Why aren't there any Rachmaninoffs anymore?

[ahinton]

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.

Again, you miss the point and you're digging yourself in deeper by so doing. What has happened in the past hundred years or more is that the sheer variety of new music has become ever greater. The question of characterising political movements or musical ones is exposed as being one for the commentaators' convenience, in the sense that it's very handy to be able to put everyone into specific pigeon-holes because one can then discuss them more easily within specifically defined areas of thought. Real life, however, is simply not like that and you are trying to paint an absurdly over-simplistic picture of it, now in politics as well as in music. One can talk about "spectralists", "socialists", "new-complexicists", "conservatives", "minimalists", "liberals" and so on until the end of the world and after, yet whilst such terms are far from meaningless, they are ultimately mere labels, for the political ideas and opinions as well as the musical expressions emanate from individual human minds. There's nothing wrong with making "general claims" (provided that those who make them do so with care), as long as they are presented and recognised as such and no more, in the wider context of what each individual person actually does.

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.

That is utter rubbish as you present it here. Why "red", in any case? The notion that, for example, Rubbra, Grisey, Xenakis, Adams, etc. are other than as notable for their differences as for their individual works is utterly fatuous. Consider, for example, the following list of composers - Brian Ferneyhough, David Matthews, Robin Holloway, John Tavener, Colin Matthews, Michael Finnissy; now these are all English composers born in England within the space of just over three years (1943-1946) and two of them are brothers, yet the differences between them are immense. Your notion of such an "ideology" is therefore as lacking in foundation as the "ideology" itself.

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.

So why would you have such curiosity just because you wanted to listen to the remainder of the programme when had there been no Chopin or Rakhmaninov on offer you would not even have attended? That's abit inconsistent, is it not?

But you see, I might even like a modern work

How very magnanimous of you (or is it patronising? - I can't be quite sure)...

It just won't be for the reason the composer intended.

Whether or not you "might even like" such a work, how could you possibly know in advance - or even after the event - whether or not it would "be for the reason the composer intended"? Do bear in mind that the composer cannot ever know who will listen to his/her work in any case, so any such "intention" would be a rather far-fetched irrelevance (I speak as a composer who, like all others, cannot possibly predict the kinds of response to be elicited from performances of his work).

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.

By "some random chance"? What kind of basis for appreciation is that?!

Best,

Alistair

[rallestar]

The exact random chance that the abstract mathematics Xenakis builds his work on actually produce something that sounds remotely like music.

I just don't see this huge variety amongst modern composers that you're talking about. It's like communists discussing the huge difference between trotskyism and maoism. There's only a difference in modernist composers to modernist followers. If a composer composes radically different from the soundworld of that, he's simply not a modernist composer, just a contemporary one.

[indutrial]

The exact random chance that the abstract mathematics Xenakis builds his work on actually produce something that sounds remotely like music.

I just don't see this huge variety amongst modern composers that you're talking about. It's like communists discussing the huge difference between trotskyism and maoism. There's only a difference in modernist composers to modernist followers. If a composer composes radically different from the soundworld of that, he's simply not a modernist composer, just a contemporary one.

This is starting to really make me dizzy. The entire category of "modern" is sketchy at best and most of the composers under that umbrella don't really sound like one another at all. Even in a commonly-used modern sub-categorization like neoclassical, spectral, serial, or New Complexity, almost every individual composer  boasts their own unique traits and grants no evidence to being part of any widespread ideology whatsoever. There is no universal soundworld to this grouping. Each composer inhabits his or her own soundworld and you're just lumping them all together because you refuse to let your mind treat them with any fairness.

As for the dividing line between "modern" and "contemporary", what the hell does that even mean? What's the point? I'm pretty sure that there are no composers out there who would seriously refer to themselves as "a contemporary composer." It's pretty obvious that they exist in this time period and that they're not from the past or the future, no matter what style their music resembles.

Being a former history student, I find your mentioning of communism to be equally reductionist. Maoism and Trotskyism are indeed different, and much knowledge can be gained from viewing them both in their own contexts, as with Leninism, Marxism, and Titoism. These lines of thought developed out of different personalities in reaction to the conditions in different countries. To brand them all like some sort of spades and discount their individual characteristics, you are taking a lazy viewpoint and running with it blindfolded.

[ahinton]

The exact random chance that the abstract mathematics Xenakis builds his work on actually produce something that sounds remotely like music.

Your answer here displays, in your own words, just how little you understand of what motivated Xenakis to compose (as well as the fact that by no means all of his works are based on any such principles in any case); indirectly, it might be argued also to reveal a profound lack of understanding of what motivated Pythagoras in his mathematical work, in that you seem determined to regard anything remotely connected with mathematical thought with some kind of inhumanity - an absurd notion, especially since mathematics is a science developed by humans to advance our understanding of and responses to naturally occurring phenomena and which, as such, is a human activity that Pythagoras himself would have equated (indeed did equate) to musical activity.

I just don't see this huge variety amongst modern composers that you're talking about.

Well, at least you now have the grace to admit this, for all that it reveals all about your musical myopia and nothing about the works of the vast variety of composers at work today and in recent times.

It's like communists discussing the huge difference between trotskyism and maoism.

But such discussions are not the exclusive territory of communists; we can all discuss them if we wish.

There's only a difference in modernist composers to modernist followers.

Leaving aside the fact that, in the absence of your defining even whay you yourself purport to mean by the term "modernist composer", we have to assume that you mean "living or recently deceased composer", that statement is, quite simply, false, since it appears to suggest an attempt on your part to claim that only present-day composers can perceive any difference between the music of Philip Glass, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Dove, Elliott Carter, David Matthews and Milton Babbitt, which would be grossly offensive were it not risible.

If a composer composes radically different from the soundworld of that, he's simply not a modernist composer, just a contemporary one.

Ah, so now you're at least accepting that not all present-day composers are what you (try but dismally fail to) define as "modernist" are the same! - but since you also fail even to identify, let alone actually define, "the soundworld of that", your remark remains meaningless. Again, just consider for a moment the various "soundworlds" of Xenakis, Carter and Finnissy - composers who, in the absence of any more specific definition on your part, one may imagine fall somewhere within your specious "modernist"  camp; are you really seriously going to try to persuade us that only another "modernist" composer can tell the difference betwee these soundworlds?

Don't you think that, having gotten yourself in as deep as you now have, it might actually be time for you to give this a r(all)est(ar)?...

Best,

Alistair

[rallestar]

How clever.

Let's give it a rest then - I stand by my dislike of all modernist composers. I have explained to such extent now the reason for that dislike and the ideology they more or less share as a common foundation for their composition, regardless of minor differences, and why I dislike that ideology. I know that you disagree. There is not much more to be said.

Let the concerthalls speak for themselves.

[ahinton]

Let's give it a rest then - I stand by my dislike of all modernist composers.

Which is. of course, your prerogative, for whatever reasons or none you may choose to hold that viewpoint, but for the rest of us reading here you have omitted to identify who all of them are - by which I do not, of course, mean that we expect you to offer a comprehensive list but that in the absence of specific identification of all the linguistic means upon which such composers all depend without exception, we cannot ever be certain that any particular composer fits into to your otherwise vague "modernist" categorisation and so we will remain without any guarantees about which living and recent composers' work you "like" and which you "dislike". That's not at all helpful, frankly.

I have explained to such extent now the reason for that dislike and the ideology they more or less share as a common foundation for their composition, regardless of minor differences, and why I dislike that ideology. I know that you disagree. There is not much more to be said.

I cannot and do not seek to speak for others here, but I do not believe that you have explained it properly; all that you have instead done is pillory a tiny handful of names with the broadest of verbal brush-strokes in the apparent hope that those reading what you've written will thereby automatically understand your entire philosophy on such issues and therefore automatically understand, in all cases, which side of your "modernist" dividing line any given living or recent composer is to be placed - a forlorn hope, by definition, I submit. I also cannot accept this notion of a common ideology. My disagreement with your stance here is therefore fundamental, rather than related specifically to individual composers.

I might usefully add here that the absence of such defining information from you is such as to offer no idea, for example, on which side of your divide I would myself stand; I can assure you that I do not consciously follow or seek to follow - nor is my work in any sense governed by - any kind of "-ist" ideology of the kind that you put forward. My fundamental disagreement with your observations on this issue is therefore predicated on a view "from the inside", so to speak; the very fact that, the best will in the world notwithstanding, even a composer cannot possibly be guaranteed a reliable means of ascertaining how he might himself figure in all of this is, of itself, incontrovertible evidence that your entire stance is not merely unhelpful and uninformative but self-undermining.

Best,

Alistair

[rallestar]

I don't really want to take the time to describe this modernism into great depth. All of the impressions I have been getting about modern composers seem to convince me in the direction that most of them subscribe to modernism in some way. I think our disagreement might lie somewhere in that statement, in that you require me to give very in-depth thoroughly researched reasons for that statement. I don't have to - It's my opinion.

There is no dividing line. You are again and again trying to make this a case of black and white, and if I can't define exactly what modernist ideology is (in the relatively short confines of this forum) and which composers are part of it, my argument has no validity. I believe it has, speaking generally. I can't say that I hate every modern work, I can't say that I hate every modern composer. What I can say is that I dislike the modernist ideology as described earlier, and that it's my opinion that most modern works and composers that I know of fall into this category.

It seems that you are not (or at least believe yourself not to be) part of this modernism. Good for you. I frankly don't know your work, but would be interested in hearing it.

[ahinton]

I don't really want to take the time to describe this modernism into great depth.

Or indeed any real depth at all, it seems.

All of the impressions I have been getting about modern composers seem to convince me in the direction that most of them subscribe to modernism in some way.

But - as I've tried unsuccessfully several times already - what IS "modernism", at least to you? If we could understand that, we might have some idea of which composers you might seek to categorise thus.

I think our disagreement might lie somewhere in that statement, in that you require me to give very in-depth thoroughly researched reasons for that statement. I don't have to - It's my opinion.

You do have to give at least some supportable definitions if you want others to understand what you're talking about; you don't have to do it for yourself, of course, because you know what your own opinions are and are under no necessary obligation to justify them to yourself, but it's those who read what you write about this that I'm talking about here.

There is no dividing line.

No, I know there isn't, but it seems that you are somehow either trying to contrive one or to place almost all living and recent composers on the wrong side of one.

You are again and again trying to make this a case of black and white

No! This is what I've told you that YOU are trying to do. I have no reason or desire to do anything of the kind, as I've tried - again unsuccessfully, it seems - to explain to you.

and if I can't define exactly what modernist ideology is (in the relatively short confines of this forum) and which composers are part of it, my argument has no validity.

Whether or not is has validity is not even the point that I'm specifically trying to make; what I do say here is that if you do not define that ideology (at least as you see it, for better or for worse), you cannot expect anyone else to understand (let alone agree) it, since we're not all psychic.

I believe it has, speaking generally.

I know that you do and I accept that; again, however, my point is that you cannot exspect anyone else to do so on the strength (or lack of it) of what you've written.

I can't say that I hate every modern work, I can't say that I hate every modern composer. What I can say is that I dislike the modernist ideology as described earlier, and that it's my opinion that most modern works and composers that I know of fall into this category.

But - for what I really do hope will be the last time(!) - you haven't defined this ideology at all, so the way in which you categorise "most modern works and composers" can mean nothing to anyone else purely on the basis of what you've written.

It seems that you are not (or at least believe yourself not to be) part of this modernism. Good for you. I frankly don't know your work, but would be interested in hearing it.

To be more specific (which at least some of us do try to do!), I do not see my work as "ideology driven" at all, irrespective of the nature of the ideology, "modernist" or otherwise. If you really would like to investigate my work, there are three pieces, each of quite substantial dimensions, that you could access on CD recordings, details of which are to be found at https://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk/hinton/discography.php and which are supplied direct by The Sorabji Archive as well as by other sources.

Best,

Alistair

[gyzzzmo]

Lets ignore the latest replies of the kids and return to the thread.

I think there are Rachmaninoffs, but we'll realise that over 100 years because currently we cant recognise those super-super-talents anymore since we have too many super-talents

Gyzzzmo

[cygnusdei]

How about the finale of Schönberg's Piano Concerto? Or thr first movement - Partita - of Carter's Symphonia: Sum FluxæPretium 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 certaon contemporary music is emotionally restricted because there are certain emotions that it both cqannot 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

I'm sorry but you can't put words in my mouth. Thank you for the examples - I'm not familiar with them but I'll try to find some recordings.

Or perhaps you misunderstood my original post. I was not referring to Bach specifically but to the giocoso title. Unless the term does not mean what I thought it did?

[ahinton]

I'm sorry but you can't put words in my mouth. Thank you for the examples - I'm not familiar with them but I'll try to find some recordings.

Or perhaps you misunderstood my original post. I was not referring to Bach specifically but to the giocoso title. Unless the term does not mean what I thought it did?

I was not putting words into anyone's mouth but writing in accordance with my best understanding of your post which, it seems, fell short of the mark, for which I apologise. Your understanding of the term giocoso, however, is correct!

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

It seems that you are not (or at least believe yourself not to be) part of this modernism. Good for you. I frankly don't know your work, but would be interested in hearing it.

Well, it is pretty hard to be part of something that doesn't exist on any plane aside from la-la-land. Being a modernist is not the same being a card-carrying member of the Communist Party or the YMCA. Artists are artists, and modernism was and remains a simply-defined inclination towards deviating from tradition, if it has any substance at all. Indeed, sometimes the break with the past is more harsh than at other times and occasionally groups of people have organized themselves around some kind of manifesto, but that is not an absolute. None of peoples' theories or criticisms can ever possibly be true. It's all just words and opinions. To me, modernism is kind of a shitty term, because it blankets over a whole ton of more specified artistic movements and phenomena and ultimately becomes a giant bulls-eye for people who feel the need to categorize anything and everything. Another annoying aspect of this term to be is that it's often used to label specific artists from without, by critics and other secondary individuals. I'd like to actually gather all the quotes I can from musicians and composers who actually stated something like "I am a modernist, watch now as I break with the past." That's about as unfeasible as imagining Columbus sitting on the poopdeck in the middle of the Atlantic saying something like "I am an explorer who's out to discover America." Most of these guys were too preoccupied in doing their business as composers to worry about what camp they fell into. I've met plenty of composers who really could give two s**ts how their music is categorized by critics and fans. I play in a very technical rock band and hang with lots of rock musicians, and nothing was more annoying than the pigeonholing tendencies of kids who feel the need to instantly bust out terms like "math rock", "post-rock", "post-hardcore", "proto-punk", "peace-punk", "nintendo-core" and a million other dumb micro-genre terminologies that make little sense to me. I can understand the importance of something like music theory, which can help one attempt to understand the non-understandable and possibly lead to new musical ideas and challange the brain, etc... but all of the controversial views between one -ism and another is just pure bullshit that can hinder a new listener's perspective and annoy the living hell out of those who simply don't care about that crap.

[thalbergmad]

wow

[ahinton]

wow

Oh, come on, Thal; you can give us more than that as a response to that fascinating and very much to the point post, surely?!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Well, it is pretty hard to be part of something that doesn't exist on any plane aside from la-la-land. Being a modernist is not the same being a card-carrying member of the Communist Party or the YMCA. Artists are artists, and modernism was and remains a simply-defined inclination towards deviating from tradition, if it has any substance at all. Indeed, sometimes the break with the past is more harsh than at other times and occasionally groups of people have organized themselves around some kind of manifesto, but that is not an absolute. None of peoples' theories or criticisms can ever possibly be true. It's all just words and opinions. To me, modernism is kind of a shitty term, because it blankets over a whole ton of more specified artistic movements and phenomena and ultimately becomes a giant bulls-eye for people who feel the need to categorize anything and everything. Another annoying aspect of this term to be is that it's often used to label specific artists from without, by critics and other secondary individuals. I'd like to actually gather all the quotes I can from musicians and composers who actually stated something like "I am a modernist, watch now as I break with the past." That's about as unfeasible as imagining Columbus sitting on the poopdeck in the middle of the Atlantic saying something like "I am an explorer who's out to discover America." Most of these guys were too preoccupied in doing their business as composers to worry about what camp they fell into. I've met plenty of composers who really could give two s**ts how their music is categorized by critics and fans. I play in a very technical rock band and hang with lots of rock musicians, and nothing was more annoying than the pigeonholing tendencies of kids who feel the need to instantly bust out terms like "math rock", "post-rock", "post-hardcore", "proto-punk", "peace-punk", "nintendo-core" and a million other dumb micro-genre terminologies that make little sense to me. I can understand the importance of something like music theory, which can help one attempt to understand the non-understandable and possibly lead to new musical ideas and challange the brain, etc... but all of the controversial views between one -ism and another is just pure bullshit that can hinder a new listener's perspective and annoy the living hell out of those who simply don't care about that crap.

For the most part excellently put, if I may say so; "-isms" are largely for "-ists", in my book (and doubtless in yours also) - on which basis I once defended the position of Elliott Carter (against some not dissimilarly damfool nonsense) as that of a "Carterist" - in the sense of "what the hell else should you expect him to be?"...

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

a

[rallestar]

I have described this ideology already as being the wish to make music for some higher purpose, whether it be completely objectivity through mathematics or some other abstract, the purpose of modernIST composers is rather to satisfy their own ideas of what music should be rather than as to serve the historical and from progression shown path. You must not have read my earlier posts. I can't believe you continue to believe I haven't made this very clear.

I don't think isms are for ists. Only in your world, where you try to hide yourself from the facts by semantic arguments over whether or not modernism is clearly enough defined for you, or whether or not most modern composers belong to this ideology.

indutrial, your post would make sense if it wasn't because it's founded on the basic misunderstanding, IMO, that the progression and development sought by modern composers is the same as that of earlier composers.

I'm sick of you both trying to avoid facts by semantic arguing whether or not every single *** composer born since 1910 subscribes to this ideology. Obviously they don't, but those who do constitute the vast majority, and as you both have provided plenty of proof for, in today's music world, it's simply not accepted to be of a different opinion with regards to the modernists. That alone should indicate that obviously this movement has a strong power within music circles.

[tompilk]

Speaking of rock/hardcore/whicheveroddgenreofmusic, one thing I've noticed about such non-classical musicians is that they (and probably their fans) are generally much more open to experimentation than your typial 88street pianist.  This probably extends to the general classical audience, which reinforces the stereotype that they're musically conservative, elitist, and crazy.

As Reiner Hersch says:
"Some people say classical music is elitist. Well... my butler says it's elitist."

[rallestar]

Man, the more I think about this the more pissed off I get. If anyone dares to post something that states the obvious, that modern music is completely out of touch with almost all listeners' tastes, you all get fired up and want serious arguments, and go off firing bs like "oh, so said the conservative critics in the romantic period". So someone brings heaps of arguments explaining in plenty more detail than you ever took to make your unfounded claims, only for you to claim that it's not good enough. You hide behind your stupid semantics and try to put your head in the sand from the thought that maybe there really is a difference, maybe modernist composers really do have a common thread running through them (how else could you defend them all anyway), and maybe that common thread is just an intellectual ivory tower to make them feel like collectively better people, who can sit patting themselves on their back, safely assured that they've reached human perfection, while in reality, everyone who hasn't been tricked by the continous, consequent, never-ending self-assuring back-patting and shunning of the non-believers, can simply lay back, enjoy the music of the great masters and throw a short chuckle in the direction of this soon-to-be-over parody of music, which is what I am going to do now. You won't hear more from me here, so for the time being, the pseudo-intellectuals here can continue feeling good about themselves while exploring the great emotional depths of the mathematic skill of Xenakis.

[ahinton]

I have described this ideology already as being the wish to make music for some higher purpose, whether it be completely objectivity through mathematics or some other abstract, the purpose of modernIST composers is rather to satisfy their own ideas of what music should be rather than as to serve the historical and from progression shown path. You must not have read my earlier posts. I can't believe you continue to believe I haven't made this very clear.

I for one did read all your posts, otherwise I would not have argued that you did not make this ideology definition clear. You make it only slightly clearer now, but I remain perplexed at what you write. One does not even need an "ideology" in order to aspire to "make music for some higher purpose", though one has first to know "higher" than what. Your avowed perception of mathematics as being no more than an example of an "abstract" reveals that you do not have gthe understanding of, or sensitivity to, mathematics that the great mathematicians have had for many centuries. Your suggestion that "the purpose of modernIST composers is rather to satisfy their own ideas of what music should be rather than as to serve the historical and from progression shown path" throws up a stange conflict of perceived interest, supported by an embarrassing paucity of obvious authority on your part to do so. Writing music merely to satisfy a personal idea of what music should be is not something that I recognise as the motivatory modus operandi of most composers and, whilst I do not understand what is supposed to be meant by "serving the historical...from a progression shown path", it sounds to be something somewhat slavish that accords in no way with my understanding of what it means to want to write music and then to write it.

I don't think isms are for ists.

Then for whom are they?

Only in your world, where you try to hide yourself from the facts by semantic arguments over whether or not modernism is clearly enough defined for you, or whether or not most modern composers belong to this ideology.

I'm not trying to hide myself or anyone else from anything; rather the reverse, in fact. I am also not arguing "over whether or not modernism is clearly enough defined for" me, semantically or otherwise; I am trying to understand what it is that identifies "modernism" (for what the term may or may not be worth) for you and then extrapolate thereform what it is that you're trying to say about it, but without that definitional support it cannot be done in any meaningful way. You then claim that I'm concerned that you've done insufficient to clarify "whether or not most modern composers belong to" an "ideology" whose very existence I do not accept in the first place.

indutrial, your post would make sense if it wasn't because it's founded on the basic misunderstanding, IMO, that the progression and development sought by modern composers is the same as that of earlier composers.

In order for you to submit a credible assertion that "modern" composers (all of them? or just some of them?) do not seek "the progression and development sought by...earlier composers", you'd have first to identify how and why those earlier composers did what you say they did and how more recent composers have differed from them in this specific respect, but you have made no effort to try to do that.

I'm sick of you both trying to avoid facts by semantic arguing whether or not every single *** composer born since 1910 subscribes to this ideology.

I am not aware that anyone has done this here; I have indeed made a point of debunking the notion of any such "ideology" as being something merely of your invention rather than anything to which I can subscribe, so your accusation here lacks even more credibility than otherwise it might.

Obviously they don't, but those who do constitute the vast majority, and as you both have provided plenty of proof for,

"The vast majority" of what, exactly? I have provided no proof of anything, nor have I claimed to do so, yet you have sought and claimed to do just that without actually doing it! You get more incredible in your assertions as your assertions themselves become increasingly untenable and incomprehensible!

in today's music world, it's simply not accepted to be of a different opinion with regards to the modernists.

Assuming (which I don't) that everyone understands just who these dreaded "modernists" actually are, to whose allegedly inviolable opinion do you refer and who says that whatever it may or may not be is unacceptable? If the confusion were fertiliser, your virtuosic spreading of it could arguably become the boon of agriculturalists the world over!

That alone should indicate that obviously this movement has a strong power within music circles.

What alone should indicate how and to whom a movement that you have made no realistic and credible effort to define has any power within any circles whatsoever?

You are making less and less sense, but then perhaps that is because my brain is becoming less and less adept at absorbing your contentions...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Man, the more I think about this the more pissed off I get.

You gotta see the funny side of this thread really.

I have just listened to some "music" by a masterful composer called Ferneyhough. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine a drug addicted soprano who is constipated and desperate to get to the toilet, only to find that her way is blocked by a swimming pool full of flutes.

Undoubtedly, some members of this forum probably think this is a work of genius and would take 900 or so words to describe why. I suggest we let them do it and just sit back and laugh.

Thal

[ahinton]

Man, the more I think about this the more pissed off I get.

Out of the ashes of despondency, a spark of potential agreement unexpectedly emerges!

If anyone dares to post something that states the obvious, that modern music is completely out of touch with almost all listeners' tastes,

"Obvious" to you, but then you'e really talking only about your own views, as you consistently show us.

you all get fired up and want serious arguments, and go off firing bs like "oh, so said the conservative critics in the romantic period". So someone brings heaps of arguments explaining in plenty more detail than you ever took to make your unfounded claims, only for you to claim that it's not good enough. You hide behind your stupid semantics and try to put your head in the sand from the thought that maybe there really is a difference, maybe modernist composers really do have a common thread running through them (how else could you defend them all anyway), and maybe that common thread is just an intellectual ivory tower to make them feel like collectively better people, who can sit patting themselves on their back, safely assured that they've reached human perfection, while in reality, everyone who hasn't been tricked by the continous, consequent, never-ending self-assuring back-patting and shunning of the non-believers, can simply lay back, enjoy the music of the great masters and throw a short chuckle in the direction of this soon-to-be-over parody of music, which is what I am going to do now.

Chuckle away to your heart's content, then. When you've done chuckling, however, spare a thought for the fact that at least one of us here does not even accept the notion of "modernism" other than as a convenient portmanteau term to suit the lazier and/or more point-proving kind of musicologist. You go on to accuse others of semantic posing when all they are doing is trying to elicit from you the how, why and wherefore of your conclusions, but you then make matters yet worse by writing of our "thought that maybe there really is a difference" (between present-day composers), only to add immediately thereafter the accusation that we assume that "maybe modernist composers really do have a common thread running through them"; "all different" and "a common thread" - did any of us say both of those things? If it were colder here I'd be glad to wamr my hands of the bonfire that you're making of what passes for your logic. If I ever "sit patting (myself) on their back, safely assured that (I've) reached human perfection", I hope that there'll be someone to hand with a loaded revolver; what gratuitious nonsense! Such nonsense could only come from one whose self-confessed ideal is to "simply lay back (and) enjoy the music of the great masters", complacently content in the knowledge that such masters have hardly existed since Brahms, whereas some of the rest of us can sit bolt upright and be excited and disturbed by such works as the B minor Scherzo or F minor Ballade of Chopin, Mendelssohn's F minor Quartet, Beethoven's Op. 131 Quartet, Alkan's Concerto for solo piano and heaven knowxs what else. I am trying to be sad for you, but you don't make that easy...

You won't hear more from me here,

Some of us might believe that when we've had sufficient opportunity to note the lack of evidence of further input from you on this subject...

so for the time being, the pseudo-intellectuals here can continue feeling good about themselves while exploring the great emotional depths of the mathematic skill of Xenakis.

If you say so; in the meantime, I'll be happy to respond to those of the great Rakhmaninov, if that's OK with you...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Well, I was out by a hundred or so.

Thal

[ahinton]

You gotta see the funny side of this thread really.

Have we? Well, that's far from a bad idea in principle, I admit - and I really have been trying to do just that in the absence of anything much that I can take seriously in a way that's going anywhere useful, but, believe me, it's hard going...

I have just listened to some "music" by a masterful composer called Ferneyhough. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine a drug addicted soprano who is constipated and desperate to get to the toilet, only to find that her way is blocked by a swimming pool full of flutes.

Undoubtedly, some members of this forum probably think this is a work of genius and would take 900 or so words to describe why. I suggest we let them do it and just sit back and laugh.

I'm not about to write 9 words on it, let alone 900, especially as I do not know what piece it is that you've just been listening to, although I cannot help but ask you, as a matter of perfectly genuine interest, for the identity of the allegedly "drug addicted soprano" to whom you refer here and, if you feel that it would be unprofessional and a breach of etiquette to reveal that information on the forum itself, please put it in a PM to me.

I don't see how anyone else here can "sit back and" do anything about this piece right now, since not only do we not know what it is, we also are not listening to it right now as you say you've just done.

Best,

Alistair

[cygnusdei]

I have just listened to some "music" by a masterful composer called Ferneyhough. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine a drug addicted soprano who is constipated and desperate to get to the toilet, only to find that her way is blocked by a swimming pool full of flutes.

You're not talking about this:

[shiftyoliver]

Don't jinx it!

Not that anyone cares about Elliott Carter. Most people here seem to be infatuated only in pieces with a tonality and melody staring them in the face. Or anything "not modern", however they define it. Don't expect a big celebration here when he turns 100. Same with Messiaen.

Is there a problem if I am "infatuated" with tonality and melody??? 

[indutrial]

Speaking of rock/hardcore/whicheveroddgenreofmusic, one thing I've noticed about such non-classical musicians is that they (and probably their fans) are generally much more open to experimentation than your typial 88street pianist.  This probably extends to the general classical audience, which reinforces the stereotype that they're musically conservative, elitist, and crazy.

I would say that almost 95% of rock musicians sound a lot like other rock musicians or spend excessive amounts of time pandering to popular formulas in their writing (lately there are still about a million pop punk, emo, and metalcore groups that are pretty much trying to be just like the bands they're into. An average local rock show will usually really suck if you go there looking for creativity and experimentation. However, I would argue that, in many ways, edgy rock musicians can usually find a audience no matter how unusual the music becomes because the scene is bloody enormous and a lot of people in the scene thrive on seeking out the next new trend. Classical music is oftentimes mired in its own institutions and geared by the cowardly and passive mentalities that usually administrate those institutions.

The classical audience has definitely been changing for the better in recent years with the advent of things like EMusic (a service that caters brilliantly to curious listeners who don't want to spend a fortune) and the internet's "shrinking" of the international CD market (i.e. it's way easier for me to order curious-looking items from Poland and the Ukraine than it was a decade ago).

Classical suffers a lot of the same nuisances that the jazz scene is ailed with. Take it from someone who knows that a smug, conservative jazz musician may be the worst kind of teacher there is (except maybe a washed-up prog rock musician or their infernal crossbreed, the washed-up fusion musician). Most of them don't know a thing about post-1960s jazz and complain constantly about the "out" elements of musicians like Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton. Besides they often bring an annoyingly blue-collarish meathead attitude into any session or lesson they teach, making the whole "working jazz musician" stereotype appear just as blatently shitty as can be.

[indutrial]

Is there a problem if I am "infatuated" with tonality and melody??? 

He said "infatuated ONLY", not to mention that he only said it "seems" that way. Read the post more than once before attempting to start another semantic piefight. It's obviously okay to be infatuated by melodies and tonalities....The issue at stake here is that some people are letting that infatuation radiate into intolerant, unhinged criticism and frail pet theories about ideology and musical ethics.

[shiftyoliver]

He said "infatuated ONLY", not to mention that he only said it "seems" that way. Read the post more than once before attempting to start another semantic piefight. It's obviously okay to be infatuated by melodies and tonalities....The issue at stake here is that some people are letting that infatuation radiate into intolerant, unhinged criticism and frail pet theories about ideology and musical ethics.

No need to be so condescending... I was only looking for clarification (which you did) not to start a fight, my apologies if it looked that way.. Don't mind me anymore, I'll go back to spectating now.

[ahinton]

You're not talking about this:

I don't somehow think that FFJ ever sung any Ferneyhough; let's wait for Thal to tell us who the soprano concerned actually was (if he chooses so to do).

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

In one of the recent threads about Xenakis, I pondered what Xenakis himself might have made of some of the responses thereto; I shudder to imagine what Rakhmaninov would think about this thread, but I take leave to doubt that it would have made him smile - on the subject of which, let us now take a detour back to the great Russian Master by way of the following, which I would love to have written myself but sadly did not...

Rachmaninov, a serious child,
  By nature hardly ever smiled.
He couldn't bear to play with toys
  Like other little girls and boys,
But, wracked by deep, consuming gloom,
  He sat alone, predicting doom.
In later life, this dismal manner
  Pervaded all his works for pianner.
Said he, "I think there's nothing finer
  Than making music in the minor,
But when I play a major phrase,
  It puts me off my food for days."
In Summer 1892
  He visited Tchaikovsky, who
Induced him, for a five-pound wager,
  To write a piece in C Sharp Major:
A simple prelude, diatonic,
  Avoiding canons, enharmonic
Modulations, German sixths,
  And other contrapuntal tricksths.
Rachmaninov set straight to work
  Upon the Prelude, like a Turk,
But writing just the first two bars
  Took hars and hars and hars and hars.
"Alas," he cried, "it isn't funny,
  I'm not concerned about the money;
I'd give up all the tea in China
  To write this bugger in the minor!"
But still he laboured, through the summer,
  With fingers growing ever number,
Abandoning all sense of keys
  In murky, sharp-infested Cs.
His friend, Tchaikovsky, in the autumn,
  Gave the piece a long post-mortem,
Saying, "Sergei, what the hell, you'd
  Better scrap this blasted Prelude.
Write it, damn you, in the minor,
  Before you give yourself angina."
Relieved, Rachmaninov concurred,
  And flattened every major third,
Completing, to the world's dismay,
  The horrid piece we know today.
Next time, therefore, your Auntie Maud
  Proclaims Rachmaninov a fraud,
Since she herself prefers the major,
  Then use this method to assuage her:
Treat her to a night in town,
  And tell her, as she simmers down,
Rachmaninov's immortal soul
  Is like a hidden seam of coal,
Explaining, as you wine and dine her,
  To bring it out, it needs the minor!

I hope that my unauthorised reproduction of this delightful ditty here will at least go some way to restoring some kind of balanced sanity to this thread. It is © Rex Lawson 1973 and was first posted on this forum almost 2½ years ago by our esteemed member pianolist, who has been all too sadly silent here since the beginning of last year or thereabouts.

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

No need to be so condescending... I was only looking for clarification (which you did) not to start a fight, my apologies if it looked that way.. Don't mind me anymore, I'll go back to spectating now.

Apologies for perhaps being too rash in my wording .

[Petter]

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.

Thats funny, thats what I tried to do but I couldnt find any, not even in russian yellowpages. I´m not saying there isnt anyone but despite my relatively large effort I couldnt find it.

[thalbergmad]

I don't somehow think that FFJ ever sung any Ferneyhough; let's wait for Thal to tell us who the soprano concerned actually was (if he chooses so to do).

Etudes Trancendales

[ahinton]

Etudes Trancendales

You mean Études Transcendentales - one of Brian Ferneyhough's rather more approachable works, I think; I'd assumed that this was the piece to which you'd referred (without actually naming it), but who was the soprano?

Just curious!

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

but who was the soprano?

You tell me oh great and knowledgable spelling corrector. I have no idea who the "singer" was. I assume she is now safely back in her cell.

Surely this compostition (correct spelling when describing this) has not been recorded more than once.

Thal

[indutrial]

You tell me oh great and knowledgable spelling corrector. I have no idea who the "singer" was. I assume she is now safely back in her cell.

Surely this compostition (correct spelling when describing this) has not been recorded more than once.

Thal

In reality, I'm sure she is keeping a busier recital schedule than almost everyone on this forum, myself included, just as I'm sure that Ferneyhough's compositions are being performed more than anybody's here are.

[thalbergmad]

If that is the case, please enlighten me as to her name as i wish to investigate further.

Thanks

[ahinton]

You tell me oh great and knowledgable spelling corrector. I have no idea who the "singer" was. I assume she is now safely back in her cell.

If I could have told you, I'd have had no need to ask you!

Surely this compostition (correct spelling when describing this) has not been recorded more than once.

Given the efficacy of good compost and given your views on this music, I'm somewhat surprised to note your use of that term in this context, but moving on - I don't know, but I think that the soprano you heard must have been Brenda Mitchell, who also sang in the composer's Fourth Quartet.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Thank you so much.

I will endevour to find a recording of this 4th Quartet.

Perhaps

[cygnusdei]

I'd like to thrown in yet another spin to the ever-morphing thread:

Is the use of 'perversion' to describe music ever warranted?

[Petter]

I'd like to thrown in yet another spin to the ever-morphing thread:

Is the use of 'perversion' to describe music ever warranted?

Depends on context. Pleast dont invovle "jazz" though. My nerves are so frail. 

[cygnusdei]

I take it you have an example of a context in which it is warranted?

[indutrial]

Thank you so much.

I will endevour to find a recording of this 4th Quartet.

Perhaps

The fabulous Arditti Quartet recorded Ferneyhough's work as part of the Disques Montaigne series that they put out (which also included some amazing discs dedicated to composers like Scelsi, Dutilleux, Nono, and Kurtag). If any group of musicians represents a truly positive attitude towards music as a whole (from the past to the present), they might take the cake...well them and Jonathan Powell. One of their early Gramavision CDs featured Beethoven's Op. 133 alongside Nancarrow's third quartet and Xenakis' 'Tetras.' They are definitely an inspiration that continues to impress me.