Now comes another term, "post classical", in an article about cellist Matt
Haimovitz performing at an Ann Arbor lounge. I think this a an
interesting sidelight on the Metropolitan Opera's reach-out initiative (or
death spiral, depending on you point of view).
To stir the murky waters just a little more I'm going to toss in the
concept of "crossover", which is _supposed_ to be a bridge between two
mutually exclusionary genres of music, not that I agree any such thing
exists given the wide knowledge of pop groups exhibited here once in a
while.
Since some won't have the patience to read the entire article, here's the
heart of the matter, followed by the entire text.
Happy disputation!
Brendan
EXCERPT
The ease with which Haimovitz bridges the chasm between the Blind Pig and
the Seligman center opens a window on why he is one of the most important
young musicians in classical music. He is part of a growing number of
musicians who some critics are beginning to recognize as postclassical --
composers, instrumentalists and ensembles pushing beyond the stultifying
conventions and conservatism of the concert hall to reinvent classical
music for the 21st Century.
"Part of it is simply stripping away some of the image we've built around
classical music," says Haimovitz, speaking from Montreal, where he teaches
at McGill University.
"Some of it is simply showing up in a place like the Pig; it changes the
way they view what you're doing. More and more I'm reaching a broader
audience, and it's exciting because it makes me feel like a relevant
member of a community. When classical music is put on a pedestal and
removed from all that, I'm not comfortable."
There is no official postclassical manifesto but, generally, these are
musicians who embrace contemporary music, experiment with formats and
venues and refuse to cut themselves off from popular currents, jazz and
world music. They love the three Bs, but refuse to be limited by them.
They treat classical music as a living art form. Not surprisingly, they
are connecting with an audience far more diverse -- by age, race and class
-- than the well-to-do white-haired subscribers typical of classical music.
A short list of postclassical musicians might include composer-performers
like John Adams and Steve Reich and the Bang On a Can collective, the
Kronos String Quartet, Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble and Eighth
Blackbird; and veteran instrumentalists like Yo-Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer and
Detroit-born Kim Kashkashian, all of whom, like Haimovitz, remain on
speaking terms with the establishment.
FULL ARTICLE
Music
ROCKING THE CELLO: Matt Haimovitz zigzags from classical halls to nightclubs
February 8, 2006
BY MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS MUSIC WRITER
The last time cellist Matt Haimovitz appeared in metro Detroit, he played
a scintillating program of contemporary American music and Bach at the
Blind Pig, a scruffy rock club in Ann Arbor, for an audience of about 30
adventurous souls, most in their 20s and 30s. Haimovitz dressed down and,
in deference to the club's alternative vibe and damp acoustics, amplified
his cello.
You don't hear many classical musicians at the Blind Pig, but Haimovitz, a
35-year-old former prodigy with a ponytail, is not exactly the cellist
next door. His visit to the Blind Pig was part of a barnstorming tour that
took him to similar venues in 49 states. (He's still hoping to get to Alaska.)
Which is not to say that Haimovitz no longer circulates in the traditional
world of classical music. This weekend he performs twice under the
umbrella of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit at Seligman Performing
Arts Center (sans amplification). He joins the St. Lawrence String Quartet
on Friday to play Schubert's C Major String Quintet. On Saturday, he'll
perform all six of Bach's iconic solo cello suites in a marathon concert.
The ease with which Haimovitz bridges the chasm between the Blind Pig and
the Seligman center opens a window on why he is one of the most important
young musicians in classical music. He is part of a growing number of
musicians who some critics are beginning to recognize as postclassical --
composers, instrumentalists and ensembles pushing beyond the stultifying
conventions and conservatism of the concert hall to reinvent classical
music for the 21st Century.
"Part of it is simply stripping away some of the image we've built around
classical music," says Haimovitz, speaking from Montreal, where he teaches
at McGill University.
"Some of it is simply showing up in a place like the Pig; it changes the
way they view what you're doing. More and more I'm reaching a broader
audience, and it's exciting because it makes me feel like a relevant
member of a community. When classical music is put on a pedestal and
removed from all that, I'm not comfortable."
There is no official postclassical manifesto but, generally, these are
musicians who embrace contemporary music, experiment with formats and
venues and refuse to cut themselves off from popular currents, jazz and
world music. They love the three Bs, but refuse to be limited by them.
They treat classical music as a living art form. Not surprisingly, they
are connecting with an audience far more diverse -- by age, race and class
-- than the well-to-do white-haired subscribers typical of classical music.
A short list of postclassical musicians might include composer-performers
like John Adams and Steve Reich and the Bang On a Can collective, the
Kronos String Quartet, Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble and Eighth
Blackbird; and veteran instrumentalists like Yo-Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer and
Detroit-born Kim Kashkashian, all of whom, like Haimovitz, remain on
speaking terms with the establishment.
Haimovitz is a compact man with a cherubic face and a soft-spoken façade
that masks a fierce streak of independence. He was not a born
rabble-rouser. His journey from prodigy to progressive was full of angst
and anomie, and one way to look at it is that before he could begin
reinventing classical music, he had to reinvent himself.
Born in Israel, he moved at age 5 with his parents to California. He took
up the cello at 7. Itzhak Perlman heard him and recommended him to Leonard
Rose, the great cellist at the Juilliard School. At 13, he replaced an
indisposed Rose in a quintet with Isaac Stern, Schlomo Mintz, Pinchas
Zukerman and Mstislav Rostropovich. At 17 he was signed to a contract with
the prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon, and was playing with the
world's top orchestras and conductors.
Big-time careers aren't always what they are cracked up to be, and
Haimovitz was soon waylaid by the disconnect between his outward success
and inner doubt. He grew weary of the isolation of the road and frustrated
by the small menu of warhorses he was required to play. Slowly, things
fell apart. His relationship with his record company soured when he nixed
the release of a $200,000 recording of the Dvorak concerto made with the
Berlin Philharmonic because he wasn't happy with his performance. "Then I
took a couple of years off," he says. "I just didn't feel rooted."
Haimovitz moved to Europe and focused on new music, collaborating with
composers like Gygory Ligeti and Henri Dutilleux. He then moved home,
enrolled at Harvard and met his wife, composer Luna Pearl Woolf. The pair
started a record label, Oxingale, and Haimovitz rebuilt his career.
Tired of waiting for audiences his age to find him in the concert hall, he
began to take the music directly to them in clubs and bars, traveling the
country like Jack Kerouac with a cello. It was a revelation
"I never know who is going to show up," he says. "It's such a mix of
backgrounds. Some people are into classical music, some are into folk,
indie rock or jazz. Sometimes it's packed and sometimes it's just 30
people, but no matter who is there, I have to make the evening work and
communicate. There's such electricity to play for so diverse an audience."
Haimovitz found the freedom inspiring. He could change his set list in
mid-performance, reacting to the audience or his own mood with a
spontaneity usually denied classical performers.
Haimovitz's Oxingale CDs reflect the diversity of his interest and
priorities, from the Bach suites to "Goulash," a concept album exploring
Eastern European themes, linking 20th Century classics by Bartok and
Ligeti with improvised duets with DJ Olive, a turntablist.
"The alternative world that has become part of my life ... I just can't
imagine living without that now," says Haimovitz. "Yet there are aspects
of the concert hall that I love and have never forsaken.
"My problem with it was the layers and formality that have built up over
the years. But I now feel comfortable playing an evening in a large formal
space with an orchestra and then going the next night and having a
completely different experience in a club and the audience has a
completely different relationship to me."
Matt Haimovitz
Born: Dec. 3, 1970, suburban Tel Aviv, Israel. Raised in California.
Residence: Montreal
On CD: Still available are Haimovitz's early Deutsche Grammophon
releases of concertos by Saint-Saens and Lalo and a three CD-set, "The
20th Century Cello," with music by Berio, Ligeti, Harbison, Britten,
Crumb, Dutilleux and others. His CDs for the Oxingale label include Bach's
solo cello suites, "Anthem," "Goulash," "Mozart the Mason" and "The Rose
Album."
What's next: A "Buck the Concerto" series of commissioned works
pairing the cello with unusual ensembles like a big band and choir.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Well, if you draw parallels to other artforms (like architecture or
painting), postmodernism includes picking and choosing from older styles
in a more playful manner, moving away from the deathly seriousness of
high modernism (which would presumably be 12 tone music in modern
classical), which is why composers such as Schnittke and later Rochberg
are often described as post modern.
So, no, I wouldn't agree with your characterization at all.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://www.umich.edu/~fields
Music: Splendor in Sound
To be great, do better and better. Don't wait for talent: no such thing.
Brights have a naturalistic world-view. http://www.the-brights.net/
That sort of thing (Gunther Schuller comes to mind) was way before
"postmodernism" was invented by the French theorists.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
But wasn't Total serial a General Mills product?
--
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> "Modern" can encompass strongly dissonant music which still, by its gestures
> and textures, can be heard to have its roots in the various Western musical
> traditions. "Post-modern" is the bloop-bleep school of seemingly-random
> sounds and noises. ;--)
Good description. Oh, wait! perhaps you are describing some of the
people who post on rmo?
Allen
"Postmodernism" comes specifically from historians--exactly the sort of
historians whom Asimov lampooned fairly early in Foundation.
Yes, you've heard of diploma mills?
Matthew Fields wrote:
> Post-modern and Post-classical are all derived from Post-serial, from
> Battle Creek, Michigan. Their major competitor is the Kellogg corporation,
> also in Battle Creek.
>
Some of the music that fits the description has the same effect as some
of those companies' products--specifically, those that contain large
amounts of bran.
Allen
Well, we have the planets, birds, pines, fountains, seasons, colors ... it's
time for someone to score cereals. Who wants to take on the tone row for
All-Bran?
Joe
Not in the sense in which the word is used today.
If "postmodernism" was ever a technical term in historiography, it
didn't last long, and has been completely replaced by the Derrida (etc.)
sense.
Moreover, the 10th Collegiate dates the term to 1949, which just
postdates the first of the Foundation stories.
Best,
MrT
I didn't say Asimov used the term, only that he lampooned the trend
among historians.
Like the prestigious non-accredited universities that keep sending me email?
I wonder how many politicians have their degrees from such institutions.
But I have no such wonders when it comes to chiropractors, homeopaths,
naturapaths, and astrologers.
Ah. So you have actually no evidence that whatever trend you're
referring to was called "postmodernism" by historians.
I take it what you're referring to is something _other_ than his
"psychohistory," which he explained in his autobiographies was his
(favorable) reaction to Toynbee.
Yes, what I'm referring to IS something other than his psychohistory.
It's his character who is working out the history of the galaxy by
analyzing the texts and arguments of the ancient masters of history
and deciding which one is most logical--WITHOUT getting his ass over
to Trantor to check out any of the facts.
> Matthew Fields wrote:
>> In article <43f08c9b$1...@usenet.zapto.org>, Nightingale
>> <sin...@yorku.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>Matthew Fields wrote:
>>>
>>>>Post-modern and Post-classical are all derived from Post-serial, from
>>>>Battle Creek, Michigan. Their major competitor is the Kellogg
>>>>corporation, also in Battle Creek.
>>>
>>>But wasn't Total serial a General Mills product?
>>
>> Yes, you've heard of diploma mills?
>
> Like the prestigious non-accredited universities that keep sending me
> email?
Such as the one which kept offering me a "DIPPLOMA"?
> In article <43F11D...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>Matthew Fields wrote:
>>>
>>> In article <43F0D6...@worldnet.att.net>,
>>> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>> >Matthew Fields wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> In article <43F087...@worldnet.att.net>,
>>> >> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>> >> >Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> "Modern" can encompass strongly dissonant music which still, by
>>> >> >> its gestures and textures, can be heard to have its roots in the
>>> >> >> various Western musical traditions. "Post-modern" is the
>>> >> >> bloop-bleep school of seemingly-random sounds and noises. ;--)
>>> >> >
>>> >> >That sort of thing (Gunther Schuller comes to mind) was way before
>>> >> >"postmodernism" was invented by the French theorists.
>>> >>
>>> >> "Postmodernism" comes specifically from historians--exactly the sort
>>> >> of historians whom Asimov lampooned fairly early in Foundation.
>>> >
>>> >Not in the sense in which the word is used today.
>>> >
>>> >If "postmodernism" was ever a technical term in historiography, it
>>> >didn't last long, and has been completely replaced by the Derrida
>>> >(etc.) sense.
>>> >
>>> >Moreover, the 10th Collegiate dates the term to 1949, which just
>>> >postdates the first of the Foundation stories.
>>>
>>> I didn't say Asimov used the term, only that he lampooned the trend
>>> among historians.
>>
>>Ah. So you have actually no evidence that whatever trend you're
>>referring to was called "postmodernism" by historians.
>>
>>I take it what you're referring to is something _other_ than his
>>"psychohistory," which he explained in his autobiographies was his
>>(favorable) reaction to Toynbee.
>
> Yes, what I'm referring to IS something other than his psychohistory.
> It's his character who is working out the history of the galaxy by
> analyzing the texts and arguments of the ancient masters of history
> and deciding which one is most logical--WITHOUT getting his ass over
> to Trantor to check out any of the facts.
Presumably you mean Lord Dorwin, the armchair anthropologist and effete
court emissary with the Elmer Fudd accent, who can't be bothered with
primary sources as long as he can just sit in his library and weigh the
opinions of previous scholars without doing any new research himself. He
probably came to Terminus FROM Trantor; it was the "Siwius sectah" in an
unfashionable outskirt of the Galaxy which he has no intention to visit.
Asimov makes a cute little joke here, because this Dorwin is, in fact,
ineptly trying to discover the homeworld of humanity, the origin of OUR
species, as it were.
> Nightingale <sin...@yorku.ca> appears to have caused the following letters
> to be typed in news:43f10d45$1...@usenet.zapto.org:
>
>
>>Matthew Fields wrote:
>>
>>>In article <43f08c9b$1...@usenet.zapto.org>, Nightingale
>>><sin...@yorku.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Matthew Fields wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Post-modern and Post-classical are all derived from Post-serial, from
>>>>>Battle Creek, Michigan. Their major competitor is the Kellogg
>>>>>corporation, also in Battle Creek.
>>>>
>>>>But wasn't Total serial a General Mills product?
>>>
>>>Yes, you've heard of diploma mills?
>>
>>Like the prestigious non-accredited universities that keep sending me
>>email?
>
>
> Such as the one which kept offering me a "DIPPLOMA"?
>
LOL! The writer must be a graduate of a prestigious non-accredited
school :-)
> >> >> >That sort of thing (Gunther Schuller comes to mind) was way before
> >> >> >"postmodernism" was invented by the French theorists.
> >> >> "Postmodernism" comes specifically from historians--exactly the sort of
> >> >> historians whom Asimov lampooned fairly early in Foundation.
> >> >
> >> >Not in the sense in which the word is used today.
> >> >
> >> >If "postmodernism" was ever a technical term in historiography, it
> >> >didn't last long, and has been completely replaced by the Derrida (etc.)
> >> >sense.
> >> >
> >> >Moreover, the 10th Collegiate dates the term to 1949, which just
> >> >postdates the first of the Foundation stories.
> >> I didn't say Asimov used the term, only that he lampooned the trend
> >> among historians.
> >
> >Ah. So you have actually no evidence that whatever trend you're
> >referring to was called "postmodernism" by historians.
> >
> >I take it what you're referring to is something _other_ than his
> >"psychohistory," which he explained in his autobiographies was his
> >(favorable) reaction to Toynbee.
>
> Yes, what I'm referring to IS something other than his psychohistory.
> It's his character who is working out the history of the galaxy by
> analyzing the texts and arguments of the ancient masters of history
> and deciding which one is most logical--WITHOUT getting his ass over
> to Trantor to check out any of the facts.
So it's your assertion that Scholasticism, which goes back before
Abelard, and was not a "trend" among historians in the mid 20th century,
was suddenly renamed "postmodernism" by historians in 1949?
Pardon me if I don't believe you.
Ian
Jacques Derrida is the usual subject.
> In article <MPG.1e5bd7e66...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>,
> Wayne Reimer <wrdslremovethis濃pacbell.net> wrote:
>>In article <43F0D6...@worldnet.att.net>, gram...@worldnet.att.net
>>says...
>>> Matthew Fields wrote:
>>> >
>>> > In article <43F087...@worldnet.att.net>,
>>> > Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>> > >Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
>>> > >>
>>> > >> "Modern" can encompass strongly dissonant music which still, by
>>> > >> its gestures and textures, can be heard to have its roots in the
>>> > >> various Western musical traditions. "Post-modern" is the
>>> > >> bloop-bleep school of seemingly-random sounds and noises. ;--)
>>> > >
>>> > >That sort of thing (Gunther Schuller comes to mind) was way before
>>> > >"postmodernism" was invented by the French theorists.
>>> >
>>> > "Postmodernism" comes specifically from historians--exactly the sort
>>> > of historians whom Asimov lampooned fairly early in Foundation.
>>>
>>> Not in the sense in which the word is used today.
>>>
>>> If "postmodernism" was ever a technical term in historiography, it
>>> didn't last long, and has been completely replaced by the Derrida
>>> (etc.) sense.
>>>
>>> Moreover, the 10th Collegiate dates the term to 1949, which just
>>> postdates the first of the Foundation stories.
>>>
>>I don't know who invented the term, but I remember it as originally
>>being used in reference to architecture, not to the arts in general.
>
> Jacques Derrida is the usual subject.
But since he's dead, aren't we now living in the age of post-Derridaism?
Ian
In that context, probably Venturi and Scott Brown; embraced by Stanley
Tigerman, and Chicago is full of his whimsical postmodern buildings --
which have held up remarkably well over the past 40 years or so (they
_don't_ look dated or like period pieces, as, I'm sorry to say, many of
Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings of the 40s and 50s do).
You're forgetting that music is defrosted architecture.
Try Lyotard.
P.
>
>
Too bad RVW was at the wrong end of the earth.