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In Reply to: RE: Fair question posted by Chris from Lafayette on July 24, 2016 at 19:52:53
>>"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
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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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