Alternative to the term "New Complexity"

[iumonito]

Debussy and Ravel did not like the term impressionistic for their music.  Baroque was also intended to be a derogatory description of the music first described by it.  Classical was not even a contemporary way to describe the music of Haydn or Mozart.

I understand Finnissy and others do not like the term New Complexity.  How should we call their music?

[jre58591]

hmm, i thyink the term "new complexity", even if it is a derogatory term in some people's minds, is the best fit for this style of composition. i mean, what other name can one give it, within reasonable terms? look at impressionism, baroque, and classical. no one else thought of any better terms for those periods. so, we should just leave it as is, in my opinion.

[ramseytheii]

I understand Finnissy and others do not like the term New Complexity.  How should we call their music?

I can't wait to hear some of the answers to that question.    

Walter Ramsey

[jre58591]

neither can i, actually. to tell the truth, im actually afraid of some of the answers.

[thalbergmad]

Tempting.

Finissy is one of the very few contemporary composers i have listened to (apart from Hinton).

It reminds me of a programme i once saw on television where a group of karate experts were trying to destroy a piano with kicks and punches.

My brain is simply not attuned to this music and i actually found it painfull to listen to.

New Complexity would appear to me to be a good description.

Thal

[ahinton]

Writing as a composer myself, I would say that, whether or not the term "New Complexity" ever was a suitable or useful epithet with which to attempt to encapsulate and describe music of certain persuasions, it must surely be of less realistic and relevant use now than ever it might have been, since there's no longer anything that "new" about much of the music spoken of under this heading. Ferneyhough's first quartet and Missa Brevis, Finnissy's English Country-Tunes and other works are between 30 and 40 years old now (and this is arguably where it all started). And who cares about the "complexity" as such anyway? I remember years ago reading a review (OK, it was admittedly only in The Wire, for all that may or may not be worth) of a recording of James Dillon's two fine orchestral works ignis noster and helle nacht which sought to suggest that these leaned toward the "old complexity" of Big Daddy Schönberg; now, leaving aside the quality(?!) of the journalism here, the point (if indeed there really was one) must surely have been that the "complexity" - if indeed there was any - was nothing "new" as such. If one must use the term at all, then we must surely accept that Godowsky and Medtner, Strauss and Schönberg might, on the strength of their own respective ways, be described as "complexicists" - but, as I have suggested, who cares - really?

I realise that I have yet to answer the question that is the thread title, so I will now do so as best I can; I know that is is usually rude to answer a question with another question, but why do we actually need an alternative term, or indeed the original term, here - at all?...

Best,

Alistair

[jakev2.0]

CRAP.

[thalbergmad]

Sometimes you say things that i am thinking but would not say myself.

Thal

[iumonito]

Alistair, thanks for your sensible response.

I note that Ars Nova and the Second Viennese School (or Bossa Nova, for that matter) share with New Complexity that they are named in relation to something that came before.  (Neo Classicism, post-romanticism, Neo Romanticism, and Post Modernism do too).

I share with you the puzzlement of what the previous complexity referred to.  I though it was Godowsky, Busoni and Sorabji, which certainly share a great contrapuctual interest that is somewhat contrary to the Prokofievs, Ravels and Stravinskys of the world.  I would very much not call Schoenberg, Berg or Webern the previous complexity, as their textures tend to be, in my opinion, rather transparent.

Just for my education, the New Complexity composers are not into serialism and are all from the UK, right?

And answering yours.  Labels simplify and limit.  The music of Ravel and Debussy, richly neoclassical as it is, has suffered decades of fuzzy pedaling as a result of a poorly chosen epithet.  The one of Sorabji is suffering from relative oblivion partially for lack of one (vibrant as the efforts of you and your fellows is for its promotion and preservation).

[ahinton]

CRAP.

Would you mind just elucidating precisely what it is that you describe with that term, its use or responses thereto here? Thanks in advance...

Best,

Alistair

[soliloquy]

Neo Complexity


Nah, to be honest, I think New Complexity is an entirely fitting title.  Also, the actual MUSIC from Ferneyhough, Zimmermann, Barrett, Finnissy etc is also so varied in general sound and texture, it would be very difficult to classify it all as one separate entity on a purely aesthetic basis, and I believe that to avoid simply calling it "21st Century" (I would not say it generally fits into the Avant-Garde Category) we must choose a classification based upon the compositional form and structure, and I believe that "New Complexity" is as fitting a title there can be.

[Mozartian]

"New Complexity" is much better than it sounds.

*resists making further comments or any suggestions*

[ahinton]

Second Viennese School

aka "Viennese Secondary School".

Neo Classicism

aka "Neon Classicism" (pace Sorabji)

Here's another suich...

Total Serialism

aka "Serial Totalitarianism" (mind you, even Boulez himself would probably agree with this one these days)...

Schönberg espoused a kind of complexity in his own way, though - as you rightly imply - even his most "complex" works such as the First String Quartet and Erwartung are eminently lucid and texturally transparent (at least in the right hands); the "complexity" here is perhaps less one of texture as of form and structure underpinning highly eventful music in which much meaning - not to say multiple layers of meaning - are presented in very short spaces of real time.

"Post-romanticism" is, I think about when the mail delivery technician brings Valentine cards to their recipients late.

The very notion of "post modernism" is, it seems to me, at the bottom of this unseemly and unedifying heap of portmanteau terms and, as such, can at best be considered as nothing more than a mere joke.

The "New Complexity" composers are based wherever whoever anyone who wants to use the term determines that they are based; yes, there is deemed to be a relatively prominent Brit faction, but it's not alone among the overview of those various people who are accused of espousing whatever this term is or is not meant to signify.

You are right in what you say about Debussy and Ravel, although by no means exclusively so, for their piano music, for example, has by no means always been presented in the way that you describe. It's probably too early for most observers to form conclusions about Sorabji's rôle in the world of 20th century music, given the current state of advancement in the performing tradition in his music, but the evidence of his stature is undoubtedly piling up consistently as one splendid recording and performance succeeds another.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Neo Complexity


Nah, to be honest, I think New Complexity is an entirely fitting title.  Also, the actual MUSIC from Ferneyhough, Zimmermann, Barrett, Finnissy etc is also so varied in general sound and texture, it would be very difficult to classify it all as one separate entity on a purely aesthetic basis, and I believe that to avoid simply calling it "21st Century" (I would not say it generally fits into the Avant-Garde Category) we must choose a classification based upon the compositional form and structure, and I believe that "New Complexity" is as fitting a title there can be.

I suppose that, if one really must have some kind of portmanteau-word title, then maybe it is, as you suggest, about as useful as any - but I remain wondering why we would need such a title in the first place; it would, as you rightly say, be "very difficult" (I'd venture to suggest "impossible, actually) to "classify it all as one separate entity on a purely æsthetic basis"...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

"New Complexity" is much better than it sounds.

That sounds almost like the obverse of the famous barb from the Chicago impresario Harry Zelzer "good music isn't nearly so bad as it sounds" (as quoted in Pleasures of Music, ed. Jacques Barzun [Michael Joseph; London, 1952]). The writer, philosopher, art historian and editor Barzun, incidentally, is still alive and, as far as I know still working - and he's older than Elliott Carter...

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

aka "Serial Totalitarianism" (mind you, even Boulez himself would probably agree with this one these days)...

Best,

Alistair

Would this term be in reference to the rumored stranglehold Boulez has maintained over arts funding in France for years now? I've always heard that his powerful position in musical politics has resulted in an unofficial blacklisting of composers who go contrary to his "advanced/modernist" style of composition.

I don't know whether it's been this unflattering rumor or his intellectually precocious music that has killed any interest in him for me.  It could also be the emotionally arid Mahler he has been recording of late -- which sounds to me like a projection, emotionally speaking, of his own compositions.   

[ahinton]

Would this term be in reference to the rumored stranglehold Boulez has maintained over arts funding in France for years now? I've always heard that his powerful position in musical politics has resulted in an unofficial blacklisting of composers who go contrary to his "advanced/modernist" style of composition.

It's not in the specific reference you may surmise - indeed, it is not specifically directed at Boulez alone in any case; it is more to do with the inherent nature of the principles of total serialism, which were fairly short-lived, even in terms of Boulez's one-time espousal. Dutilleux has on several occasions spoken out against what he has seen as the kind of stranglehold upon French contemporary musical life that he has perceived Boulez to have - or at least to have had; Boulez, in turn, has, to my knowledge, only ever conducted one of his older compatriot's orchestral works, which is a great shame, as I think he would work wonders with the others.

I don't know whether it's been this unflattering rumor or his intellectually precocious music that has killed any interest in him for me.  It could also be the emotionally arid Mahler he has been recording of late -- which sounds to me like a projection, emotionally speaking, of his own compositions.   

I cannot, of course, speak for you about your own feelings on Boulez's music; I can only report (and I am by no means alone in so doing) that, in some of his more recent work, his French roots are showing more clearly than they did during his Darmstadt years in the 50 and early 60s.

Best,

Alistair

[iumonito]

Would this term be in reference to the rumored stranglehold Boulez has maintained over arts funding in France for years now? I've always heard that his powerful position in musical politics has resulted in an unofficial blacklisting of composers who go contrary to his "advanced/modernist" style of composition.

I don't know whether it's been this unflattering rumor or his intellectually precocious music that has killed any interest in him for me.  It could also be the emotionally arid Mahler he has been recording of late -- which sounds to me like a projection, emotionally speaking, of his own compositions.   

Who would be the victims of this rumored apartheid?

Boulez, by the way, conducts very good Ravel and Debussy.  I have not heard him in Messiaen, but being that Messiaen is the first composer to have subjected timber, dynamics, duration and register to the same serial strictures that Schoenberg started in his Op. 23 No. 5, I would tend to think Boulez would understand his music fairly well.

Alistair, do you know Boulez in person?  Just curious, since you move in high-level creative circles much more than anyone else I am in contact with.

Thanks all for the tertulia.  Most entertaining.  Reminds me of the little epigraph at the begining of Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

[ahinton]

Boulez, by the way, conducts very good Ravel and Debussy.  I have not heard him in Messiaen, but being that Messiaen is the first composer to have subjected timber, dynamics, duration and register to the same serial strictures that Schoenberg started in his Op. 23 No. 5, I would tend to think Boulez would understand his music fairly well.

Indeed he does. I have heard him in Messiaen as well - although the fact that Messiaen is thought (no entirely accurately, it has to be said) to have been the first composer to explore a total serialist path, this was clearly very much a brief byway for him and no more than that.

Alistair, do you know Boulez in person?

No, I don't - though I do know quite a few people who do.

Best,

Alistair

[iumonito]

[T]he fact that Messiaen is thought (no entirely accurately, it has to be said) to have been the first composer to explore a total serialist path, this was clearly very much a brief byway for him and no more than that.

Would you mind elaborating.  What are the origins of the total serialist path?

[jre58591]

Would you mind elaborating.  What are the origins of the total serialist path?

i think one of the major examples of messiaen's "total serialism" is his etude "mode de valeurs et d'intensités".

[iumonito]

That's what I referred to, but Alistair was, I think, referring to something else predating Messiaen's earliest exploration of such technique.

[ahinton]

That's what I referred to, but Alistair was, I think, referring to something else predating Messiaen's earliest exploration of such technique.

Yes and yes. Certain parts of Messiaen's Quatre Études are indeed what marked him out in this field, but other composers before him had been feeling their respective ways towards the notion of a kind of total serialism before him - this is not to undermine Messiaen's achievement in his work (evenm though he then almost immediately distanced himself from it and never returned to this way of writing). Look at Roslavets, Obouhov and others - whilst no one before Messiaen was quite as systematic about this, the seeds were surely sown before him - and on fairly barren ground, given the very short eventual shelf-life of total serialism...

Best,

Alistair

[crippledsymmetry]

There isn't necessarily any association with some 'old' complexity intended so much as a distinction from the simplifying tendencies of music that were in the air during the 70s/80s. I suppose that the most obvious precursor is the post-war avant-garde, especially the serialist and stochastic techniques developed then which have been most influential on the composers in question, but given most of their other musical interests one could just as well point to the English madrigalists & ars subtilior...

As far as I can tell the 'new complexity' branding was invented (not by the composers) in order to promote the music on the continent, at a time when British music was not really taken very seriously due to being crap for centuries. Most of the composers concerned dislike being grouped together too strongly as they all have highly individual approaches to writing music and a general distrust of categorising, branding etc., but the label was probably useful in establishing them all as a real breath of fresh air in the British music scene and important presence in Europe generally.

[iumonito]

British music was not really taken very seriously due to being crap for centuries.

Really?

Alistair, some help here, I know this is getting in the mud with the swine, but anyway.

Elgar, Holst, Vaughn Williams, Bax, Britten, Sorabji, Tippett.  And the way you put it you would also capture Purcell, Byrd, Dowland, Bull, Gibbons.

S'il vous plait.

[ahinton]

Alistair, some help here, I know this is getting in the mud with the swine, but anyway.

Elgar, Holst, Vaughn Williams, Bax, Britten, Sorabji, Tippett.  And the way you put it you would also capture Purcell, Byrd, Dowland, Bull, Gibbons.

S'il vous plait.

I cannot help you here, because the premises are too flawed. Of course there was a period in which the accusation of the "land without music", whilst something of an exaggeration, had sufficient credibility to hold water during the period between the death of Purcell and the rise of Elgar, but British music had so much going for it outside that fallow period that "crippledsymmetry"'s comment on this can simply not be taken at face value and believed. The rest of what he/she writes is far more credible, however...

There isn't necessarily any association with some 'old' complexity intended so much as a distinction from the simplifying tendencies of music that were in the air during the 70s/80s. I suppose that the most obvious precursor is the post-war avant-garde, especially the serialist and stochastic techniques developed then which have been most influential on the composers in question, but given most of their other musical interests one could just as well point to the English madrigalists & ars subtilior...

As far as I can tell the 'new complexity' branding was invented (not by the composers) in order to promote the music on the continent, at a time when British music was not really taken very seriously due to being crap for centuries. Most of the composers concerned dislike being grouped together too strongly as they all have highly individual approaches to writing music and a general distrust of categorising, branding etc., but the label was probably useful in establishing them all as a real breath of fresh air in the British music scene and important presence in Europe generally.

It's certainly true that the composers didn't invent, or see any kind of PR advantage in, the term "New Complexity" - which is just as well, really, since - as Sorabji observed in the 30s - what might be promoted as so very much "in the mode" and the latest fashion in "musical haberdashery" was - and is - likely to become yesterday's news all too soon, so any such term that seeks to bind together some group of people under the name "New..." anything at all carries with it its own inherent risks.

Britain certainly suffered from a backward-looking stance in the mid-20th century which saw a strong resistance to having anything to do with certain continental persuasions, preferring what it perceived as some kind of "English" pastoral realism, yet composers such as Searle and Lutyens became first branded as modernist enemies and then old-hat serialists in a period which saw the coming and going of William Glock's somewhat despotic (though at least in part necessary) régime at the BBC following Searle's input there and before the débâcle with Simpson. The whole thing can now be seen as faintly nonsensical, since we now accept George Lloyd and Brian Ferneyhough as British composers who at a certain time worked concurrently to produce music that might to some seem as though it originated from different planets but which was still the product of British minds (OK, Cornish in the case of Lloyd).

Nowadays, it's a free-for-all everywhere to the extent that "anything goes" (at least up to a stylistic point) and the remarks made by Schönberg in his book Style and Idea when defending and explaining his continuing need to write tonal music after having developed his "system of composing with twelve tones related equally only to one another" and claimed that it would "ensure the supremacy of German music for 100 years" (which Ronald Stevenson once wryly remarked was a "strange idea for an Austrian Jew to have") were not only pertinent but percipient and arguably also strangely prescient of the present age.

Reading a statement that "British music was crap for centuries" would first prompt me to ask whoever had the stupidity to make it (a) which particular centuries he/she had in mind and (b) what it was that supposedly singled out Britain for this gross accusation (notwithstanding the reservation to which I drew attention earlier).

I'm not sure that this has helped, but I hope it has.

I would, incidentally, lay a minimum of a thousand pounds to a penny that the true identity of "crippledsymmetry" is not Colin Matthews...

Best,

Alistair

[crippledsymmetry]

Reading a statement that "British music was crap for centuries" would first prompt me to ask whoever had the stupidity to make it (a) which particular centuries he/she had in mind and (b) what it was that supposedly singled out Britain for this gross accusation (notwithstanding the reservation to which I drew attention earlier).

I was being flippant and referring to the perspective of highly modernist European guys really; though I don't really care much for the later composers mentioned by iumonito (except V-W & Tippett to some extent) I certainly recognise that there were important contributions made by many people after Purcell.

You mention some debacle with Simpson -- I understand that his music did very well during and after his time at the BBC, especially given the conflict of interests; and that he actually resigned post-Glock when the new guy cut contemporary music at the Proms massively. Am I wrong?

PS: I'm sure not Colin Matthews but I am British

[ahinton]

You mention some debacle with Simpson -- I understand that his music did very well during and after his time at the BBC, especially given the conflict of interests; and that he actually resigned post-Glock when the new guy cut contemporary music at the Proms massively. Am I wrong?

Not entirely. Simpson's music didn't do as well as it deserved to during his tenure at BBC, although this was at least in part because he was determined not to be seen as involving himself in what might be seen as nepotism and favouritism; he even discouraged attention to it at times for this sole reason. He resigned at least in part beause of disagreements over the Proms (see his essay The Proms and Natural Justice).

PS: I'm sure not Colin Matthews but I am British

Since I know Colin Matthews, I did actually know that you are not him! That was just ME being facetious!

Best,

Alistair

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I would, incidentally, lay a minimum of a thousand pounds to a penny that the true identity of "crippledsymmetry" is not Colin Matthews...

Best,

Alistair

I hate to break the joke, but surely you meant to say "I would, incidentally, lay a minimum of a thousand pounds to a penny that the true identity of "crippledsymmetry" is not Morton Feldman..."

[ahinton]

I hate to break the joke, but surely you meant to say "I would, incidentally, lay a minimum of a thousand pounds to a penny that the true identity of "crippledsymmetry" is not Morton Feldman..."

Well, break or no break and joke or no joke, I suppose that I should at least be mightily relieved to discover that someone thinks that they know what I meant to say - for I'm sure that I'd never have guessed it myself...

Best,

Alistair

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I would, incidentally, lay a minimum of a thousand pounds to a penny that the true identity of "crippledsymmetry" is not Colin Matthews...

Best,

Alistair

Since I know Colin Matthews, I did actually know that you are not him! That was just ME being facetious!

Best,

Alistair

I must be missing something.
Colin Matthews wrote 'Broken Symmetry'.
Morton Feldman wrote 'Crippled Symmetry'.

That's the last time I try deconstructing your humour, Alistair. No more pedantry for me today, I feel

[ahinton]

I must be missing something.
Colin Matthews wrote 'Broken Symmetry'.
Morton Feldman wrote 'Crippled Symmetry'.

Maybe you are - and maybe it's quite simply that I did not happen to feel disposed to mention Feldman, for whatever reason, so when you then write that

That's the last time I try deconstructing your humour, Alistair. No more pedantry for me today, I feel

I will try to breathe two sighs of relief - one each at your renunciations of (a) further deconstructivist activity and (b) pedantry.

At least neither wrote Ronde des Princesses...

Best,

Colin Morton (aka Marty Feldman)

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Best,

Colin Morton (aka Marty Feldman)

    is as near as I can manage to an appropriate response..

[ahinton]

  is as near as I can manage to an appropriate response..

Well, I guess we'll all accept it gracefully as your best effort in that direction, then; I wouldn't try that eye-rolling for too long, however, in case you do your vision any damamge. None of us would want that.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I wonder if any significance could - or even ought to be - read into the relationship between the subject of this thread and the direction that it has taken...

Best,

Alistair

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Well, I guess we'll all accept it gracefully as your best effort in that direction, then; I wouldn't try that eye-rolling for too long, however, in case you do your vision any damamge. None of us would want that.

Best,

Alistair

I'm sure my vision will not suffer any damamge. Oops, I foreswore pedantry.  At least it's clear my vision is still functional. I certainly wouldn't want the eyes of Marty, your new alter ego.

I wonder if any significance could - or even ought to be - read into the relationship between the subject of this thread and the direction that it has taken...

Best,

Alistair

Yes, quite agreed. Enough of this ribaldry.

[ahinton]

I'm sure my vision will not suffer any damamge. Oops, I foreswore pedantry.  At least it's clear my vision is still functional. I certainly wouldn't want the eyes of Marty, your new alter ego.

Not sure about the alter ego bit, but if there is one at all I can report with some relief that it's not Colin Morton, the Broken Cripple...

Yes, quite agreed. Enough of this ribaldry.

EUREKA!! That's it! You've got it! "Ribaldry" - the "Alternative to the term "New Complexity""! Congratulations. I guess that just about wraps up this thread (albeit with a "Mornington Crescent" moment...)

By the way, it occurred to me after mentioning it that "Ronde des Princesses" is from the Firebird, although "fire" and "bird" are perhaps not going together in too pleasant a way right now in deepest Suffolk, England, where many thousands of turkeys are having to be destroyed as a consequence of a confirmed outbreak of bird 'flu which, as it happens, has been identified on one of the farms of Bernard Matthews (who I hasted to add is no relation to Colin of that ilk)...

Best,

Alistair

Best,

Alistair