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Contemporary "art" music

13K views 182 replies 36 participants last post by  Albert7 
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#1 ·
Maybe it's time to run through this again.

Maybe we should just never talk to each other again.

Contemporary "art" music, modern classical, avant garde, however you want to refer to the various musics of the past hundred years, are all fine. That there seems to be an endless string of posters who report contemporary music as being incomprehensible, crap, difficult, worthless is beside the point. The music is fine.

Do I mean that it is just as good as Beethoven or Bach? No, I do not. "Just as good as" is a meaningless string of words. It is fine, meaning it is worth listening to. It repays repeated listening as well. It is enough.

When I was about nine, I discovered classical music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it.

When I was 20, I discovered twentieth century music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it, even though the first piece was Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, and I'm now listening to Emmanuelle Gibello.

There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the 15th to the 20th century that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with classical music generally. There isn't.

There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the past hundred years or so that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with modern or contemporary music generally. There isn't.

I have to accept that there are people who reject it, who do not like it, who take every opportunity to attack it. That's a great pity, but it doesn't change the rock solid fact that there's nothing really wrong with "art" music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Start by assuming that there's nothing wrong with it. See where that leads you.
 
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#70 ·
Chordalrock, speaking only for myself and my own experience as a listener, I would say that expectations can be transcended. Of course they can. I started out with Hollywood music myself. It was all I knew as a small child. When I got some old 78s from my uncle, it was a revelation. Haydn, Rachmaninoff, Chopin.... This was real music!! For me. So already, I had moved from whatever Hollywood had imprinted. It was all older music, of course. That was what was readily available. It was what Columbia Records offered on their mail order thing I got one year for my birthday; it was what the radio stations played; it was what the local symphony orchestra played. After about twelve years of that, I heard Bartok's Concerto for orchestra. More revelation. And more transcending of imprinting. And the Carter and Stockhausen and musique concrete that followed, quite rapidly, a matter of months, involved even more transcending.

Of course, as you will have noticed, in my case the transcending came because of love, and who knows where love comes from or why?

So for me there was no deciding about anything.

Maybe your view is correct. Maybe people without love cannot transcend anything. Could be.

I hope you're wrong. (Wishful thinking.) In any case, the answer to a closed mind is to open it, by whatever means possible. Once it's open--however doubtful or difficult or unlikely that opening may be--then all the rest will indeed follow, inevitably.

Worth a try, anyway.
 
#73 · (Edited)
Well, I'm pretty open minded, and to take an example I've tried to like Webern and other big serialist works, quite naively and open mindedly and open to a divine intervention to make me a better listener, alas to no avail. There are just types of music that don't do anything for me that other people vouch for.

I think it has something to do with synaptic connections, our different musical backgrounds and how they've shaped our brains to perceive things differently. It's pretty widely accepted that once your brain becomes mature, it's no longer very plastic, so improving or altering your taste is at least supposed to take a long time and a significant amount of effort in adulthood. If it didn't, I'd say everybody would be listening to all sorts of cool classical music but it just doesn't happen. I don't think it's a lack of love, it's more likely a lack of intensely musical growing up environments or lack of sufficient effort in later life.
 
#86 ·
I think it has something to do with synaptic connections, our different musical backgrounds and how they've shaped our brains to perceive things differently. It's pretty widely accepted that once your brain becomes mature, it's no longer very plastic, so improving or altering your taste is at least supposed to take a long time and a significant amount of effort in adulthood. If it didn't, I'd say everybody would be listening to all sorts of cool classical music but it just doesn't happen. I don't think it's a lack of love, it's more likely a lack of intensely musical growing up environments or lack of sufficient effort in later life.
I generally agree with everything you say above. Of course there is significant variation in people's experiences with music. There are some who came to modern music later and loved it immediately or fairly soon, but from those I have talked with or learned about through TC, that experience is unusual. Everyone I know personally who enjoys the types of modern music we are discussing (not Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, etc.) went through years of listening before they came to strongly enjoy it. Many people on TC have related similar paths - years of listening and often struggling before they enjoyed it.

From my personal experience, an open mind is necessary but not sufficient. I required significant listening to "achieve" my successes. I was drawn to listen repeatedly for a variety of reasons. Others will not be drawn to listen over and over, and of course, that's OK. And some might listen repeatedly and have little success. I will simply say that I'm glad I did continue listening.
 
#77 ·
....
Start by assuming that there's nothing wrong with it. See where that leads you.
The problem I have with that assertion is that it assumes contemporary composers are just as talented as masterss from the past, which is simply not true. Unfortunately if Mozart was alive today, and he picked up his pen and composed a symphony no.42, I very , very much doubt I would struggle with his new no.42.
 
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#82 ·
I was assuming that resurrected Mozart wouldn't know about all the new things in music that have appeared. If he did he would probably be super-conservative harmonically (given how hard those developments were for people who lived through them) but very interested in all the new technologies. Of course there's no way to know. He might discover Grand Theft Auto and abjure composition forever.
 
#106 · (Edited)
I used to think it was easy to write in the style of Mozart, then I actually tried writing in the style of Mozart and found out it was incredibly hard to make it sound as good as Mozart did. I think anyone who thinks composing a serialist, avant-garde, set theory, minimalist or new minamalist work is taking the easy way out should try doing it for themselves and see how "easy" it is to write a successful one.
 
#107 · (Edited)
Unfortunately, for this exercise to be of any value, you have to already believe in the merits of the style you're trying to emulate. Otherwise one actually could come away thinking that one has composed, say, something that sounds exactly like Schoenberg or Reich (remember that joke video posted here a while back?) when anyone with any degree of familiarity with the subject whatsoever can recognize that it sounds nothing whatsoever like Schoenberg or Reich.
 
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#113 ·
The idea of "greatness" is pernicious.

It is very much a distinguishing characteristic of the nineteenth century, part and parcel with all the other bad things (in aesthetics) that happened in the nineteenth century.

But I don't see any fruitful thinking about greatness happening any time soon. So much so that I am officially embarrassed to have even brought it up.

The statement that standards are lower is wrong, not because I believe that standards are just as high, but because I believe that "standards" are impertinent.

Even something like "Bach was really good at counterpoint" has to account for the fact that his fugues constantly break the rules of Fux' treatise on counterpoint.

And the claim often made that Berlioz really sucked at counterpoint (despite having passed all his counterpoint exams with very high marks), ignore the musical and dramatic context in which counterpoint appears in his works.

Standards being lower now than in the 18th century assumes that one size fits all. One size fits one.

Bach was no good at large scale symphonic writing, for instance, and a complete failure at eai.:p
 
#115 ·
The idea of "greatness" is pernicious.

It is very much a distinguishing characteristic of the nineteenth century, part and parcel with all the other bad things (in aesthetics) that happened in the nineteenth century.

But I don't see any fruitful thinking about greatness happening any time soon. So much so that I am officially embarrassed to have even brought it up.

The statement that standards are lower is wrong, not because I believe that standards are just as high, but because I believe that "standards" are impertinent.

Even something like "Bach was really good at counterpoint" has to account for the fact that his fugues constantly break the rules of Fux' treatise on counterpoint.

And the claim often made that Berlioz really sucked at counterpoint (despite having passed all his counterpoint exams with very high marks), ignore the musical and dramatic context in which counterpoint appears in his works.

Standards being lower now than in the 18th century assumes that one size fits all. One size fits one.

Bach was no good at large scale symphonic writing, for instance, and a complete failure at eai.:p
Your attitude may benefit a listener but a composer does need some sense of standards, the clearer the better. If past composers hadn't cared about standards, they wouldn't have composed great music, or at least as much of it.
 
#119 ·
You honestly can't think of a better use for your time than such exercises? I suppose since you're constantly posting on TC, perhaps you sincerely can't.

I'm pretty sure contemporary composers would be better served by analysing modern and contemporary music that they find fascinating and figuring out what made those works so great, and by absorbing that sort of knowledge and understanding rather than by writing species counterpoint. But you think otherwise? You must be kidding.
 
#120 · (Edited)
Oh yes, as if I claimed that writing species counterpoint is the only thing Messaien EVER did before composing the Turangalila symphony :rolleyes:

Dude I think you're the one who must be joking. You can't possibly think that's what I meant when I say that species counterpoint exercises are invaluable to quality composition, regardless of the genre.

And seriously, what kind of view do you have to contemporary composers that you think they are all such thick headed buffoons that they don't even stop and analyze other contemporary pieces to see what makes them great?
 
#130 ·
Posted in another forum, said to be cobbled together from composers' bios: "This experimental work of electroacoustic and spectromorphologic effects includes aleatoric, aphoristic, and spectral sonic events that transcend but still fundamentally include intuitive, stochastic, polystylistic, and serialistic elaboration, as the result of its pre-compositional plannification and temporal structuring at micro- and macro-musical-architectonic levels."
 
#132 · (Edited)
Clearly, that training did not stop with fux or tonal counterpoint, then :)

I think many now still think that undergraduate school is a complete training in what the degree says your major was, and that is anything but the reality. With over sixty percent of required undergraduate courses being still general education (European colleges and conservatories do not suffer from this), this makes the undergraduate degree a diploma in less than two years theoretical training within the majored-in subject. That is now not even enough to get a job sweeping up as a professional in the field one majored in, let alone for a moment think one is 'fully prepared.' Since music literature has that many more developments in repertoire and that much more repertoire (20th century and beyond) than it did in 1900, longer study for both performance majors and composition majors is the norm.

Anyone thinking an undergraduate diploma is enough (other than one done at European school or a specialized school where all four years are fully nothing but courses in and around the major subject), is wildly mistaken.
 
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#131 · (Edited)
Ah yes, when academics write for academics they use some funny words don't they. Still, in the academic circles for which these words are written each one has a precise meaning. It's a bit uncool for us outsiders (and despite my music training I am most definitely an outsider to this sort of thing) but can actually be an effective way to communicate complex ideas quickly. We can all have a laugh at the funny words tho!

Just wondering why it's of relevance to the thread?
 
#135 ·
Composition is to a large degree about problem solving. Studying techniques such as species counterpoint, classical harmony, serialism, using modes of limited transposition, matrices etc., serve to equip the composer with a variety of tools with which to fashion their music.
It is not necessary for a composer to employ or even study any particular practice if they can get along without it. But in music as in engineering, knowledge and understanding of a wide spectrum of techniques past and present, can serve to spark the imagination or to help oil the wheels of creativity.
It is in the composers own interest to explore the techniques employed by others and to adopt or discard whichever they choose.
 
#138 ·
I could get people to listen to contemporary music with understanding if I was there in the room with them. All it takes is some simple explanation of what's going on, and what to listen for. I'd use all sorts of analogies, and I'd be able to determine what pieces were being listened to. I'd start 'em out with some selected John Cage, then maybe some Feldman. I'd explain Elliott Carter, Babbitt, Schoenberg, Webern, and Stockhausen.

If they still didn't get it, I'd put on some jazz or rock and give them another beverage.
 
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#148 ·
I think it's a lot more simple than any of this, really.

To some people, modern art music is malign. It has caused all sorts of things, from alienating audiences to crushing the careers of composers who deserved better. Never mind that the audiences had started rejecting new music over a hundred years before Schoenberg wrote a note of pantonal music or Stravinsky wrote one barbaric bar. Never mind that it was alcohol that crushed Sibelius. Modern music is responsible for all the bad things that have happened in the last century. Probably caused the world wars and aids, too, for all I know.

The hatred ain't gonna go away just because it don't coincide with the facts none.
 
#149 ·
I think you're confusing me with someone else. I don't hate modern music, I just don't get most of it and shake my head at the irony of modern music buffs having a victim mentality when it was them and no one else who had all the power in the institutions for decades.

The only reason modernism in music died was that the modernists themselves became tired of what they were doing and started to seek more approachable ways of expressing themselves thru music. It's still the same people in power though, kind of.

I'll also helpfully point out that even if I loved the modernists I wouldn't allow myself to be blinded to the negative aspects of the phenomenon. Usually when one type of people have all the power, other types of people suffer. It's life, it happens. We should discourage it but also admit that, yes, it does happen and is kind of normal.
 
#167 · (Edited)
Why would you deny serialism and modernism were the main thing, to the exclusion of other things, in the academia in the 1960s and around the decades surrounding it?
Pulitzer Prizes in Music 1960-1969

1960-Carter: String Quartet #2 (OK, we'll call it "modernist" if you insist, although I'm growing to dislike that word intensely-but NOT serialist. Carter taught at St. John's College, the Peabody Conservatory, Yale University, Cornell University, and The Juilliard School, among others).
1961-Piston-Symphony #7 (this guy wrote a major texbook on tonal harmony, taught at Harvard for 34 years and smoked a pipe. I bet he even wore tweed jackets with patches on the elbows. Can't get much more academic than that. Not serialist, modern but conservatively so)
1962-Ward-The Crucible (Very "accessible" to the non-specialist listener. Ward taught at Julliard, Columbia University, North Carolina School of the Arts and Duke University. Apparently academia didn't suppress him very much)
1963-Barber-Piano Concerto #1 ("modernist"? I don't think so)
1964-65-No award
1966-Bassett-Variations for Orchestra (Studied with Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, not serialist or radical)
1967-Kirchner-Quartet #3 (OK, pretty "modernist". Studied with Schoenberg, taught at Harvard for many years)
1968-Crumb-Echoes of Time and the River (although Crumb's music can be pretty, shall we say, "esoteric", his language is essentially tonally based and has absolutely nothing to do with what might be called "academic serialism", if there really is such a thing. Taught at University of Pennsylvania along with Richard Wernick and George Rochberg for many years)
1969-Husa-String Quartet #3-(Husa is anything but a radical "modernist". Longtime professor at Cornell University)

I'm no big fan of the Pulitzer (for a variety of reasons), but it is a sort of major conventional form of recognition, and the fact that more that half of the compositions that received that recognition were NOT serial/radical sounding and were written by guys who were part of the academic scene says to me that academia did not suppress nonradical tonally based music.

Lest I be accused of cherry-picking outliers to prove my point, here are some other noteworthy works from around the same time period:
Bernstein-West Side Story, Candide (1957), Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961)
Stravinsky-Agon (1957), Threni (1958), Requiem Canticles (1966)-(OK, there is some serialism in there, but it's Stravinsky serialism, not really "academic").
Britten: Prince of the Pagodas (1957), Noah's Fludde (1958), War Requiem (1962), Death in Venice (1973)

Other non-radical composers such as Copland, Thomson, Diamond, Hanson, Schuman, Arnold and scores of others were actively composing and in many cases holding academic posts during this time period as well. They're far from obscure to classical music fans and were and are pretty well respected.
 
#171 ·
Pulitzer Prizes in Music 1960-1969

1960-Carter: String Quartet #2 (OK, we'll call it "modernist" if you insist, although I'm growing to dislike that word intensely-but NOT serialist. Carter taught at St. John's College, the Peabody Conservatory, Yale University, Cornell University, and The Juilliard School, among others).
1961-Piston-Symphony #7 (this guy wrote a major texbook on tonal harmony, taught at Harvard for 34 years and smoked a pipe. I bet he even wore tweed jackets with patches on the elbows. Can't get much more academic than that. Not serialist, modern but conservatively so)
1962-Ward-The Crucible (Very "accessible" to the non-specialist listener. Ward taught at Julliard, Columbia University, North Carolina School of the Arts and Duke University. Apparently academia didn't suppress him very much)
1963-Barber-Piano Concerto #1 ("modernist"? I don't think so)
1964-65-No award
1966-Bassett-Variations for Orchestra (Studied with Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, not serialist or radical)
1967-Kirchner-Quartet #3 (OK, pretty "modernist". Studied with Schoenberg, taught at Harvard for many years)
1968-Crumb-Echoes of Time and the River (although Crumb's music can be pretty, shall we say, "esoteric", his language is essentially tonally based and has absolutely nothing to do with what might be called "academic serialism", if there really is such a thing. Taught at University of Pennsylvania along with Richard Wernick and George Rochberg for many years)
1969-Husa-String Quartet #3-(Husa is anything but a radical "modernist". Longtime professor at Cornell University)

I'm no big fan of the Pulitzer (for a variety of reasons), but it is a sort of major conventional form of recognition, and the fact that more that half of the compositions that received that recognition were NOT serial/radical sounding and were written by guys who were part of the academic scene says to me that academia did not suppress nonradical tonally based music.

Lest I be accused of cherry-picking outliers to prove my point, here are some other noteworthy works from around the same time period:
Bernstein-West Side Story, Candide (1957), Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961)
Stravinsky-Agon (1957), Threni (1958), Requiem Canticles (1966)-(OK, there is some serialism in there, but it's Stravinsky serialism, not really "academic").
Britten: Prince of the Pagodas (1957), Noah's Fludde (1958), War Requiem (1962), Death in Venice (1973)

Other non-radical composers such as Copland, Thomson, Diamond, Hanson, Schuman, Arnold and scores of others were actively composing and in many cases holding academic posts during this time period as well. They're far from obscure to classical music fans and were and are pretty well respected.
This is a lovely post and a great example of solid argument. It refutes the "serialism" and "institution" arguments perfectly, and without projecting any haughtiness.

However, we should also admit that the partisans of contemporary music reject many of the works here as too traditional. If Chordalrock starts listening only to "contemporary" works like West Side Story and Candide, Britten's War Requiem, Shostakovich's Viola Sonata, he's going to get no less scorn than hitherto. That is a little bit of what is implicit in the "I'm no big fan of the Pulitzer" statement.
 
#153 ·
I guess we all know very well that Boulez, Cage, Babbitt, Stockhausen, Oliveros (we can label them however you want; the semantics disinterest me) have been pillars of (some of) the musical establishment(s) for some time now. They may not often suffer brow-raising CD sales or dominate the "current listening" threads on classical music message boards (which would delegitimize them anyway), but they get tenures at the elite universities because (we) the elite know whom to respect and whom to scorn.

I figure we can afford to be honest about this because to the true believers financial success remains suspicious.

Among the great ironies and great strengths of capitalism are that it transforms radicals, would-be rebels into pillars of an establishment. This requires multiplying establishments, but where a market of any size exists that multiplication presents no problem.

Therefore the competition for pity does not impress me. Just as (and because) there is evidently more than enough money for lots of different kinds of composers to do their thing, there is enough pity to distribute among them for not being more famous with the filthy masses who dare not to "get" their work.

(There, I shudder to reflect, but for the grace of some god go I.)
 
#154 ·
Ok, that was supposed to be sarcastic and even in a way funny, but seriously, though I enjoy (forgive me, I realize "enjoy" is supposed to be a bit taboo for such sublimity, but I cannot help it, at heart I'm still a fairly simple fool) contemporary music easily and genuinely, when I behold the arrogance of its advocates I am occasionally glad not to be considered among them.

Their attitude may be ultimately defensive, it may be justified, it may be whatever, but it is bad rhetoric, bad strategy - it is, that is, if the goal really is to promote the music rather than to build up a sense that it cannot be enjoyed by the scum (I can afford to be honest here because I am not speaking for myself) who don't already "get" it.

I am no less arrogant in my own way of course, but I'm glad not to be of that party, no matter what music I enjoy.
 
#156 ·
So, most advocates of contemporary music are arrogant but so are you (by your own admission), and your saving grace is that your arrogance favours a 'different' party? :confused:

Ok, that was supposed to be sarcastic and even in a way funny, but seriously, though I enjoy (forgive me, I realize "enjoy" is supposed to be a bit taboo for such sublimity, but I cannot help it, at heart I'm still a fairly simple fool) contemporary music easily and genuinely, when I behold the arrogance of its advocates I am occasionally glad not to be considered among them.

Their attitude may be ultimately defensive, it may be justified, it may be whatever, but it is bad rhetoric, bad strategy - it is, that is, if the goal really is to promote the music rather than to build up a sense that it cannot be enjoyed by the scum (I can afford to be honest here because I am not speaking for myself) who don't already "get" it.

I am no less arrogant in my own way of course, but I'm glad not to be of that party, no matter what music I enjoy.
 
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#155 · (Edited)
Yeah science, damn the universities, but just what happened in the old C20? Universities began to offer sweet money to composers who had good academic credentials for teaching and whatnot. And guess what - many of them did! Because they're composers and ruddy well should know a lot about music! And Paris Conservatoire before that! The evil Cesar Franck ad Gabriel Faure! Because that was bad news for music forever! And we all know how PC prize winners like Emil Paladilhe and Victor Masse and Maurice le Boucher have gone on to dominate music all because they won the Pricks of Rome.

And I'd say, el capitalismo aside, people do get a bit more mellow with age. That's all G, dog. Shooting for the establishment sounds like a conspiracy theory. Is it possible some of these chaps are rewarded for exemplary gifts and ability? Boulez is pretty flash but he probably just wanted to get cool wheels, a sweet crib and holiday in the Maldives, right? Wake up sheeple

BTW - look on the current listening thread. I reckon there's a fair whack of contemporary stuff on there alongside a bunch of other musics and I don't see that any deligitimisation (what is that anyway?) of anything occurring. Don't see you much on current listening however - what have you got on right now?

Edit: just spotted your "you mad bro" vibe - nice one
 
#158 ·
Yeah science, damn the universities, but just what happened in the old C20? Universities began to offer sweet money to composers who had good academic credentials for teaching and whatnot. And guess what - many of them did! Because they're composers and ruddy well should know a lot about music! And Paris Conservatoire before that! The evil Cesar Franck ad Gabriel Faure! Because that was bad news for music forever! And we all know how PC prize winners like Emil Paladilhe and Victor Masse and Maurice le Boucher have gone on to dominate music all because they won the Pricks of Rome.

And I'd say, el capitalismo aside, people do get a bit more mellow with age. That's all G, dog. Shooting for the establishment sounds like a conspiracy theory. Is it possible some of these chaps are rewarded for exemplary gifts and ability? Boulez is pretty flash but he probably just wanted to get cool wheels, a sweet crib and holiday in the Maldives, right? Wake up sheeple

BTW - look on the current listening thread. I reckon there's a fair whack of contemporary stuff on there alongside a bunch of other musics and I don't see that any deligitimisation (what is that anyway?) of anything occurring. Don't see you much on current listening however - what have you got on right now?

Edit: just spotted your "you mad bro" vibe - nice one
Let's not pile on Chordalrock, though. We can talk to him (I guess) without talking down to him, especially if it's basically facts that we're talking about (who/what is "the establishment") rather than just tastes/opinions (let alone semantics).
 
#159 ·
Remember Lope - it's the mere act of liking contemporary music that is inflammatory. It's a much cosier situation when we can all assume that we share our lack of understanding - and sometimes dismissal or worse :-( - of anything that sounds a bit yucky. If you like contemporary music you must at least be deferential and gentle and not publicise the fact lest someone be upset and never, NEVER, suggest that someone who doesn't "get it" is in any way not open to new experiences or has conservative expectations or is just a crashing dimwit - ;-) jokes, jokes!!!!!

Whatever you do, don't normalise liking contemporary music! Remember that a lot of people feel "very special" for liking the "great masters" when nearly everybody in the whole world finds them hella boring. Don't suggest there's things they haven't "got" yet ;-)

Hey - someone's gotta be the modernist bad cop round here!
 
#161 · (Edited)
There used to be a few members here who really had this attitude, but I haven't seen them active for awhile. I think you're safe. You can relax now. You've become the oppressor, whether you realize it or not. You've got to let people not like the music you like.

(Edit: Let me clarify this. One of the points of someguy's post, and your and PetrB's celebration of it, was to humiliate Chordalrock. I'm sure we all know this, but it needs to be said explicitly to make this all clear. More edit so you can discern what I really mean: Your collective hateful attitude towards people like him gives me a hateful attitude towards you. In my case it's not going to translate into hating the music, but in some other people's cases it will, and does. If that's not your goal, change your rhetoric. If it is your goal, well done all three.)

I suppose I'm too defensive in a way in that I've been on the other side of the elitist attitudes a few times. But still, even if I am a bit sensitive because of those experiences, no matter what pride I have in whatever, I really hope I don't have (let alone express) that particular sort of attitude, in any way.
 
#162 ·
This doesn't suggest:

This reminds me why I don't like violin concertos: they're about the playing. They're not about the music, they're about art, which is to say the art of playing and not the art of music alas.

A reasonable discussion is occurring
 
#166 · (Edited)
I think people take this stuff too seriously sometimes. No, I don't think that earlier works are really relevant in the 21st century. However, it doesn't mean I don't gain enjoyment from them, as I can either view them with a historical viewpoint (an "academic" setting, or looking at form for my own compositional gain) or I can appropriate them to be relevant to my life in the 21st century (I listen to Van Cliburn's Tchaik 1 Pno Concerto at various important moments in my life, and all of the sudden that music becomes something that is relevant to my life). However, it won't have the same relevance of describing the moments of now.
 
#169 ·
Thank you for hearing (reading) me out.
I learned some things compiling that list and researching the academic credentials of those composers...I'll be following up by checking out the music of a couple of them that I'm not very familiar with. This thread put me on that path, so thanks for facilitating my learning process (which is why I come here in the first place)!!!
 
#175 ·
If an individual wants to listen to West Side Story, the War Requiem or Shostakovich 10, all power to them. That's some pretty good music

If said individual wants to launch from a platform of relatively little knowledge an argument that is full of logical holes and factual error that the above music is objectively (i.e. NOT "in my opinion")better or more emotional/human/natural/clever/creative than, say, Salvatore Sciarrino or Morton Feldman or Hans Werner Henze (to name a diverse bunch), they might get some feedback. If they continue and continue in this vein it's likely to cause some dismay and disappointment.

It's do unto others, innit. Or should people interested in contemporary music always be really polite and gentle with those that want to have a crack at the music they enjoy? I don't think contemporary music is that desperate for attention, to be honest
 
#177 ·
I wrote this and never posted it but now I reread it and decided to post it:

Really, I know I'm not a starving composer trying to get more money or attention, but I think it's fine. We're exaggerating the suffering of contemporary music. Maybe not all of it meets "our" standards, but labels like Kairos and Tzadik exist, and DG has the 20/21 series, and Naxos does a lot of contemporary music, and so does ECM, and Nonesuch, and Hyperion etc. And most of those things get performed before they get recorded. Again I do realize that much of that music is ideologically impure - Whitacre springs to mind, or Tavener, or in other directions Lloyd Webber, Jenkins, all that world fusion stuff being explored by people like Yo-Yo Ma, and of course video game music and soundtracks, and this kind of list could go on and on - but it is new music. Anyway, no matter how much that kind of stuff disgusts the more elite ("discerning" etc.) listeners critics, at least they can take solace in the fact that such music isn't the only music getting made. At least some of the stuff that gets made does meet our considered approval, however reluctantly we grant it, and manages not to become too compromisingly popular. (I'm only half-teasing. Maybe two-thirds teasing. But I'm at least one-thirds serious. Maybe even half serious, with an effort.)

Truthfully, things have probably never been much easier for new music. It's easy to point out that until about Mendelssohn's time people wanted to hear new music rather than old music. Even though that is true, it's also true that the absolute number of composers able to find an audience is higher today than it was then, just as there are hundreds of times more orchestras than there were then. Not to mention universities or various music festivals.

(Granted many of those institutions have the misfortune of being incorrigibly bourgeois, or even worse, but perhaps the plutocrats are replacing the old aristocrats, so there's even some really good reason to hope we can get back to the way it was before 1848. Naturally, our plutocrats need to be educated in the use of elite culture to legitimize their rule, but that's what we're here for. Until they take our advice, of course, they remain merely really rich bourgeois. But as they get a bit more comfortable with their inherited stations, the prestige of the old aristocratic activities will increasingly appeal to them, and they will begin to consult us again.) (I'm half-teasing. Maybe two-thirds teasing, at the most.)

It's also true that there's more old music than there used to be; if we're talking about relative importance (that old zero-sum game) then things really might be as bad as they've ever been for new composers, what with people not listening exclusively to them in a time when we're also rediscovering so much Baroque, Renaissance, and medieval music. And of course all those orchestras and music venues in all those tiny cities (like San Antonio and Nashville) have to try to balance all these things out financially.

But in the end, it's still true that at the moment there are hundreds, probably even thousands of composers making a decent living around the world at the moment. Granted, just as composers had to do in the old days, these jomomos have to give some lessons (sadly, to proletarian students rather than to glorious aristocrats, but for now money has no stink). Despite these humiliations, their music is getting made, some of it is getting to be a bit more famous, and some of it is even recorded, and just occasionally some of it even achieves our approval. (I'm not kidding.)
 
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