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In Reply to: RE: They're in the article posted by Chris from Lafayette on July 24, 2016 at 18:59:33
It's one thing to not like it, but you seem to want to trash it in print whenever you can.
Why the Vendetta?
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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.
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> > "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?
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