A bit of background. At the time this article was written, Copland had already written both his early, more difficult works, inspired by Stravinsky, and also his New Deal-era populist works (also inspired by Stravinsky, just more diatonic). A few years later the critic Henry Pleasants was to write The Agony of Modern Music, a book which declared that classical music was dead, that the only serious music left was Jazz (and he ended up disliking the turns that took too before long), and that Wagner was the last serious composer to write for his time and his audience.
https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/14/specials/copland-modernist.html
The list of accessibility levels of the various composers (all still living at the time, I believe?) is interesting. I wonder how closely it aligns with the profiles of those who feel reticence towards 20th century music. (Note that when he says "late" Stravinsky, this does not mean the serial works, which had not yet been written in 1949.)
From my perspective, this music is very much a part of my aesthetic, and I find it difficult, as did Copland, to understand how others find it incomprehensible, unmelodic, chaotic, and so forth. It is just as difficult for me to imagine that by listening to the music as it is for me to recover my initial impressions of Debussy or Mahler as noisy and unlikable.
I think there are signs that what is considered difficult has continued to gradually shift over time, and even the music in his top category of difficulty has moved down the ladder to make way for newer music that presents more problems.
What are your reactions to the article and the list in particular?
https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/14/specials/copland-modernist.html
The list of accessibility levels of the various composers (all still living at the time, I believe?) is interesting. I wonder how closely it aligns with the profiles of those who feel reticence towards 20th century music. (Note that when he says "late" Stravinsky, this does not mean the serial works, which had not yet been written in 1949.)
From my perspective, this music is very much a part of my aesthetic, and I find it difficult, as did Copland, to understand how others find it incomprehensible, unmelodic, chaotic, and so forth. It is just as difficult for me to imagine that by listening to the music as it is for me to recover my initial impressions of Debussy or Mahler as noisy and unlikable.
I think there are signs that what is considered difficult has continued to gradually shift over time, and even the music in his top category of difficulty has moved down the ladder to make way for newer music that presents more problems.
What are your reactions to the article and the list in particular?