Thread: Contemporary Music!

Inspired by the (sometimes frustrating!) thread in the composers' section of the forum, I thought we could have a good old heated discussion about contemporary music and its direction!

Here are a few extracts from an article I read in Contemporary Music Review - I'm intrigued to see what you think (if you don't feel like reading four measly paragraphs, skip to the last one - that's where the most interesting discussion will lie):

If ever there was a time or an ethos ready for change, it is surely contemporary art music at the [start] of this century. For the greater part of our audience, listening to modern music has become an experience fraught with anxiety and dissatisfaction. And not only listeners, but performers and composers as well, have been grumbling more vociferously of late - in a manner reminiscent of the whispering about the emperor and his new clothes! Have we, in our effort to strip music to its fundamental truths, instead fashioned for ourselves a straitjacket?

...

For, confident of our superior gifts and erudition, we frequently have gratified ourselves with smug, self-indulgent music that we have taken too seriously, music that failed to address the needs of its audience, that spoke in abstruse strains to the educated minority.

...

And, while composition will always remain a very personal experience, it is still true that most composers write for other human beings to hear. A large part of our problem has been that in limiting our artistic options, we have robbed our palettes of greater expressive breadth. For this reason, our music is fast becoming obsolete. That, in turn, has limited our audience.

...

This is not to suggest that tonality is the panacea, or that atonality has led to our decline. The question of tonality is only symptomatic of a deeper ill. The real issue is musicality. The real issue is humanity in the music. Atonality will never vanish, just as tonality never has. But too often non-music has been allowed to masquerade as music. The dogmas that have been espoused in the name of expression have often been obstacles to true individual expression.

I actually completely agree with the article posted above. I mean, sure, I love atonality, just as I love tonality, but most of all I just love music. I feel like the 20th century was more about stretching the boundaries of music for the sake of the stretching, not enough about the music, and now that the stretching is done with, the real music-making can finally take place by those who combine the influences of the past centuries and make something new of it.

Not to disparage people like Berg, Bernstein, Britten, Stravinsky, Bartok, or any of the composers who did make really spectacular, great music, but those like Schoenberg, who just shoved music ahead, I don't feel are going to be remembered so much for the music as for their contributions to what will happen this century.

[Non-scholarly opinion alert!]

I am ready for change. My very slight aversion to 20th century music has nothing to do with accessibility or with how esoteric it became. There are several factors in play:

1. When you throw tonality out the window, rather than adding a dimension to the music you are actually taking away a dimension. It's in the very word itself. Atonality is a lack of tonality, a lack of one of the dimensions in the language of music. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Great art has been achieved using a limited palette for instance. However, there is nothing intrinsically right with it either. I'm just paraphrasing the article now.

2. All this boundary stretching has taken away another dimension too, that of surprise. Without voice leading or a home key, or in some cases even without a discernible rhythm, there can be no expectations built up, therefor no surprises. If every note is a surprise, then none of them are. Again it's okay not to have surprises, but it seems the option itself has been discarded.

3. There is also an unfortunate cultural effect that takes place. I call it the action soundtrack effect. We have all been exposed to various levels of atonality all our lives, most often in action TV and movie soundtracks. As soon as Captain Kirk gets in a fight with a cheesy looking alien, or as soon as there is a chase scene in a late night cop show, out comes the atonal music. This was especially prevalent during the 1950's and 1960's. So now whenever I hear Schoenberg or Varese, I want to get up and turn off the imaginary TV so I can listen to music. Younger people may not have this affliction -- I think the trend started dying out in the 1970's, but it never completely died out.

After all those aversions I can still say there are some wonderful 20th century pieces that grab my undivided attention. Ligeti, Ginastera, Penderecki, and yes even Schoenberg can be riveting. (I have yet to quite grasp Varese or Messiaen) There must be something artistic going on I don't quite understand but can at least sense on a subconscious level.

The 20th century's excesses are not evil or destructive, but I am glad the music world is beginning to realize they are not the be all end all.

Difficult to know how to respond to these four snippets, or to the responses to them so far.

My first thought, since I'm reading William Weber's The Great Transformation in Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms, is that these arguments have all been made before, in the 19th century. The more I read about that volatile century, the more I wonder if it weren't even more violent and revolutionary and even regressive than its equally contradictory century mate, the 20th. Always our own time seems the most radical break with the past. I wonder.

Otherwise, I'd just like to testify (Testify!!) as someone who has been listening to contemporary music since the early 1970s that none of the standard cliches about music and audiences has ever applied to my own experience. Aside from the inevitable duds, I have never found any piece of twentieth century music to be anything worse than initially bewildering. Most of them have been quite enjoyable. Many of them have been terrific. Some of them have been staggeringly phenomenal. Why, that's just how I feel about music from the 19th and 18th and 17th centuries. Hmmm. There have always been audiences for new music, even if they are smaller than those for older music. (We keep ignoring the fact that if audience size is any factor, then "classical" music on the whole, even the most popular warhorses, draws a very small crowd compared to practically any other kind of music.)

Otherotherwise, I'd like to make yet another plea for people to notice that tonality is not the only issue for twentieth and twenty-first century music. It's odd to see how often music in the last century is always divided along these lines, as if nothing else had happened in that time. Here are a few other contrasting pairs, though I also hasten to add that not all the issues of new music come in nicely balanced pairs of antitheses, either!!

Music/noise
Control/noncontrol
Acousmatic/soundscape
Composition/improvisation
Traditional notation/nontraditional notation (including graphic scores)
Development/stasis

There is, of course, much much more than just these. But we can't hardly "do" the whole last hundred years or so in one little post, much less one little thread. But I fear that the discussion will never really accomplish anything good unless the participants can get unstuck from the tonal/atonal thing. And that will never happen unless we listen to more things from our own time. To have a really rollicking conversation, we really ought to listen to everything, not just the things we already like.

Music doesn't change it expands. People can always write and peform music from the past and many do. I like that a wide variety of music exists even if I neither like it nor have the opportunity to listen to a lot of it. Contemporary music can never truly cut itself off from the past.

To have a really rollicking conversation, we really ought to listen to everything, not just the things we already like.

Agreed. Even listening to music we definitely don't like can expand our mindset.

This is not to suggest that tonality is the panacea, or that atonality has led to our decline. The question of tonality is only symptomatic of a deeper ill. The real issue is musicality. The real issue is humanity in the music. Atonality will never vanish, just as tonality never has. But too often non-music has been allowed to masquerade as music. The dogmas that have been espoused in the name of expression have often been obstacles to true individual expression.

The highlighted part of the article doesn't make sense to me. Non-music can only be a work that lacks sound. Any sound can be 'framed' and become music. An object such as a screwdriver can masquerade as music but the sound the screwdriver makes is music, if someone believes it to be such.

The 20th century's excesses are not evil or destructive, but I am glad the music world is beginning to realize they are not the be all end all.

I don't think the music world ever thought anything was the be all and end all. For any piece of music there is always someone out there who doesn't like it.

Originally Posted by some guy

My first thought, since I'm reading William Weber's The Great Transformation in Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms, is that these arguments have all been made before, in the 19th century. The more I read about that volatile century, the more I wonder if it weren't even more violent and revolutionary and even regressive than its equally contradictory century mate, the 20th. Always our own time seems the most radical break with the past. I wonder.

It's an interesting idea - it's often the case, no matter what we talk about, that it's all been said before (I just hope I don't have to hear another person talking about how the moral values of society have declined!). I'm not quite sure what to make of it, although my instinctive reaction would be to suggest that the 19th century was viewed by the composers in a more volatile fashion, but the changes of the 20th century were more fundamental.

Originally Posted by some guy

Otherotherwise, I'd like to make yet another plea for people to notice that tonality is not the only issue for twentieth and twenty-first century music.

I think that's the most important thing that the article sought to consider (if not very clearly). There's tonality/atonality - which is one small dimension of the whole issue - and then there's musicality, which is essentially the ability to consider all the dimensions of music and their history and bring them into a new whole that features some kind of humanity.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the article was the sentiment expressed in the third paragraph - the idea that composition is (quite obviously) a very personal affair, but that the composer should also remain aware of the 'needs' of the audience. This is something I strive for in my own music, but it needs to be kept firmly away from the whole 'selling-out' notion (i.e. that people like popular music, let's make 'cheesy' classical). Rather, I prefer to see it in the respect that people 'need' a sense of home, of expectation and surprise, which is only created by at least partial tonality. This is not pandering to popular culture, but rather considering the way that the brain processes sound.

I don't think the music world ever thought anything was the be all and end all. For any piece of music there is always someone out there who doesn't like it.

Argus I think you right the world never thought it was the be all and end all but academic circles and critical circles for a time did. There was a time and there still is that snobby attitude in some universities, where composition is taught and most composers reside and get recognition, that contemporary music must be a certain thing stylistically.

The hallmarks are: complex structurally, dissonant, ametric and extended instrumental technique - these definitely became the way to go. There was of course minimalism as a counter movement but even still in some places that is looked down upon as some kind of 'pop music' compared to serious modern music.

I have personally met some dyed-in-the-wool modernists who slam everything they hear if it has the smallest reference to previous music. It is as though some composers are fighting viciously over the last scraps of what they deem is original. This, I hope, is dying out.

btw.. nice new thread Polednice ;-)

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

btw.. nice new thread Polednice ;-)

I just started it because of what I read yesterday evening, but I hope I'm not stealing your thunder from the other thread! Hopefully, ideas raised here will feed into the discussion we were having in the Composers' forum

No this is great - the other thread got me the answers I wanted specifically re. composers. This deserves it's own space

Hmmmm.....

I think tonality is a near perfect system for expression, however i still do not believe using tonality and only tonality is a valid practise in this war. I say this mostly due to the huge impact the second world war has had on arts...

On the other hand I think that the total atonality is a very silly experimental and does not sound human nor does it carry any emotion, feeling or expression. Of course this could just be that it does not suit my personal taste.

OVERALL - I believe that everybody should be able to express themselves musically how they see fit and however works for them. If this is how they do it then so be it.

Completely agree with the comment above.

I agree with the opinions of some guy. Much "new" music, from whatever century, has pushed the boundaries in some way and this is one of the reasons much classical music is still performed today after hundreds of years. Listen to almost any masterpiece of the past and you will perhaps hear ways in which the composer challenges your perceptions of what is music.

I for one have no problems with the trends in contemporary music, in many ways they reflect what was going on 100 years ago. You have a mixture of composers approaching music from different angles, from conservative to more experimental. There is a huge spectrum of styles and approaches, as some guy suggests, and I think that (if one is somewhat flexible and perceptive) the listener can enjoy and understand at least some of the music being produced today.

I think that the article quoted in the original post generalises too much about contemporary music and it's effect on audiences. But I think that if audiences are not flexible, it's not the composers problem. There must be something wrong with classical music today if all we get in our concert halls are endless repetitions of the traditional warhorses because the greys can only stand this type of music. This inflexible approach is fast making classical music into a historical or dead medium, with much of the music post 1945 being sidelined. I think that there is also a danger of the views of conservative listeners of the older generations becoming accepted as mainstream in classical circles, therefore orchestras will not play anything which counters their tastes. I think that this is much more of an insidious, threatening thing than the supposed stranglehold the universities and academies have on contemporary classical music. In my opinion, if you want something wholly "safe" and "uplifting" why not restrict yourself to Andre Rieu or the Vienna new year's day concerts? I think general classical music concerts should be somewhat above mere entertainment level and push the boundaries a little, and give the audience a little credit for being more intelligent and flexible perhaps than conservative concert programmers think.

I think that the article quoted in the original post generalises too much about contemporary music and it's effect on audiences. But I think that if audiences are not flexible, it's not the composers problem.

There has long been a gap between certain aspects of the latest art and the audience's ability to appreciate this. Rembrandt, Mozart, Keats, William Blake, Monet, Matisse, Schubert, etc... are all examples of artists whose work needed time... a generation of two... until it began to be recognized and fully appreciated. Modernism, however, wrought certain experimentation... certain innovations that seemingly pushed the boundaries of what art or music are to such an extreme that they have yet to be appreciated... and it seems clear valid to question whether these innovations did not go too far.

Within the visual arts, for example, Matisse and Picasso have been fully absorbed and are appreciated by the larger art audience... but exhibitions of Dada, Duchamp, Performance art, Conceptual art, etc... do not fill the galleries and museums. The same, it would seem, might be said of 20th century music. Debussy, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Copland, Barber, Bartok, etc... do not lack for an audience... are regularly performed by major orchestras and opera companies... are accessible through numerous recordings. Schoenberg, Berg, Cage, Boulez, Ligetti, Stockhausen, on the other hand, have not ended up having their music whistled by mailmen on their rounds... despite Webern's famous prediction.

The problem is, I suspect, that such art: Schoenberg's "thornier" works, Duchamp's "ready-mades", Joyce's Finnegan's Wake demand too much of the audience. This is not to say that Bach or Beethoven do not also make demands upon the audience... but these demands are always repaid with the pleasure the work affords. For a great many... even a great many of the informed art/music/literature audience the demands of some works of Modernism and Post-Modernism are far too great considering the slim pleasure the work affords.

Perhaps this is not bad in itself. Not every work of art is for everybody. The notion of a single monolithic art/music/literary world is an absurd falsehood. Keats, Dickens, and William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience will almost certainly always have a larger audience than that to be found for Milton, Henry James, or William Blake's Jerusalem. There are multiple audiences and almost certainly an audience can be found for every work of art of real merit. I believe the problem arises when the supporters of a certain artistic strain... especially of the more demanding, less accessible (and less popular) art presume a position of aesthetic (or even moral) superiority. The fact that Barber, Copland, or Richard Strauss are more accessible than Schoenberg, Ligetti, or Cage in no way denotes that the former are less rich... less artistically worthy... because they are less challenging any more than one might assume that Mozart is lightweight in comparison to Wagner or Berg. I understand the historical importance of art which makes a great break from the tradition of the past... but somehow I don't always imagine that such a break inherently results in a art of great worth. Within my own field of expertise (visual arts) I find myself struggling with the notion that this:



or this:



represent something inherently greater than this:



or this:



... let alone this:



... based upon the degree to which the former works represent a greater break with the traditions of art. By the same token, I question the notion that some of the more esoteric strains of music (some of which I quite admire myself) represent something inherently superior to that achieved within a mode that is upon the surface more conservative... less challenging to the traditions... and perhaps more accessible.

I disagree that most composers played still today challenged the audience of the time. So much music for one thing was functional - sacred music including bach cantatas - which is vast, Mozart for the courts. they wouldn't have employed him if he was that challenging. beethoven yes was revolutionary in much of his music but many post-beethoven composers were conservative by comparison. schumann, mendelssohn, bruch, brahms - what did these composers do that was challenging?

also, more importantly, my argument is that referring to music history is in no way to indicate what is going on now. These times are so radically unique and have never happened before.

thousands of years of modal music and regular pulse which gave rise fairly naturally to tonality and predominant consonance. not cause we just felt like it but cos the brain responds well to it. then in the last 100 years a mix of all kinds of music. some of which is so dissonant and ametric, often devoid of 'singable' melodic lines and difficult to 'follow' as regards form - this kind of music is new and never been accepted by all composers. strauss and rvw and elgar and rachmaninov many others did anything not to write music that went too far into the realm. prokofiev and shostakovich too. prokofiev said that dissonance was a like salt.. too much and you ruin the taste. even stravinsky valued its importance highly and so did bartok - returning to it, like penderecki and less so, ligeti in later years.

i know there are many modern musics and i am not against experimentation and breaking rules. what i am suggesting is that such levels of dissonance and ameter and extended instrumental technique for its own sake may be a musical cul de sace. also i find from talking to non-musicians that most of them cant FEEL the music cos of the lack of these brain cues. It seems like it is devoid of emotion to many tho not all people. it is more so cerebrally appealing to someone with analytical tendencies and a detailed knowledge of music. exceptions exist.

i greatly doubt in a hundred years that humans will some how, after 2000 years start to feel and think so differently about music that this level of 'modernity' will be preferred way of expression. and from what i read about the human brain, the success of music without tonality and clear formal signposts like melody and a clear beat, is highly unlikely. it is in many respects... inhuman.


Also, just to add... the ideas that innovation is key to all great art or is indeed the reason for great art is ludicrous and is a modernists outlook. also the 'beethoven cult' of doing what u believe in to be great regardless of public opinion. this egocentric idea that a composer is a on a divine mission to do greatness through breaking barriers that ppl are unable to understand until after his death. this has become a cultish thing in new music and in my mind a bad thing. how much music did i hear that was innovation for the sake of it. how many composers did i meet who talked like it was them against the world and didn't care what anyone thought cos they were the next superman - way too many !

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

I disagree that most composers played still today challenged the audience of the time.

Well, read some contemporary reports of bewilderment and antagonism, then. Those people, at least, would disagree with your disagreement.

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

schumann, mendelssohn, bruch, brahms - what did these composers do that was challenging?

You're kidding, right? For one, Mendelssohn and Bruch probably don't belong on this short list. For two, Schumann and Brahms were plenty challenging, for some listeners at the time. They're not particularly challenging now. But now is different in some ways from then.

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

the ideas that innovation is key to all great art or is indeed the reason for great art is ludicrous and is a modernists outlook.

Here's where some specifics would be nice. Who says that innovation is the key to all great art? I see these words all the time in such discussions, but seldom from people who defend contemporary art. Usually, these words are used by the people with some quibble or other with modernism, put into the mouths of the so-called modernists.

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

this egocentric idea that a composer is a on a divine mission to do greatness through breaking barriers that ppl are unable to understand until after his death. this has become a cultish thing in new music and in my mind a bad thing.

Well, this idea, as you've said, dates from around Beethoven's time. Not terribly recent, in other words. And where does it come from? The new idea (new in the 19th century) that greatness was what matters in art, which is related to the idea that art was somehow morally superior, that it was, like vegetables, "good for you." It's not an idea that many real composers have ever spent much time espousing. How many real composers do you suppose want to be misunderstood until after they're dead. Composers write for many reasons, of course, but one of them is always "to be heard and enjoyed." Always. For every composer.

Originally Posted by jaibyrne

how much music did i hear that was innovation for the sake of it. how many composers did i meet who talked like it was them against the world and didn't care what anyone thought cos they were the next superman - way too many !

Really? We must know completely different composers, then!! (And by the way, what is "innovation for the sake of it" and how can you tell, in the audience, whether that's what you're hearing or not?)