he wants to hear (which, by implication, one may assume him to mean
that no one else will do this for him). That is surely a most basic and
acceptable aim - and it does not - indeed cannot - of itself imply a
disregard for audiences.
On another related front (since Carter has been invoked here on several
occasions), it is surely more than high time that Carter ceased to be
held up as an example of "high modernism" - he's far too individual for
that; in any case, I harbour a deep suspicion as to whether and how
"modernism" (whatever that may mean) may be calibrated in terms of
altitude...
Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive
sorabji...@lineone.net
purpose of ingratiating oneself with audiences is that audiences
comprise people, who are individuals; the likelihood that every member
of any given audience will likewise feel inspired by, pandered to,
alienated by or indifferent to any given piece of music, however good,
bad or indifferent its performance, is surely very small - and the
larger the audience, the smaller the likelihood. Furthermore,
Rakhmaninov and Xenakis each wrote the music they wanted to write and
in which they each believed; clearly, however, no composer will
guarantee either acceptance or rejection from any individual listeners,
let alone entire audiences, purely by virtue of doing just that.
Samuel Vriezen
>>Fair enough, but when even an average concert-goer is
>>accusing some composer of arrogance, it's still good form to
>>get the quotes that he based himself on right, isn't it? Or
>>should we just decide the concert goer must be right about
>>the composer being arrogant?
>>
>
> Neither. This is not a trial by jury.
But I hope it's not mere gossip either.
[Carter]
> I think you are making too much of it - certainly he's an extraordinarily
> accomplished composer who knows how to present his musical thoughts with
> clarity, which might just be a result of high standards. See the quote in
> Lena's message for more on this. My point has nothing to do with the quality
> of his music - it has to do with the effect on an some concert-goers of hearing
> that the composer has said they are irrelevant to him when he is doing his
> composing.
And I maintain that such a statement can be easily
misinterpreted, because it doesn't mean just one simple thing.
Here's another way of getting to a similar statement which I
found myself thinking today.
I think one great quality of art is that it can found, or
change, or inspire a community. You know, sombody writes
something and then some time later all sorts of people find
each other in their reactions to this thing written. So I
think it makes a lot of sense to write for the benefit of
actual people, even if it's just a small group, even just a
couple of friends, at first.
But people are often talking about 'the public' and writing
for 'the public', as if the Public were some faceless The
Blob of artistic appreciation. In that sense, I can't
imagine wanting to write for the public. It makes more sense
to talk to the sea.
Now if a composer is not interested in 'the public' in that
sense, they're by no means talking of the individual concert
goer - quite the opposite, they're talking about an
anonymous abstraction that has been bandied about mostly by
capitalist (or similar) forces that tell you that your role
in this music world is to be 'the public', your identity is
'the public', and 'the public' likes such and so (and you
can get it at Tower Records). So a dislike of The Public
might in fact well be the opposite of a dismissal of the
individual concert goer.
Similar thing with the hang-up certain composers have about
'communicating' through their music. I often hear about
composers who want to 'communicate'. And his has always
struck me as a very adolescent thing, as if the composer
feels all alone and misunderstood and is desperate for
somebody they can really talk to. Now first of all The
Public won't talk back; second, if I talk so somebody I
don't care about their desire to communicate but about what
they're actually saying.