Why aren't there any Rachmaninoffs anymore?

[epf]

I look forward to hearing some of your recordings.

I am currently engrossed with Woelfl at the moment, but perhaps Pleyel is not a world apart.

Thal

Here are links to a couple of recordings. Most of Pleyel's solo piano works are short, and many follow the pattern established by his teacher, Haydn.

Allegro
Minuet in C

Ed

[pianogeek_cz]

Hi pianogeek,

Have you been able to find any samples of recordings for Shohat's piano solo music?  I've looked a bit, but cannot locate any.  It seems too that his output in that department is quite small to date.

Unfortunately, no. I'd love to.
His piano concertos... ah, if only these were available somewhere...

[ahinton]

Composers for the concert hall long ago discarded the need to have an answer in terms of a sympathetic listeners; they've done this both in theory and in practice.  Is it any wonder that such a deeply entrenched hostility towards the phantom "modern music" exists?

Yes. One has only to recognise that some music once thought of as audience-unfriendly has subsequently become much less widely regarded in that way to realise that, like everything else in life, it is bound to change with time; the same could be said of the ways in which certain composers go in and out of fashion, despite the (obvious) fact that their music does not itself change.

I feel that ahinton does his own music, and music of many of his colleagues, a great disservice, when confronted with the grievances of rachfan, merely refuses to not recognize the source of those grievances.

I do nothing of the sort. "rachfan" has expressed some personal opinions, to all of which he is entitled and by no means all of which I took to be "grievances" in any case. When the source of some of his remarks - which I certainly do recognise (and I would have expected you to recognise that I took sufficiently seriously to set aside some time in responding to them) - is personal opinion, I do not take those remarks as gospel but as individual personal opinion. I therefore do not understand what particular disservice you believe I am doing, so I will be interested to hear your answer to this.

I think for the most part, composers living today, who are living in the esoteric atmosphere of their own music and music rarely heard by others, would be well advised to not pretend as though people's incomprehension of "modern music" has no basis in reality.  Ignoring those trends will only create more hostility.  Or put another way, not accepting that these oft-heard complaints have a basis in reality is a great weakness, which will not aid in the general acceptance of new music.

There are several shortcomings in this paragraph. Firstly, all living composers live in an atmosphere of a wide range of music, not merely their own and that of their composer colleagues; such coccooned isolation would indeed be as unhealthy as you imply, but it is also exceedingly rare. We all know that many people claim not to "comprehend" what we do, but we also recognise that we are a minority within a minority as "classical" composers in any case; furthermore, whilst I cannot speak for other living composers, I am personally far more concerned with how people respond to my music than I am with how individual listeners think that they "comprehend" it; one does not have to know all about the intricate intellectual and other creative processes undergone by Byrd, Ferneyhough, Bach, Carter, etc. in order to respond meaningfully to their works, whether positively or negatively. It's pointless just listening to complaints about "new music" (whatever that may be) if one does not also listen to other more positive responses. As for the notion of composers deliberately writing in ways that are hostile to audiences, that is largely an unfounded premise for, apart from any other consideration (as composers as diverse as Sorabji, Birtwistle and Carter have all observed independently of one another), no composer can possibly know in advance who will listen to their music or how they will respond to it. "New music" is, as I have recently observed elsewhere on this forum, music that has been recently composed and the term therefore embraces a vast variety of concurrent musical styles and disciplines and means of expression; your remarks, on the other hand, seem selectively to focus on certain contemporary musical persuasions only, as distinct from the larger picture, so the conclusions at which you then arrive are inevitably relevant (insofar as they are relevant at all) only to a certain proportion of present-day music in any case.

Best,

Alistair

[steinway43]

Not so long ago I saw a story about a kid that was being called a genius because he just wrote music all day long. The music is ok but nothing new or special, and yet it's getting played. To me it seems more like he's suffering from a musical kind of tourrettes or epilepsy, frankly. This was the program "60 Minutes" and he was compared to Mozart. But he's NOT a Mozart. It's bullshit. But....he was nice looking.

On another program, and forgive me for not remembering what it was at this point, an "important composer" was featured. And why was he considered "important," you may ask? He was young, black, and most importantly, good looking, and had written hip hop music for string quartet. That's it, folks. Nevermind that the Kronos Quartet played Purple Haze YEARS ago. Nothing new here.

The music world is far too political and hung up on looks. A Rachmaninoff might well be out there but he can't get the time of day from anyone becuase he's not good looking, not young, not hip, anything along those lines.

There is a reason that many conductors insist on holding auditions for orchestra positions from behind a screen, so the playing is judged only by the music and nothing about the individual's appearance, as it should be. Composition faculties need to work on this as well. My own career as both a pianist and composer was trashed because of how I look, while lesser but prettier people always got the opportunities.

Madness reigns! lol

[mcgillcomposer]

Not so long ago I saw a story about a kid that was being called a genius because he just wrote music all day long. The music is ok but nothing new or special, and yet it's getting played. To me it seems more like he's suffering from a musical kind of tourrettes or epilepsy, frankly. This was the program "60 Minutes" and he was compared to Mozart. But he's NOT a Mozart. It's bullshit. But....he was nice looking.

On another program, and forgive me for not remembering what it was at this point, an "important composer" was featured. And why was he considered "important," you may ask? He was young, black, and most importantly, good looking, and had written hip hop music for string quartet. That's it, folks. Nevermind that the Kronos Quartet played Purple Haze YEARS ago. Nothing new here.

The music world is far too political and hung up on looks. A Rachmaninoff might well be out there but he can't get the time of day from anyone becuase he's not good looking, not young, not hip, anything along those lines.

There is a reason that many conductors insist on holding auditions for orchestra positions from behind a screen, so the playing is judged only by the music and nothing about the individual's appearance, as it should be. Composition faculties need to work on this as well. My own career as both a pianist and composer was trashed because of how I look, while lesser but prettier people always got the opportunities.

Madness reigns! lol

Are you talking about Jay Greenberg?

[retrouvailles]

Jay Greenberg may be a prodigy, but if you compare him to other living composers, he's absolutely nothing special. His music sounds largely uninspired and doesn't make an impression on a listener.

And for the record, I don't think he looks nice looking. I think he looks retarded.

[mattgreenecomposer]

Isn't this thread just like  "I heart Xenakis's."

I've commented on this topic a million times so its like beating a dead horse.

And ....there are plenty of us romantic composers out there, its YOU the performer who doesn't take the time to go to our web-pages and look/purchase our music which is a shame.  Instead we are thrown in the same "bucket" as all the other "new" composers.

mattgreenecomposer.com

[retrouvailles]

Not really. Lots of "new" composers get the spotlight, especially where I am. Here at my uni we dedicate a lot of time to living composers, both those that are well-established and those that are up-and-coming, and that is how it should be. Most of these people are quality composers that I can see standing the test of time. Those of you that have to rely on a website solely to form a reputation just need to persist a bit more and get your name out in other ways. If you are truly a good composer, you might get noticed. And if that doesn't work, well, I'm sorry to say, maybe composing just isn't your thing. It's incredibly hard to be a (working) composer today that can bring something new to the table (originality), engage an audience, and actually compose well. Most composers that I have seen featured in new music concerts embody all 3 of these criteria.

[mattgreenecomposer]

Here it's marketing, or branding an individual who has some sort of unique ethnic background or some sort of quality that has nothing to do with their skill level.  (Disabled African american women composers from Ethiopia over 70.) "Lets run with it Bob..."  Lol!  I see this crap all the time no kidding!  Alot of composers get known (as someone else pointed out) because the people in charge try to make money off of them.  Not because they are good.  I go to new music concerts all the time and unfortunately its not about "something new to the table (originality), engage an audience, and actually compose well."  Engage an audience! are you kidding me.   Most people are asleep, checking their watch, and ready to leave after five minutes.

What it comes down to is personal taste.  Most people in charge of these events are clueless, and the bottom line is the $ to keep the business running.

Why aren't there any Rachmaninoff's--because personal taste and hard work has transpired into either arrogance in the academic world or 2 measure catchy phrases of the pop world.

[mcgillcomposer]

Not really. Lots of "new" composers get the spotlight, especially where I am. Here at my uni we dedicate a lot of time to living composers, both those that are well-established and those that are up-and-coming, and that is how it should be. Most of these people are quality composers that I can see standing the test of time. Those of you that have to rely on a website solely to form a reputation just need to persist a bit more and get your name out in other ways. If you are truly a good composer, you might get noticed. And if that doesn't work, well, I'm sorry to say, maybe composing just isn't your thing. It's incredibly hard to be a (working) composer today that can bring something new to the table (originality), engage an audience, and actually compose well. Most composers that I have seen featured in new music concerts embody all 3 of these criteria.

Most composers I have seen lack craftsmanship. They have all brought something 'new' to the table, they have all managed to engage an audience, but they rarely have the tools required to produce a coherent composition. There is so much bs in the world of new music that it's hard to distinguish between someone who is genuinely composing something good and someone who is just playing on the lack of discriminating ears.

[indutrial]

Most composers I have seen lack craftsmanship. They have all brought something 'new' to the table, they have all managed to engage an audience, but they rarely have the tools required to produce a coherent composition. There is so much bs in the world of new music that it's hard to distinguish between someone who is genuinely composing something good and someone who is just playing on the lack of discriminating ears.

You're either looking in the wrong places, focusing heavily on the negative, or espousing an overly dismissive and stodgy set of standards. While there are certainly some charlatans milling about in the composition world (some more public than others), I find that our current period is loaded with good composers who do have the tools required to produce coherent compositions. The past 100 years has seen a lot of these composers moving further from the public eye, but they are pretty easy to find if you bother looking for them. Looking through a heap of the CRI releases I've accumulated over the years, there are a ton of excellent contemporary composers penning works that transcend all period-boundaries. I would also make the argument that with the late 20th century's explosion of different genres, a lot of the world's musical genius spread out into other formats (jazz, rock, film scoring, sound design, electronica), especially considering classical music's aggregated retreat into itself.

[general disarray]

When I ask professors (and I have done so, face to face) why nobody writes Romantic style music anymore, the answer I receive is: "Because the great masters of the past discovered everything."

This, of course, is a stupid lie.  The fact is that the university/academic establishment banished tonality and compositions based on tonal centers in the late 1940s.  Composers who wrote with harmonic tonal centers were ridiculed and denied critical access to serious consideration. Korngold and Samuel Barber, among others, were among the first casualties of this decree, inspired by Schoenberg's avant garde 12-tone works. 

Melody and tonality are hardly exhausted -- simply banished by academics and critics in this so-called modern and post-modern age.  Pierre Boulez, for one, has held a strangle-hold on subsidies in France.  Composers who do not please him and his Establishment get no government subsidies.  Dutilleux is one of his casualities and leading critics.

Melody is indispensable to music.  It is that which is recognizable and memorable.  If the mind can't retain the sequence of tones, the composer's efforts are in vain.

Who, on this earth, would stipulate in his will that a composition by Boulez, Carter or Xenakis should be performed at his/her memorial service? Only, Boulez, Carter or Xenakis would ask this, you can be sure.  The rest of us would choose a composer who left us a moving and memorable melody. 

Snap out of it.  Music so intellectualized that it is anti-melodic is not memorable.  It will die with the absurd fashionable people who promote it.   

[mcgillcomposer]

You're either looking in the wrong places, focusing heavily on the negative, or espousing an overly dismissive and stodgy set of standards. While there are certainly some charlatans milling about in the composition world (some more public than others), I find that our current period is loaded with good composers who do have the tools required to produce coherent compositions. The past 100 years has seen a lot of these composers moving further from the public eye, but they are pretty easy to find if you bother looking for them. Looking through a heap of the CRI releases I've accumulated over the years, there are a ton of excellent contemporary composers penning works that transcend all period-boundaries. I would also make the argument that with the late 20th century's explosion of different genres, a lot of the world's musical genius spread out into other formats (jazz, rock, film scoring, sound design, electronica), especially considering classical music's aggregated retreat into itself.

You're right. I'm probably not looking in the right places. If you had to recommend one composer whose output thus far warrants serious attention and does not consist of self-indulgent BS, who would it be? I'm not being sarcastic; I am genuinely interested.

[counterpoint]

If you had to recommend one composer whose output thus far warrants serious attention and does not consist of self-indulgent BS, who would it be?

Perhaps Leif Segerstam...? 

[mcgillcomposer]

Perhaps Leif Segerstam...? 

Thanks a lot. I've been listening to snippets on the Naxos site - very solid stuff.

[counterpoint]

As wikipedia tells, Segerstam has composed

190 Symphonies (updated: January 29th, 2008)
30 String quartets
11 Violin concertos
8 Cello concertos
4 Piano concertos

 

[thalbergmad]

Snap out of it.  Music so intellectualized that it is anti-melodic is not memorable.  It will die with the absurd fashionable people who promote it.   

One can bit only hope.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

Actually, Segerstam now has 192 symphonies. And yes, the guy is pretty solid for having written SO MUCH stuff. But, if you look a bit more into the guy, you'll realize that he can't be human (aside from the vast output).

[counterpoint]

you'll realize that he can't be human (aside from the vast output).

So what sort of being do you suppose him to be...? 

[thalbergmad]

He is an actor.

He was in that series called "The life and times of Grizzly Adams".

Thal

[gyzzzmo]

He is an actor.

He was in that series called "The life and times of Grizzly Adams".

Thal

Is that with the Yogi Bear thingie? The picknick baskets?

[counterpoint]

Btw. today is Leif Segerstam's 64. birthday

Happy Birthday Mr. Segerstam!!!

[retrouvailles]

Seconded! To 192 more symphonies!

[indutrial]

You're right. I'm probably not looking in the right places. If you had to recommend one composer whose output thus far warrants serious attention and does not consist of self-indulgent BS, who would it be? I'm not being sarcastic; I am genuinely interested.

I'm actually not 100% sure who to recommend because I don't have the fullest grip on where you draw the line on something being self-indulgent and something not being so. I'll go by where I've sort of drawn lines in the past...

I've recently been very interested in music (mostly chamber) by American composers like Leo Kraft, David Loeb, Allen Anderson, and Nancy Van De Vate; also Europeans like Per Norgard and Hans Kox, among numerous others. All write considerably modern-sounding works like lots of dodecaphonic/polytonal language and challenging technical expectations, but the work never starts to sound like completely random and structureless indulgence. Best of all, none of it sounds gimmicky and hellbent on transmitting some beard-twirling philosophical idea that has little to do with actual music. I'm not trying to shoot that kind of stuff down, but I think that the die-hard supporters of music like Cage's and Stockhausen's have been overinflating that music's importance (and it is no doubt somewhat important) for years. It seems that these days, being a radical modern is way more stylish than being a confident and humble modern. That's why, living near the NYC scene, I never cease to hear a whole bunch of hype about the latest John Zorn piece or about some piece that calls this or that musical stereotype into serious question (snooooorrreee...). Because of that, I actually can/i] understand how easily people can get a sour impression of what's what in contemporary music. Getting past the bullshit hype is definitely important.

I have always religiously kept an eye on the release schedules by music labels like CRI (R.I.P.), Vienna Modern Masters, and Albany Records, all of which focus on good contemporary music that doesn't involve pushing pianos out of second-story windows, banging pebbles together (see the idiotic Christian Wolff piece on youtube), or being a piece written by Philip Glass.

Here are some recent pieces I've thoroughly enjoyed by recent composers:

Leo Kraft - Omaggio for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello
Leo Kraft - Cloud Studies for 12 flutes of varying ranges
Hans Kox - Saxophone Quartet no. 2
Charles Wuorinen - Irudule for oboe and six players
Per Norgard - String Quartets 7 through 10 (soon to be out on CD  YES!!! )

To me, this is just scratching the surface, since these composers have immense bodies of work for many different instrumental settings.

P.S. 192 symphonies, holy balls.... A Dutch composer named Jan van Dijk topped 1200 opus numbers sometime in the last decade (not all symphonies, thank god) and is actually a pretty awesome composer. His works are almost impossible to find in the States, sadly...

[steinway43]

Actually, Segerstam now has 192 symphonies. And yes, the guy is pretty solid for having written SO MUCH stuff. But, if you look a bit more into the guy, you'll realize that he can't be human (aside from the vast output).

192 Symphonies? Ok, but...are they any good?

[retrouvailles]

192 Symphonies? Ok, but...are they any good?

I've only heard maybe about 15 of them, but from the ones I have heard, they are very good. I don't really kno whow to describe them. Segerstam definitely has his own unique language. However, I will say that some are not really that accessible, whereas other are.

[rallestar]

It's a funny paradox that all artists and musicians talk about being innovative, progressive, different etc.

In reality they are all the same.

If they really wanted to be innovative, they would perhaps not follow the modernistic intellectualism that has been so predominant in the music world. As someone stated, "What's so innovative about stacking up bigger and bigger tone clusters?". Nothing.

Try something innovative, progressive and different - Try tradition and looking towards history instead of intellect.

[indutrial]

If they really wanted to be innovative, they would perhaps not follow the modernistic intellectualism that has been so predominant in the music world. As someone stated, "What's so innovative about stacking up bigger and bigger tone clusters?". Nothing.

Try something innovative, progressive and different - Try tradition and looking towards history instead of intellect.

Umm, it is possible to incorporate both...or at least not give a sh*t about where to draw the lines. There's not much of a point behind bitching about things like tone clusters or the kinds of compositional tools utilized by guys like Xenakis, spectral composers, etc... (Xenakis is easily the most tired bone of contention around here).

I'm pretty sure that most of the composers who have created innovative works throughout musical history were never sitting around preoccupied with situate themselves in any specific aesthetic territory. Most of them were too busy working. A good example I can cite is Danish composer Niels Viggo Bentzon, whose work is sort of like 1-part Bach, 1-part Chopin, several parts Schoenberg, several more parts Hindemith, and loads more parts completely himself. He was a clearly a figure who blended lots of the old and lots of the new. What's even more telling is how amazingly unusual his writings are about his own works. Describing the Tempered Piano XII (one of his sets of preludes and fugues), these are his exact notes:

"When the wind rose on the coast
The fisherman stopped short
Now is the time to catch
The biggest eel
Yes, why not?"

The descriptions of the other 12 sets are not much more informative. But that's fine, the music is left to speak for itself. I much prefer the chances I have to listen to a new piece without hearing about its technical, historical, political and harmonic inclination ahead of time.

I don't quite see the benefits of looking either at history OR at modern intellectualism for compositional ideas. How is musical history NOT simply former shades of musical intellectualism. A lot of users here wave the term "intuition" around here like a big ball and chain, making it seem like the modern age has lost touch with that mystical intellectual ideal and replaced it with soul-sucking, overly-thought-out musical mathematics. I don't quite see that and I would argue that a point of view like that is far more stubborn and transparantly limiting.

[rallestar]

Umm, it is possible to incorporate both...or at least not give a sh*t about where to draw the lines. There's not much of a point behind bitching about things like tone clusters or the kinds of compositional tools utilized by guys like Xenakis, spectral composers, etc... (Xenakis is easily the most tired bone of contention around here).

I'm pretty sure that most of the composers who have created innovative works throughout musical history were never sitting around preoccupied with situate themselves in any specific aesthetic territory. Most of them were too busy working. A good example I can cite is Danish composer Niels Viggo Bentzon, whose work is sort of like 1-part Bach, 1-part Chopin, several parts Schoenberg, several more parts Hindemith, and loads more parts completely himself. He was a clearly a figure who blended lots of the old and lots of the new. What's even more telling is how amazingly unusual his writings are about his own works. Describing the Tempered Piano XII (one of his sets of preludes and fugues), these are his exact notes:

"When the wind rose on the coast
The fisherman stopped short
Now is the time to catch
The biggest eel
Yes, why not?"

The descriptions of the other 12 sets are not much more informative. But that's fine, the music is left to speak for itself. I much prefer the chances I have to listen to a new piece without hearing about its technical, historical, political and harmonic inclination ahead of time.

I don't quite see the benefits of looking either at history OR at modern intellectualism for compositional ideas. How is musical history NOT simply former shades of musical intellectualism. A lot of users here wave the term "intuition" around here like a big ball and chain, making it seem like the modern age has lost touch with that mystical intellectual ideal and replaced it with soul-sucking, overly-thought-out musical mathematics. I don't quite see that and I would argue that a point of view like that is far more stubborn and transparantly limiting.

Your last sentences make clear exactly what the problem here is: Many people seem to regard modernism as a part of music history similar to romanticism or classicism when it comes to ideas about progressivism, and that since those eras saw new ideas gaining ground and modernism has done the same, conclude that the goal and means are the same.

Untrue. Whereas in previous eras, the music served humanity and served to express emotions (music based in history and concretism), today, the modern compositional music largely serves the purpose of music reaching a sort of "ideal" state. It doesn't have to reflect human emotions, it isn't bound to anything - Putting it short, music that strives to be above humans and exist only as abstract rather than music as an art, describing human emotions, philosophy, life and existence.

Thus there is a huge difference between the progression that Beethoven and later romantic composers offered, a progression grown from history with the goal to act on the same level as humans, as opposed to composers like Xenakis, whose music grows from upwards instead from downwards, whose music is as swerving on a cloud of abstraction.

[indutrial]

Untrue. Whereas in previous eras, the music served humanity and served to express emotions (music based in history and concretism), today, the modern compositional music largely serves the purpose of music reaching a sort of "ideal" state. It doesn't have to reflect human emotions, it isn't bound to anything - Putting it short, music that strives to be above humans and exist only as abstract rather than music as an art, describing human emotions, philosophy, life and existence.

Thus there is a huge difference between the progression that Beethoven and later romantic composers offered, a progression grown from history with the goal to act on the same level as humans, as opposed to composers like Xenakis, whose music grows from upwards instead from downwards, whose music is as swerving on a cloud of abstraction.

How does recent music not serve humanity? When a composer sits down and starts penning a new piece, whether it's tonal or atonal, simple or complex, it makes sense to think that he/she is doing it for some reason, to react artistically to some aspect of his or her existence. Composition is a human activity and hence serves humanity. Unless of course we became robots at some point and I was never notified.

Please refrain from fabricating useless dividing lines based on non-quantifable characteristics like "emotional connection to humanity" or "progression grown from history." A stat like that is about as convincing as a teddy-bear company's huggability scale. Just because a lot of modern people's emotions aren't contoured enough to register anything besides petty offense (followed by asinine justification) to modern works of art doesn't mean that there's automatically some kind of universal advantage tilted in their favor. If you want to share humanity's lame emotions, go pump your fist at a Bon Jovi concert. I'll stick with Xenakis and the other moderns.

[rallestar]

Look man, I just explained to you how they don't "serve humanity" (Even though that term is somewhat wrong, or at least has a bad sound to it.)

To be honest, you are working below me right now. Your idea is that as long as music is written it's all fine and dandy. I just explained how the goal of writing music in modernism has become not something relating to humans but rather to make music an abstract. And that is why I dislike modern music.

Your last sentences so fully disregard what I wrote that I question your capability to read and understand literature at much higher than highschool level.

But your post is such a fine example of what I was writing about: This relativism that says "Well, back then, there were composers writing music different from what their predecessors wrote, and so there is today, so because their music was liked, we must like the music of today". It's just different - There's a whole different ideology in the modernist music. But I think I have made it clear even to you by now.

[indutrial]

Look man, I just explained to you how they don't "serve humanity" (Even though that term is somewhat wrong, or at least has a bad sound to it.)

To be honest, you are working below me right now. Your idea is that as long as music is written it's all fine and dandy. I just explained how the goal of writing music in modernism has become not something relating to humans but rather to make music an abstract. And that is why I dislike modern music.

Your last sentences so fully disregard what I wrote that I question your capability to read and understand literature at much higher than highschool level.

But your post is such a fine example of what I was writing about: This relativism that says "Well, back then, there were composers writing music different from what their predecessors wrote, and so there is today, so because their music was liked, we must like the music of today". It's just different - There's a whole different ideology in the modernist music. But I think I have made it clear even to you by now.

I never said anybody had to like anything. I'm saying that your argument that the music of the classical and romantic periods is more in touch with humanity/history/etc than modern music is simply nonsense. All I can sense from a statement like that is that (a.) you, as an individual, prefer those older periods and (b.) for some reason, you feel it necessary to drive a rift between your tastes and more recent trends that you're not 100% comfortable with. I don't see any such rift. By your logic, shouldn't music have never developed beyond anonymously-created folk melodies and communal dance frameworks. Is a composer like Bach too intellectual and abstract or does he get a pass because he wrote music for Sunday masses, interacting with humanity via religion. Modern composers, despite any level of intellectualism, engage topics of human history head on. A relatively radical composer like John Zorn has put together countless projects related to exploring his Jewish heritage. Heavily abstract composers from the 20th century like Charles Wuorinen and Per Norgard have penned chamber works and operas based on figures and mythos culled from human history (I'm thinking of works like Wuorinen's Dante Trilogy and Norgard's Siddhartha opera). Even a work like Rzewski's The Road or Finnissy's History of Photography is intricately interwoven with facets of the human experience. Finnissy's musical exploration of his favorite homosexual poets is no less connected with the human experience than Tchaikovsky's musical explorations of the Napoleonic Wars. While I will agree that some composers from recent years have really leapt into uber-abstract hell (John Cage, Nam June Paik inevitably come to mind) where ideas start to shove musicality by the wayside, I must emphasize that those extreme examples are not really the status quo of modern music and that there are far more composers who are definitely still doing the same thing composers have done since time forgotten. They just have more compositional tools at their disposal and more liberty to invest their personality in the music than ever before.

Your last sentences so fully disregard what I wrote that I question your capability to read and understand literature at much higher than highschool level.

Nothing like good old patronizing to make one's self feel better. I'm sorry, but are your posts literature now? I have little interest in engaging your posts in an exhaustive point by point manner. The gist of your argument is perfectly clear and I'm trying to address the topic as a whole.

[rallestar]

I'm saying that your argument that the music of the classical and romantic periods is more in touch with humanity/history/etc than modern music is simply nonsense.

Yet you disregard all arguments I make for the point. I never said my posts were "literature", even though obviously they are - Everything written is technically literature.

Anyway, I honestly have no intention of reading your post, and could care less since I feel my point of view is not going to be changed by you calling it nonsense. Feel free to feel otherwise, although this discussion is, for me, over.

[indutrial]

Yet you disregard all arguments I make for the point. I never said my posts were "literature", even though obviously they are - Everything written is technically literature.

Anyway, I honestly have no intention of reading your post, and could care less since I feel my point of view is not going to be changed by you calling it nonsense. Feel free to feel otherwise, although this discussion is, for me, over.

There's a difference between outright disregarding an argument and arguing against an argument.

I don't really care if you read my posts. Based on your last reply, it was hard to tell if you were reading them anyway.

[rallestar]

Alright so I read through your post now, and you still miss the point: Music in previous eras came from below, Bachs music too, very much indeed, whereas modernist music (that means music written for the purpose of fulfilling the modernist ideology rather than music written during a specific period of years) seek to be music in abstract terms, Xenakis explicitly states that his music strives objectivity etc.

This hasn't got much to do with how the music emotes - I'm very well aware that Bach's music is emotionally appealing on a different level than romantic music. This has to do with what the composers want to achieve and express.

[indutrial]

Alright so I read through your post now, and you still miss the point: Music in previous eras came from below, Bachs music too, very much indeed, whereas modernist music (that means music written for the purpose of fulfilling the modernist ideology rather than music written during a specific period of years) seek to be music in abstract terms, Xenakis explicitly states that his music strives objectivity etc.

This hasn't got much to do with how the music emotes - I'm very well aware that Bach's music is emotionally appealing on a different level than romantic music. This has to do with what the composers want to achieve and express.

If anything is overly abstract, I would say the above and below descriptors take the cake. I don't know what you're talking about when you say the music Bach wrote came from "below." Below where? The language you're using sounds way too mystical and arbitrarily philosophical to be convincing.

Your distaste in modern aesthetical goals doesn't seem like it's an axe worth grinding. Every period had its own ideology and identity in the cosmos, and I still don't see anything about the modern viewpoint that has even the slightest diminishing of human interests. Musicians in our time period can choose to relinquish human concerns to whatever degree they want in the same way that average individuals can choose to relinquish religious beliefs or moral concerns. If a musician wants to take a heavily abstacted approach to composing, how is that any less human than an individual's decision to stay home from church to itemize the phone bill and plan out the coming work week.

Even if Xenakis stated a goal of objectivity for music, there's no way of painting that up as anything more than a subjective musing of his own. Even the socialist realists in Russia were making their own individual decisions when they chose to relinquish their individuality for set aesthetic goals.

All I'm saying is that the world is far different then it was during the classical and romantic periods, and that, as far as I see things, composers for the most part are in step with those differences.

[rallestar]

If anything is overly abstract, I would say the above and below descriptors take the cake. I don't know what you're talking about when you say the music Bach wrote came from "below." Below where? The language you're using sounds way too mystical and arbitrarily philosophical to be convincing.

Well yeah if you're not used to such terminology. It's hard to explain for me in a foreign language so I hope you will excuse me, but obviously describing abstraction is quite hard. What I intend to state is, for example, that music can come from a wish to express human emotions, feelings, life, existence etc., or represent music as abstract - From above, something that is on a different dimension than humans. That is what modern music represents to me.

Your distaste in modern aesthetical goals doesn't seem like it's an axe worth grinding. Every period had its own ideology and identity in the cosmos, and I still don't see anything about the modern viewpoint that has even the slightest diminishing of human interests. Musicians in our time period can choose to relinquish human concerns to whatever degree they want in the same way that average individuals can choose to relinquish religious beliefs or moral concerns. If a musician wants to take a heavily abstacted approach to composing, how is that any less human than an individual's decision to stay home from church to itemize the phone bill and plan out the coming work week.

You're on a different level again. I'm not talking about the nature of composing in general, I'm talking about the modernist ideology that most composers in recent times have subscribed to.

Even if Xenakis stated a goal of objectivity for music, there's no way of painting that up as anything more than a subjective musing of his own. Even the socialist realists in Russia were making their own individual decisions when they chose to relinquish their individuality for set aesthetic goals.

If I understand correctly, I fully agree. It's just that it's a subjective musing that the vast majority of modern composers seem to share on some level.

All I'm saying is that the world is far different then it was during the classical and romantic periods, and that, as far as I see things, composers for the most part are in step with those differences.

Perhaps it is - I don't see what that means though, since my argument relies mostly on the nature of music in relation to humans, not music in relation to the society of today.

It seems anyway that almost all concertgoers prefer listening to music from earlier periods, I wonder what that says about modern composers - Oh wait, that they are writing music not intended for humans, but intended for music. That is wrong, and it's only my opinion, and you might not share it, but I think we will simply have to agree that we disagree.

[ahinton]

This thread has now turned into a never-resolving and increasingly tiresome duet. Whilst its intended pejorative overtones are patently obvious, I simply cannot understand what is supposedly meant here by "modernist ideology", in vacuo and without descriptive explanation. As a composer myself, I find this head-in-the-sand attitude that appears to seek to suggest that the way most composers think and express thoughts nowadays is somehow out of touch with humanity and its needs is as gratuitously offensive as it is untenable. The implied divisiveness and proto-sectarianism of the notion that an engagement with certain past composers' music is by definition incompatible with an involvement in certain contemporary music is as unhelpful as it is unrealistic and it fails to address issues such as the how it is possible for a pianist such as Jonathan Powell to include the music of Xenakis, Medtner, Finnissy, Skryabin, Ferneyhough, Alkan, Busoni and the late works of Chopin in his repertoire; what price incompatibility there?

I accept that question posed by the thread title is no more edifying than the intransigence displayed by those who prefer lazily and indiscriminately to pour scorn on what they like to call "modernism" to givign serious consideration to the much wider picture of present-day musical composition.

The answer to the question is that there are Rakhmaninovs in the telephone directories of several countries and, whilst that is not exactly a serious response, it seems to me to be as serious as the question itself.

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

The implied divisiveness and proto-sectarianism of the notion that an engagement with certain past composers' music is by definition incompatible with an involvement in certain contemporary music is as unhelpful as it is unrealistic and it fails to address issues such as the how it is possible for a pianist such as Jonathan Powell to include the music of Xenakis, Medtner, Finnissy, Skryabin, Ferneyhough, Alkan, Busoni and the late works of Chopin in his repertoire; what price incompatibility there?

The key words are unhelpful and unrealistic, and that is essentially what I was trying to illustrate. Leave it to someone like Alastair (far more eloquent and mentally-balanced than I) to do a better job of putting the issues on an even keel.

I definitely agree that the "modernist ideology" is incredibly dubious and almost impossible to apply in most cases. The only place I can recall seeing this label used was in course catalogues at college. And that was just used as a frail categorization to separate one syllabus from another. Modernist ideology vs. ancient Greek ideology, or something of that ilk. In regards to describing composers and artists, it might make a little sense when you're analysing a piece of Dadaist art or Futurist literature, both very upstartish movements within the arts that foisted themselves eagerly as more modern than thou...but it hardly fits well as a description for almost everyone else who simply created new works during the period commonly branded "the modern era." Granted, there's definitely been more self-assertion in the works of individual composers that can be contrasted with conservative traditions, but I seriously doubt that many of them stood up one day and stated "I'm a modernist, god damn it! To hell with those stick-in-the-mud traditionalists! IT'S NOT ABOUT HUMANITY ANYMORE!!!!" The discussions on modernism too often remind me of the discussions I remember in college regarding Marxism and vegetarianism. It's not nearly as cut and dry and I'm pretty sure a lot of "moderns" were old and dying before they heard ten tons of bullshit coming out of colleges about "modernism" and modern this and that.

[mattgreenecomposer]

Grisly Adams DID have a beard....

[cygnusdei]

Maybe this will facilitate discussion:

Is there an example of atonal music that conveys 'joy', as in Presto giocoso in the Italian Concerto, BWV 971?

[rallestar]

This thread has now turned into a never-resolving and increasingly tiresome duet. Whilst its intended pejorative overtones are patently obvious, I simply cannot understand what is supposedly meant here by "modernist ideology", in vacuo and without descriptive explanation. As a composer myself, I find this head-in-the-sand attitude that appears to seek to suggest that the way most composers think and express thoughts nowadays is somehow out of touch with humanity and its needs is as gratuitously offensive as it is untenable. The implied divisiveness and proto-sectarianism of the notion that an engagement with certain past composers' music is by definition incompatible with an involvement in certain contemporary music is as unhelpful as it is unrealistic and it fails to address issues such as the how it is possible for a pianist such as Jonathan Powell to include the music of Xenakis, Medtner, Finnissy, Skryabin, Ferneyhough, Alkan, Busoni and the late works of Chopin in his repertoire; what price incompatibility there?

I accept that question posed by the thread title is no more edifying than the intransigence displayed by those who prefer lazily and indiscriminately to pour scorn on what they like to call "modernism" to givign serious consideration to the much wider picture of present-day musical composition.

The answer to the question is that there are Rakhmaninovs in the telephone directories of several countries and, whilst that is not exactly a serious response, it seems to me to be as serious as the question itself.

Best,

Alistair

I thought it obvious what modernist ideology would be: The ideology practiced by Xenakis for example, and not as much that of Rzewski. I like a lot of Rzewski, by the way. That is music written in a tonally modern way, but it's musical goals are more to my liking.

I don't see how it should be impossible to both play Chopin and Finnissy. I just wouldn't come to a Finnissy concert.

[indutrial]

I thought it obvious what modernist ideology would be: The ideology practiced by Xenakis for example, and not as much that of Rzewski. I like a lot of Rzewski, by the way. That is music written in a tonally modern way, but it's musical goals are more to my liking.

I don't see how it should be impossible to both play Chopin and Finnissy. I just wouldn't come to a Finnissy concert.

So...like I stated, your merely expressing your tastes...

What sucks the most about this is that the first three responses (retro, petter, ahinton) to this now-horrible thread (certainly my fault in part) pretty much owned the original question in a fair and balanced manner. Next topic please. Enough of my time has gone down the toilet on this.

[ahinton]

Maybe this will facilitate discussion:

Is there an example of atonal music that conveys 'joy', as in Presto giocoso in the Italian Concerto, BWV 971?

How about the finale of Schönberg's Piano Concerto? Or thr first movement - Partita - of Carter's Symphonia: Sum Fluxæ Pretium Spei? (not that these are especially atonal to my ears, admittedly). These examples don't do it "like" Bach, of course, any more than they sound "like" Bach (as you'd expect), but I think that what you're getting at here is that certain contemporary music is emotionally restricted because there are certain emotions that it both cannot and doesn't seek to express. I do not believe that at all. What you're really doing is telling us about your tastes. That's fine, as far as it goes, but it doesn't address what is presumably intended by the question.

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

It seems that people here are stubborn and love to argue and can't take a hint. Also, it seems that most people here don't like learning new things. This forum is beginning to sicken me more and more. I won't name names (or will I?) but it is always the same people that grind my gears. Now, I am open to differing opinions, if they are justified in a logical and sensible manner. But when people go bashing things for stupid reasons is when I get pissed off, like a lot of the responses to this thread. Go ahead, tell me I'm stupid for saying this. I'm pretty much done here, just like indutrial. Perhaps this discussion is better suited to a more sensible forum. Perhaps GFF? I don't know.

[ahinton]

I thought it obvious what modernist ideology would be: The ideology practiced by Xenakis for example, and not as much that of Rzewski. I like a lot of Rzewski, by the way. That is music written in a tonally modern way, but it's musical goals are more to my liking.

"Xenakis, for example"? What kind of example is that and why? Xenakis went against the trends of what were loosely thought of as postwar modernism (as emerged from what one might call the Darmstadt côterie) by going entirely his own way; so did Carter. Is it therefore reasonable to claim an identical ideology for all of the composers involved? And don't forget that, in the midst of all this, we had Tippett's A Midsummer Marriage, Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra and heaven knows what else; are you similarly suggesting that all of these subscribed to a single opposing ideology? If so, what a black-and-white world you'd inhabit! Emotionally restricted, too, I'd say...

I don't see how it should be impossible to both play Chopin and Finnissy. I just wouldn't come to a Finnissy concert.

You're missing the point but, having written what you did here, I must as you if, on principle, you'd therefore walk in and out of a piano recital containing works by Finnissy, Chopin, Xenakis, Alkan, Ferneyhough and Rakhmaninov (let's not forget the poor and - by this thread - much-maligned - Sergey Vasilyevich) even if it were given by Jonathan Powell?

A clerihew to end...

This thread
Is dead
Though it did hardly thrive
When it was alive.

Best,

Alistair

[rallestar]

So...like I stated, your merely expressing your tastes...

What sucks the most about this is that the first three responses (retro, petter, ahinton) to this now-horrible thread (certainly my fault in part) pretty much owned the original question in a fair and balanced manner. Next topic please. Enough of my time has gone down the toilet on this.

Yes, I was expressing my tastes, but more important, why my tastes are the way they are, and most importantly: That there's a world of difference between the progression seen in the romantic and classical periods and the "progression" seen in the modern period, which is a fact all the modernists here seem to disregard.

Retrouvailles, I'm not sure if you're referring to me. I think I've been sensibly arguing for my viewpoint all the way. Don't let the door hit you.

[rallestar]

"Xenakis, for example"? What kind of example is that and why? Xenakis went against the trands of what were loosely thought of as postwar modernism (as emerged from what one might call the Darmstadt côterie) by going entirely his own way; so did Carter. Is it therefore reasonable to claim an identical ideology for all of them. And don't forget that, in the midst of all this, we had Tippett's A Midsummer Marriage, Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra and heaven knows what else; are you similarly suggesting that all of these subscribed to a single opposing ideology? If so, what a black-and-white world you'd inhabit! Emotionally restricted, too, I'd say...

Well, obviously, there are no two composers the same, but by your logic, it would also be impossible to characterize all political movements, or make any general claims about any movement at all. The modern composers all share the same common red thread running through them, that I've described earlier. And no, that doesn't mean that any music written while the first modernist composer was alive is modern music, and I beg you to stop looking at this as a matter of time - It's a matter of thought, of ideology, rather.

You're missing the point but, having written what you did here, I must as you if, on principle, you'd therefore walk in and out of a piano recital containing works by Finnissy, Chopin, Xenakis, Alkan, Ferneyhough and Rakhmaninov (let's not forget the poor and - by this thread - much-maligned - Sergey Vasilyevich) even if it were given by Jonathan Powell?

Obviously not, since I have common courtesy, and would still, were they relatively short, be interested in hearing these works, had I already paid for the recital - However, were Jonathan Powell playing a 1½ hour program of Xenakis and Finnissy, there is no way I would go. To put it short, I would come to the above program to listen to the Chopin and Rachmaninoff, and listen to the rest out of curiosity.

But you see, I might even like a modern work - It just won't be for the reason the composer intended. If by some random chance I found a Xenakis work that I liked, it would not be for the perfectness of it's mathematical abstraction, but rather if I simply liked the sound of it.

[retrouvailles]

Retrouvailles, I'm not sure if you're referring to me. I think I've been sensibly arguing for my viewpoint all the way. Don't let the door hit you.

How do you know that I referred to you? Is the amount of guilt in your mind that intense?

But no, I wasn't referring to you. I do not agree with your points though. Check my previous posts. It's too late right now for me to argue any further with any coherence.

[ahinton]

can't take a hint.

(!!)

Also, it seems that most people here don't like learning new things. This forum is beginning to sicken me more and more. I won't name names (or will I?) but it is always the same people that grind my gears. Now, I am open to differing opinions, if they are justified in a logical and sensible manner. But when people go bashing things for stupid reasons is when I get pissed off, like a lot of the responses to this thread. Go ahead, tell me I'm stupid for saying this. I'm pretty much done here, just like indutrial. Perhaps this discussion is better suited to a more sensible forum. Perhaps GFF? I don't know.

Not GFF, for heaven's sake! In any case, with an attitude like yours, there's all the more reason for you to remain here; somone has to put the inflexible, the overly biased, the short-sighted, etc., in their place while at the same time contributing something that's actually interetsing...

Best,

Alistair