Floyd on the 20th century
Clifford Ando
From: Ted Floyd <AE...@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Does anyone like...
>Matthew Elgin <c2...@dmu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone like "modern" classical music? To me it just sounds
>> like a group of pissed students crashing into a large orchestra...
>
>What do you mean by "modern"? If you're talking about stuff since
>the death of Shostakovich, then you're entirely correct. If you
>mean everything in the past half-century, then you're still basically
>correct, except for the _Vier Letzte Lieder_ and several dozen
>compositions by Shostakovich. But if you equate "modern" with
>"20th Century", then your suspicion is not at all correct.
>
>I wonder if your opinion arises from the unfortunate tendency of
>20th Century ("modern"?) music advocates to insist on a uniformly
>benevolent regard for *anything* that was composed since 1900.
I have followed on part of this strand, because such debates
usually concentrate on tired topoi about "accessibility" and tonality and
such. T. Floyd has some other postings on this subject, too, and I find
myself in agreement with a fair portion of it, most particularly the
notion that the modern music industry (by which I mean composers and
their advocates) tends to do itself a considerable disservice in its
self-presentation.
We have all heard arguments about music marching on, and
progress, and all that rot. It means little, and accomplishes less,
if--as is all too frequent--it is suggested that this progress, however
measured or defined, is inherently good. The three finest stylists of
English prose are all dead (Gibbon, Lincoln, and Twain), and nothing that
has come along since has impressed me a great deal. Faulkner has his
virtues (Joyce is incomprehensible); but Faulkner's advocates do nothing
for him by presenting him as simply modern (read: better), and therefore
labelling those who find him difficult as cretins.
Nor does it particularly mean anything to say that many great
composers were unpopular or misunderstood in their lifetimes; that says
nothing about the set of all unappreciated/unpopular composes. It is an
invalid as a method of argument to extend the generalization. Because it
is now clear that Mozart was both popular and well-paid, and romantic
visions of his poverty grossly exaggerated; are we to jettison him as a
populist?
No one on this list would be so unsophisticated. It must simply
be acknowledged that every century produces vastly more bad and mediocre
composers than good ones. Some mediocre composers remain inexplicably
popular (Scarlatti; Rossini). The prospect of having a complete set of
Bruch symphonies seemed like a good idea; but they are incredibly dull.
There are qualities which make music music rather than noise;
rules, however broad, that make it a language and enhance its ability to
communicate. Thus, my preference for late Rochberg over early; for Husa
over Berio; for Ives over Boulez (however much I like his conducting);
for Carter over Stockhausen.
Not that such arguments will ever bring the various parties in
this debate to concord.
Steven Sullivan
: Date: Sun, 9 OCT 1994 16:53:26 EDT
The Joyce of 'Finnegan's Wake' and 'Ulysses' may be 'incomprehensible'
at first glance, but not in fact. Besides which, there's also
his 'Dubliners' collection and 'Portrait of the Artist', which
are commonly assigned to bright high-school kids to read. And
no Faulkner lover I've encountered in life or reading presents
his work as 'better because it's modern', nor do they fail
to acknowledge the apparent difficulty of works like As I Lay
Dying, Sound and the Fury, or Absalom,Absalom (I say apparent
because again, these works are often found on AP English
reading lists, unlike truly refractory works like Finnegan's
Wake). The amount of 'work' required to appreciate (whether
you end up *liking* it or not is another story) what's going
on in Faulkner is about on par, IMO, with the effort required
to come to grips with Stavinsky's Le Sacre.
<stuff I agree with deleted>
Carol McAlpine
Jeff Beer
>: >> Does anyone like "modern" classical music? To me it just sounds
>: >> like a group of pissed students crashing into a large orchestra...
Yeah, but it is the _way_ the pissed students crash into a large
orchestra...
jeff
Deryk Barker
[...]
: We have all heard arguments about music marching on, and
: if--as is all too frequent--it is suggested that this progress, however
: measured or defined, is inherently good. The three finest stylists of
: English prose are all dead (Gibbon, Lincoln, and Twain), and nothing that
: has come along since has impressed me a great deal. Faulkner has his
: virtues (Joyce is incomprehensible); but Faulkner's advocates do nothing
: for him by presenting him as simply modern (read: better), and therefore
: labelling those who find him difficult as cretins.
You ignore the century's finest English prose-writer - P.G. Wodehouse.
[...]
: No one on this list would be so unsophisticated. It must simply
: be acknowledged that every century produces vastly more bad and mediocre
: composers than good ones. Some mediocre composers remain inexplicably
: popular (Scarlatti; Rossini).
You are asking for trouble, aren't you?
: There are qualities which make music music rather than noise;
: rules, however broad, that make it a language and enhance its ability to
: communicate. Thus, my preference for late Rochberg over early; for Husa
: over Berio; for Ives over Boulez (however much I like his conducting);
: for Carter over Stockhausen.
Would you care to outline the 'rules' which make Husa a 'better' (I
presume that as you use the word 'rules' you are alleging a
qualitative ranking here) than Berio? And Ives over Boulez? What is
the relevance of this? I prefer Mahler to Xenakis - so what?
: Not that such arguments will ever bring the various parties in
: this debate to concord.
Certainly not unless you are prepared to make them somewhat more logically.
--
Deryk.
=================================================================
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Without music, life |
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada | would be a mistake |
|email: dba...@camosun.bc.ca | |
|phone: +1 604 370 4452 | (Friedrich Nietzsche).|
=================================================================
Mario Taboada
in the assertion that "The three finest stylists of
: English prose are all dead (Gibbon, Lincoln, and Twain)":
<<You ignore the century's finest English prose-writer - P.G. Wodehouse.>>
Hear, hear.
As to Ando's beautiful bouquet:
<<and nothing that
: has come along since has impressed me a great deal. Faulkner has his
: virtues (Joyce is incomprehensible); but Faulkner's advocates do nothing
: for him by presenting him as simply modern (read: better), and therefore
: labelling those who find him difficult as cretins.>>
Has his virtues? As the respected and respectable Hon. Dan Koren has said
before: Oh, boy..are we hard to please!!
Sincerely,
Mario Taboada, Esq.
Temporary Secretary
Died in the w. Faulknerians of A.
Senior adviser
Wodehousians for Choice.
Allan Burns
Clifford Ando <ca...@umich.edu> says:
>
> We have all heard arguments about music marching on, and
>progress, and all that rot. It means little, and accomplishes less,
>if--as is all too frequent--it is suggested that this progress, however
>measured or defined, is inherently good.
I agree that 'progress'--a metaphor smuggled in from the
sciences--makes a poor apologia for certain trends in the
arts whose merits seem less explicable in homelier terms.
But how often does one hear this argument today?
>The three finest stylists of
>English prose are all dead (Gibbon, Lincoln, and Twain)
An arbitrary list, & one that may lead people to suspect
you've never read Johnson & Newman, Ruskin & Stevenson,
among many others.
>and nothing that
>has come along since has impressed me a great deal.
Perhaps, then, you have not yet encountered the works of
Santayana or Nabokov?
>(Joyce is incomprehensible)
No, sir--only this remark.
>Some mediocre composers remain inexplicably
>popular (Scarlatti; Rossini).
You're beginning to remind me of the Diane Keaton character
in Woody Allen's _Manhattan_ . . .
>The prospect of having a complete set of
>Bruch symphonies seemed like a good idea; but they are incredibly dull.
The point being?
> Not that such arguments will ever bring the various parties in
>this debate to concord.
You have set forth preferences, not arguments.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Allan Burns (who thinks Wodehouse is about as close to
being the century's greatest prose stylist
as Irving Berlin is to being its greatest
composer)
DASCENZO
Arnie