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100.1.8.70
This definitely falls into the category of controversies I didn't know existed. An occasional blast of righteous indignation is healthy, I guess, but isn't that what AA is for? Someone tell Mr. Kosman.
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There are composers past and present who were/are great at entertaining the aesthetic sensibilities of their contemporaries.There are composers from the past who failed with their own audiences but are great at entertaining the aesthetic sensibilities of non-contemporaries.
And then there are composers who are considered great for entertaining the aesthetic sensibilities of both contemporaries and non-contemporaries.
Who are the "great composers"?
Edits: 08/01/16
I'm always looking for great composers. But the reality is, most composers are not great. That has been true throughout history and it is surely just as true now.
By definition, great composers write great compositions. Multiple great compositions. A one-off does not make for a great composer.
Historically, there have been periods of musical lethargy or lack of inspiration in which a few really fine composers wrote some excellent music, but they never achieved the lasting recognition of being great.
I can think of a few living composers who, to my ears, have written some pretty interesting pieces (and a lot who haven't). But I'd be real hard pressed to refer to any of them (the composers or the pieces) as great. But then, I admit that I do not listen to lots of current composers. And my crystal ball is currently out of focus.
So, I'm curious. What living composer is destined for greatness? Which of his/her works are already recognizable as truly great pieces?
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
YMMV. I suggest giving his piano concerto a listen.
We're living in a time, after all, when composers such as Adès and Abrahamsen (the Danish composer whose orchestral song cycle "Let Me Tell You" is one of the towering accomplishments of the past decade) are creating vivid and eloquent new works on a regular basis.
We're watching the great Finnish triumvirate of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho move into a confident period of middle-aged maturity, while a younger generation of Americans (including Mason Bates, Andrew Norman, Christopher Cerrone, Caroline Shaw and Nico Muhly. . .
You know. . . the GREATS, (with their TOWERING ACCOMPLISHMENTS)!
among the recently deceased, Takemitsu, Ligeti, Dutilleux, Carter and Davies come to mind (and Boulez, of course). Still living are Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Peteris Vasks, John Adams, Aarvo Part, and George Crumb, to name a few of my favorites.
It's harder to put the careers of younger composers in perspective. I often like what I hear, but seldom can one talk about "towering achievements" without historical perspective.
Thanks for your list of favorites.
I've heard music by all of these guys, and own at least some pieces by most of them. And I do like some of the music by most of them. But (just my personal opinion), none of them will appear alongside the undisputed "great" composers (guys like Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, Mahler, Mozart, etc), or even alongside the second tier of almost-greats like Saint-Saens, Bartok, Liszt, etc. Actually, I doubt that any of them will be remembered or played in concert for long after their death.
Of course I know that I'm not the arbiter of future fame and glory. All I ever profess is what I personally like listening to. Perhaps the audiences of the future will have more expansive ears than I do. But personally, I don't really think any of them are destined for "greatness." There's not one single work by the bunch that would appear on my personal "desert island 50" list.
That said, I do like some pieces by Vasks, Corigliano and Glass quite a lot. I also like the later (non-serial) music of Rautavaara, who is not on your list, but his later music is probably my favorite of the living composers. Yet, even having lived in NY, SF, and Houston, and been close enough to attend the symphony in Atlanta, Chicago and Cincinnati, I have never heard any music by Rautavaara on a concert program. So much for my idea of good modern music, eh?
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
It's one thing to not like it, but you seem to want to trash it in print whenever you can.
Why the Vendetta?
I feel that, aside from composers like Rodrigo, most modern composers since the end of WWII are writing music that is, at worst, driving away the mainstream classical audience, and, at best, giving this same audience a mediocre musical experience, whose highest attainment seems to be that the majority of its listeners will consider it "not bad". That seems to be the best they can do!
We're assured by critics entrenched in positions where their writing seems to get wide circulation that practically any new music may have an appeal for younger audience members. But the trouble with that statement is that I for one have been hearing the same crap ever since the 60's, and the composers that the critics of that time were pimping as the great hope of classical music continuity and, dare I say it, "greatness", somehow didn't live up to the critics' hype! Indeed, where are the works of the likes of Charles Wuorinen or Andrew Imbrie today? (My wife had Imbrie as a teacher at UC Berkeley - she said he was a really nice guy. My response was that it's a lot easier to be a nice guy when you've got your cushy academic appointment at a major university and your SF Opera commission, etc.)
I don't deny that the music I'm talking about here does have its audience. And if somebody says (like you did), "I like the music of Thomas Ades", I don't have a problem with that (even as I find it mystifying - and I do try to poke fun at it when I can!). But what I resent are these overblown critical assessments (as in the OP's linked article) which would have us believe that Wuorinen (or Ades, or Lindberg, et al.) are the ultimate in composing, comparable (or even superior!) to the well-known composers of the past. Such assessments weren't true in the 60's and they aren't true today.
Having said all this, there are some composers living today (such as Arvo Part) who have written some music that I'm genuinely enthusiastic about.
n
> > "I feel that, aside from composers like Rodrigo, most modern composers since the end of WWII are writing music that is, at worst, driving away the mainstream classical audience, and, at best, giving this same audience a mediocre musical experience, whose highest attainment seems to be that the majority of its listeners will consider it "not bad". < <
I'm not as knowledgeable about contemporary music as I should be (or as you are), but I wonder, if we accept it as true that new movements or "schools" in music are largely a reaction to the music that immediately preceded them, whether today's music is a more "listenable" reaction (or perhaps an overreaction) to the atonal/expressionistic music that preceded it. If, that is, I grasped your meaning.
-Bob
Reaction to and building on earlier artistic movements, and equally important, reflection of the current cultural environment. IMHO it is those who succeed most in capturing and expressing the central characteristics of the culture currently around them who are ultimately crowned "great artists" with "towering achievements". That's why so much historical perspective is needed.
And that's why Chris from Lafayette's "it's all downhill after WW II" idea doesn't, can't and never will hold water. Maybe the entire human race has slipped downhill since WW II, but yesterday's artists can never convey today's message. They aren't around.
Technical ability is also a major factor (for example, it takes skill to accurately react to earlier artistic movements as well as deep knowledge of what those movements were), but not the only one.
-by some, evidently. ;-)
"yesterday's artists can never convey today's message. They aren't around"
Then how do you explain that so many of today's film scores are written in an older romantic or post-romantic style? These films and their music are eagerly consumed and celebrated by today's audiences - whose size positively dwarfs today's so-called "serious concert" audience. To me, that shows that the "new for the sake of newness" or "new because today's message is different" arguments are bogus. The romantic style of the average "Theme from Star Trek", especially when written by a Jerry Goldsmith or even a James Horner, is going to move and influence far, far more people than anything that Ades has written. In fact, I've noticed that such things as the "Theme from Ladies in Lavender" (a Maggie Smith special!) have started to appear - multiple times - on the student recitals I accompany. Same has been true for much longer with the "Schindler's List" themes, which of course Perlman himself plays. This music just seems to have so much more of an impact on audiences than, say, Lindberg's Violin Concerto (much as I love Lisa most of the time!).
Of course, I'm not necessarily claiming that this kind of film music is "great music". But I've noticed that when the SF Symphony needs to get a lot of people in the seats, they'll roll out a "film music" extravaganza, and MTT will conduct the complete score to, say, "Vertigo", or something similar. It seems to be something that the audience needs far more than it needs the latest creation of a more exclusively "classical" composer, safely ensconced in his academic position with his grant money, but without the necessity to connect with the average audience member.
I forget who the author was, but I read one book wherein the author claimed that the style of ancient Egyptian music seems to have remained unchanged for at least 1500 years. Why are some of us in the West now so anxious to get to the "next big thing" that we largely have lost the very essence (the ability to move people in some way) of the art we supposedly celebrate?
And, frankly, I take a certain amount of Schadenfreude in the circulation decrease and demise of the SF Chronicle, when it has such writers as Kosman on its staff.
I get the Chronicle only on Sundays - unfortunately, it has never been a truly serious newspaper - one has always had to look very hard to find any real reporting in the Chron. The San Jose Mercury has always done a much better job of in-depth coverage, although each issue of the Mercury seems smaller than the last.
But - I don't know why you call Kosman an idiot, actually. Given that I am not a subscriber, maybe I haven't had the exposure to him that you have had, but I have found by and large that his reviews of performances that I have attended seem to be very accurate, by and large. The Mercury used to send Richard Scheinen to review concerts, and in my book he had a very low accuracy rating, based on concerts that I attended where he wrote reviews. Fortunately, he is no longing writing classical music reviews.
Kosman has made a number of factual mistakes over the years (ones that a professional critic should not be making), although I don't keep track of them, since his reviews and writing are both truly forgettable. I DO remember that, in one of his first reviews, he kept talking about a pianist who overused the "sustain" pedal. I happened to be at the concert, and the pianist in question (forgot who it was) never once touched the "sustain" (sostenuto - or middle) pedal. What he was obviously referring to was the right (or damper) pedal. I sent him a sarcastic letter (with a copy to Commanday) which included a photo-copy of the article on piano pedals (and their names) from the Harvard Dictionary of Music. Somehow, I didn't get a reply from either one of them - not that I expected to! ;-)
Whatever one said about a Concert, the other said the opposite.
but no debate from me. Newspaper classical music critics have always been at a disadvantage, though. Most were journalists first, music experts a distant second or not at all. And even the most knowledgeable of them often succumbed to the temptation of power trips (see, e.g., Virgil Thomson, and especially Claudia Cassidy, who was also nowhere near the most knowledgeable imo).Their waning power and significance has been a fact for decades and is nothing to mourn. I would consult many posters here long before looking at what one of them had to say.
Edits: 07/24/16
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Vhy don't you obey me....?
I have to admit that my experience with his music is not too extensive - some godforsaken work that Nagano conducted one year with the Berkeley Symphony. ;-)
I'd rather be listening to Glazunov! ;-)
Powder Her Face.
One of the best pieces I ever played, I loved it.
Also Violin Concerto, Couperan Suite and String Quartet, on Hi Res Downloads.
I guess you were born too late!
I do like Glazinov, but there's no conflict for me to like Modern works too.
Think it's currently at Berkeley/West Edge Opera?
You playing it there?
Some things never change...;-)
dh
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