For those not in the know, I speak (in hushed tones) of our most esteemed contemporaries, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, and John Tavener. What are your thoughts on their music, their ideologies, and their unprecedented popularity? Is this the "way out" of modernism's spiritual Waste Land(*wink wink*), a final good-bye to its nihilistic refutation of goodness? Please share your thoughts, studious music lovers.

i enjoy Pärt's music, especially when i compare it to what he used to write. it is interesting to hear him learn to use different tools. i do not have any deep thoughts to share regarding the rest of your question.

dj

Well, it would be nice if people who say things like "nihilistic refutation of goodness" would actually listen to some music now and again, and enjoy it.

Odd that the century that saw such an incredible explosion of energy and passion and variety should have the reputation of being boring and ugly and nihilistic. (Well, it only has that reputation among those who don't really know it well.)

I just spent this past weekend with a couple dozen electroacoustic composers. Funny, they didn't seem nihilistic to me, in the concert hall, in the lobby, or in the bars. Nope. They seemed pretty good people.

Plus their music was by and large very lovely stuff. Not Mozart lovely or Brahms lovely or Pärt lovely, to be sure, but lovely nonetheless.

I don't know that "unprecedented" is the right word. Many composers have been very popular during their own time, probably many more than the story-book type who are misunderstood during their lives but then loved many years after their deaths.

So what these popular-while-alive composers have in common is that they are able to reach a broader publich with an instantly understandable and identifyable idiom, a musical style/fingerprint that speaks and is heard even before the actual content of individual pieces is considered.

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The nihilism comment was more about aesthetics (think of Adorno), and the modern period is pretty much over (we're in post-modernism now, aren't we?), so your living contemporaries don't fall under that banner.

I should clarify - unprecedented in terms of CD sales for a contemporary composer (Górecki's 3rd Symphony), and possibly Pärt too (not sure about this though).

However I don't fully understand how you can distinguish between an idiom and the musical content. Would you mind to clarify? I don't want to respond based on a misunderstanding.

No offense intended here - just trying to provoke thought (and I don't mind if I'm wrong).

Ha ha! I thought while I was writing that that I should have explained that some of these people are in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, so could certainly qualify. (And I am old enough to have known a few people who were born in the first or second decade of the twentieth. Come to think of it, we all are! Carter turns 99 this December.)

But I was indeed thinking of the early century, too, a time when it seemed to many (most?) to be full of opportunity, more than at any other time in history.

It was a great time, full of energy and excitement, full of great music. As indeed today is, for that matter!

I define the idiom as being the broad musical fingerprints that we identify a composer with across several pieces.

With Pärt, it is the instantly identifiable Tintinabuli technique, the melody moving in an inner voice with surrounding voices delineating a triad. With Gorecki, it is the slow moving polyphony which however produces "modern" sounding harmonies.

The content then varies from piece to piece, depending on what exactly happens in the music, but the idiom remains the same, or is at least similar or recognizable enough across pieces for us to identify the composer without necessarily having been familiar with the content of the piece beforehand.

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Ah I understand your meaning now, and agree. Probably the public at large wouldn't look beyond the surface to understand the particulars of each piece, and there's nothing wrong with that. All the best composers have created music which appeals on a surface level (i.e. beautiful sounds) and also on a deeper level, whether this is emotional or intellectual.

So the approachable sounds generate public appeal, but what about the spiritual sentiment? It seems strange that in our very secular age that such deeply religious music should be so popular. Perhaps its an advantage of music's universality - being able to express spirituality without relying on external particulars (like religion). So one doesn't need to be a Russian Orthodox to be moved by Pärt's music, etc. What are your thoughts on this?

We call it "mesmerism" rather than "minimalism." It is anti-intellectual stuff, isn't it? But the point of fine Art is to incorporate as much contrast as possible. This mesmeric music is only for dozy persons who sleep through their meaningless lives.

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion and disklike of this "dozy" music, I must take issue with the label that you applied to it: "Anti-Intellectual"

I don't care whether you apply this label to the music being discussed here or any other... my problem is with the label itself. Classifying music under that title therefore implies that other music may be "Intellectual", and thereby a dualism is created that most likely has absolutely nothing to do with the intentions and feelings of the artist who created the piece in question.

I feel that applying the artificial label of intellectualism does not help us in our quest to find a meaningful language through which to discuss music.

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Perhaps you could clarify your idea of what kind of music accompanies a truly meaningful life then?

Intellectually stimulating music seems more like a distraction to me - all that surface activity can do is titillate the mental functions. Truth is revealed to a stilled mind which looks beneath appearances. Think of Pärt's music. It may be lacking in intellectual complexity, but what does the music say when you listen more deeply?