Why is it that most piano teachers don't teach new music?(from living composers)

[j_menz]

Ugliness and horror are a part of life but I don't seek them out. Sometimes we need to address these issues, art is a reflection of our culture and of the human experience.

Whether you seek them out or not, they are part of existence and frequently unavoidable. One of the functions of art is to make sense of our existence and so it must confront the whole of it.

But ideally we should be seeking beauty.

Why?; surely we should be seeking truth. And, pace Keats, truth and beauty are not the same thing.

I don't automatically dismiss all new music, but rarely does it inspire or uplift me. It all comes down to the right to make whatever music you want to make, and for my right to choose what to listen too. There are too many modern composers who think different=good.

You are, of course, free to listen to what you like; but if all you seek is beauty, inspiration or an uplifting experience then surely you are cutting yourself off from all that art is capable of; all that it may be good for?

[corrado64]

Hello Derek, brevity is often positive, if summarizes a concept. But sometimes the excessive brevity may become shallow and lacking in content. I find it a bit 'strange your systematic aversion to a wider discourse. Beethoven could write just SOL - SOL - SOL - miiii ... but luckily he also wrote the rest. As a musician you should know that often the beauty is not in the arrival, the beauty is in the path that takes to get there. Reality is complex, large, articulated. Today, also because of the internet, there is a mania to express themselves through all of the aphorisms. Teenagers write sms abbreviated almost incomprehensible. All are in a hurry. Everyone is afraid to stop and investigate things. If there is one thing that our culture must recover the pleasure of slowness, the depth, the dialectic free of slogans, the desire to live the culture without label it reassuring categories. If someone wrote here post a bit 'long means that at this time in his life he needs to talk at length with others. This thing does not seem negative, it is the pleasure of dealing with others.

Ok stop 

[ahinton]

This may be a simple question of personal compatibility. I feel like just talking 1 on 1 with j_menz I could get somewhere and learn something, but ahinton your style of dissecting everything all the way down to grammar and even spelling in some cases is just too much for me.

I suspect that it is in fact nothing of the kind and I have read no evidence here to suggest otherwise.

I do sincerely like talking about this topic though, I just need to do it in a lot less detail. If that isn't sufficient for you ahinton I don't think you need to respond to me anymore. I'll try to have this debate with j_menz and others who agree that being concise is just as effective as bloviating an entire phd thesis in response to forum posts.

Your self-confessed "liking" for "talking about this topic" has so far broadly been confined to curt, bald and unsupported statements such as

"contemporary classical music is terrible. Nobody cares, nor ever will care, except self indulgent intellectuals. Sorry, that's just the truth. Not even worth arguing about".

Concision can indeed be effective in certain instances, as you quite rightly observe but, in a case such as this, is it not arrogant to assume that you can make a statement such as you did above without expecting it to be challenged or even implying that it merits any challenge, especially as it is so undefined, unadorned and unexplained?

OK - let's do this very simply, with as few words as possible.

You wrote that "contemporary classical music is terrible".

How do you define "contemporary classical music"? On what grounds do you say it is "terrible"? Do you believe - and, if so, on what grounds - that there are no exceptions at all to your statement that it is terrible - i.e. is all contemporary classical music terrible?

You then write that

"Nobody cares, nor ever will care, except self indulgent intellectuals"

How can you prove that nobody cares?

How can you predict that future to the extent that no one ever will care?

If "contemporary classical music" is only ever listened to by "self-indulgent intellectuals" (surely a vanishingly small group of people), how come so much of it gets performed, broadcast and recorded?

What about intellectuals who are not "self-indulgent"; do they care, or not?

Lastly, you write

"Sorry, that's just the truth. Not even worth arguing about".

This smacks of dogma of the worst and most inflexible kind. Derek writes that something is "the truth", therefore it must be the truth and accepted by everyone else as such.

Furthermore, if the subject is, as you state, "not worth arguing about", why do you also state that you like writing about it?

Believe me, I am not seeking to argue with you for the sake of so doing - merely trying to persuade you to be clearer and more open in what you express; "brevity is the soul of wit", runs the cliché - but it is no guarantee of wit! In examples such as yours here, the paucity of words risks the presentation of statements without definition, explanation or justification, so all that the reader perceives is dogma not to be challenged. Do you consider that satisfactory?

Lastly, were anyone to submit a PhD thesis comprising little more than 600 words, do you seriously suppose that it would be successful?...

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

I am motivated also by love of beautiful music and wondering why the world seems to be trying so hard to include ugliness and horror in the mix.

Ah, so you do not like Tchaikovsky's 6th, Schubert's 'Erlkönig', most of Mahler, loads of JSBach's vocal music (such as the cantata 'Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut', and even less an aria such as 'Ich freue mich auf meinem Tod')?
Please define 'ugliness'! Or is it perhaps 'anything and everything I find difficult/unpretty/hard/etc on first acquaintance'?
One cannot appreciate the light unless and untill one has experienced the dark.

Three sentences (OK, four), hope I don't stretch you too much..

all best,
gep

[ahinton]

Ah, so you do not like Tchaikovsky's 6th, Schubert's 'Erlkönig', most of Mahler, loads of JSBach's vocal music (such as the cantata 'Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut', and even less an aria such as 'Ich freue mich auf meinem Tod')?

Indeed! - or the violence - and violence of contrast - in Chopin's B minor Scherzo, to say nothing of the grinding dissonance (including together E#, F# and G natural) stated, fortissimo and then repeated 8 times in succession on its final page (a harmony interestingly to be found yet again - same key, same F# root, just before the calm central section of the same composer's later Polonaise-Fantaisie, where its effect is quite remarkably different). And, while we're mentioning Schubert, what about Döppelgänger or Gruppe aus dem Tartarus? Am I only imagining that Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique ends with a March to the Scaffold? - and what of the fact that the quotations from Dies Iræ in this movement are just a handful of many such by other composers, not least Rachmaninov and Sorabji, each of whom seemed to have something of a recurring obsession with it? How did Debussy's cathédrale become engloutie in the first place? What of the human failings and tragedies explored in operas from long before Händel to long after Britten, of which perhaps the examples of Salome, Elektra, Wozzeck, Lulu and Die Soldaten are among the more remarkable examples (although even the most recent of these is now around a half century old and, along with Salome, was once decalred to be the peak of 20th century operatic writing - by Claudio Arrau, no less).

Somehow I cannot quite imagine that anyone here could stretch his or her imagination sufficiently to be able convincingly to identify all of your and my examples above as "modern music"...

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

There are those who live, mentally, on a nice little Flat Earth, and would not be happy elsewhere and indeed would not wish to venture beyond their little Flat Earth because doing so involves, even demands, travelling mentally and being open to seeing and hearing new and unfamiliar things. But while I am totally at ease by the fact that there are those dwellers of this little Flat Earth, I could nor would want to live there, but instead rejoice in having the possibility of living in the Ever-expanding Universe, where travelling to any horizon of perception and/or experience turns out to be no horizon at all but only a new vantage point beyond which is another, farther horizon which, in time, will again be only yet another vantage point, and where from each new vantage point I may not only perceive new things, familiar things in new guises and no end of new wonders and miracles to behold and learn from but also gain a deeper understanding and love for what I knew (or thought I knew) because I now can perceive them in a new light and greater understanding. Yes, not all is pretty, not all is “beautiful” and, yes, not all I like but, also yes, each and everything is acquired knowledge and personal and internal growth.
I can enjoy the mysterious beauty of Hildegard von Bingen’s homophonic rejoicing of what she felt as the driving force behind all things, just as I can perceive the deep wisdom of Petterson’s agonising and disturbing symphonies. I can enjoy the filigree lyricism of Boulez’s ‘Pli selon pli’ just as much as I can be perplexed by Satie’s deceptively simplicit ‘Gymnopédies’. I can be amazed by the condensed 20 seconds Webern piece just as I can be amazed by the expanse of a Sorabji 9-hour organ symphony. And while there is no ray of light nor any ‘beauty’ in Hans Kox’ ‘War Tryptich’, a piece inspired by and a reflection of one of Mankind’s blackest histories, it is also very true. And there is beauty in truth, even if not a very “nice” beauty, or “enjoyable” beauty.

There are those who, bodily, have travelled the whole wide world but, mentally, have never ventured beyond the limits of their own skull. I guess they are happy there. I know I would be very unhappy if I was forced to live within the limits of my own mind…

Somehow I cannot quite imagine that anyone here could stretch his or her imagination sufficiently to be able convincingly to identify all of your and my examples above as "modern music"...

In their time they were very modern indeed. To the dismay of the "Derek's" of then, who much more enjoyed the 'good old music' of Haydn or Telemann. The line probably goes back to some monkey's complaining about those horrible 'modern' monkeys who have taken to walking on their hindlegs only.

All best,
gep

[ahinton]

There are those who live, mentally, on a nice little Flat Earth, and would not be happy elsewhere and indeed would not wish to venture beyond their little Flat Earth because doing so involves, even demands, travelling mentally and being open to seeing and hearing new and unfamiliar things. But while I am totally at ease by the fact that there are those dwellers of this little Flat Earth, I could nor would want to live there, but instead rejoice in having the possibility of living in the Ever-expanding Universe, where travelling to any horizon of perception and/or experience turns out to be no horizon at all but only a new vantage point beyond which is another, farther horizon which, in time, will again be only yet another vantage point, and where from each new vantage point I may not only perceive new things, familiar things in new guises and no end of new wonders and miracles to behold and learn from but also gain a deeper understanding and love for what I knew (or thought I knew) because I now can perceive them in a new light and greater understanding. Yes, not all is pretty, not all is “beautiful” and, yes, not all I like but, also yes, each and everything is acquired knowledge and personal and internal growth.
I can enjoy the mysterious beauty of Hildegard von Bingen’s homophonic rejoicing of what she felt as the driving force behind all things, just as I can perceive the deep wisdom of Petterson’s agonising and disturbing symphonies. I can enjoy the filigree lyricism of Boulez’s ‘Pli selon pli’ just as much as I can be perplexed by Satie’s deceptively simplicit ‘Gymnopédies’. I can be amazed by the condensed 20 seconds Webern piece just as I can be amazed by the expanse of a Sorabji 9-hour organ symphony. And while there is no ray of light nor any ‘beauty’ in Hans Kox’ ‘War Tryptich’, a piece inspired by and a reflection of one of Mankind’s blackest histories, it is also very true. And there is beauty in truth, even if not a very “nice” beauty, or “enjoyable” beauty.

There are those who, bodily, have travelled the whole wide world but, mentally, have never ventured beyond the limits of their own skull. I guess they are happy there. I know I would be very unhappy if I was forced to live within the limits of my own mind…
In their time they were very modern indeed. To the dismay of the "Derek's" of then, who much more enjoyed the 'good old music' of Haydn or Telemann. The line probably goes back to some monkey's complaining about those horrible 'modern' monkeys who have taken to walking on their hindlegs only.

All best,
gep

You make a great deal of good sense here, without being in any way combative (which I hope that I'm not either) - and, coming as it does from someone who lives in a very flat part of this earth, what you write is all the more salient!

Having been raised (in my earliest days as a musician) on Boulez and then finding that the young to early middle aged Boulez's way was simply not mine, I still rejoice in that magnificent and quite incredibly ambitious Pli selon pli; it's a horrendously difficult piece to bring off successfully - even more so, I think, than what is now his latest completed work, Dérive II, which was performed in this year's London Proms season conducted by Daniel Barenboim. But is Dérive II perhaps more obviously "active" than it is inherently "complex" as such? I'm not sure - possibly.

I could have added to my "list" the middle movement of Alkan's Grand Duo for violin and piano which is an overt and deliberate attempt to represent Hell (l'Enfer) and has both clusters and a most remarkable prescience of the opening of an otherwise very different work for the same forces, Busoni's Second Sonata for violin and piano - yet it's hardly "modern music", coming as it does not only from the 19th century but also from that century's first half.

Pettersson - ah, yes, now there's  problem for some people who seek to condemn "contemporary classical music" as useless; unlike some things that might be so classified, Pettersson's music is tonal - almost always tonal - but yes, it does explore some very uncomfortable states of mind; that said, one has only to think of the closing moments of his middle period symphonies and, perhaps more importantly than even those (in this context), the radiant final minutes of his Second Violin Concerto, to recognise that Pettersson's ultimate vision is often one of the triumph of great and good things over adversarial and uncomfortable things - which supports your view that one cannot appreciate light without first experiencing dark.

Someone once said of the finale of my own String Quintet that the first glimmer of sunlight appears momentarily only after it's already been playing for some 50 or more minutes - and then big clouds once again gather; it's not untrue but, ultimately, serenity wins out as the coda finally approaches - much later again - and then manages to sustain itself more or less until the end. Yes, it's true; you do not appreciate the experience of light - even half-light or sunsets or anything of the kind - without first going through the dark which gives you perspective on such things...

These are things that, as may be imagined, I feel deeply about.

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

Someone once said of the finale of my own String Quintet that the first glimmer of sunlight appears momentarily only after it's already been playing for some 50 or more minutes - and then big clouds once again gather; it's not untrue but, ultimately, serenity wins out as the coda finally approaches - much later again - and then manages to sustain itself more or less until the end. Yes, it's true; you do not appreciate the experience of light - even half-light or sunsets or anything of the kind - without first going through the dark which gives you perspective on such things...

These are things that, as may be imagined, I feel deeply about.

Best,

Alistair

This post is quite revelatory.  The composer finally speaks:  soulfully and without convoluted linguistics to hide his feelings.  Yes, ahinton finally speaks.  I suppose Garbo weaps.  One can only conjecture.  It is a milestone, however.  Honesty.  You know?  From anyone.

And interestingly, the composer speaks in quite romantic terms about his own work and our collective response to it. Darkness to light.  Romantic.  Feeling states aspiring, striving,
struggling, resolving.  Harmony, of a sorts.  The pursuit of harmony.  This is what much contemporary music denies listeners.  And those who reject the progressive compositional state of harmonic dissolution as the church of musical progress, reject Boulez and his school.  You seem to understand why most reject contemporary music.  You've all but acknowledged it.  It's not necessary to defend the vanguard when it clearly steers clear of human emotion.  Art is nothing without it.  

[outin]

I cannot answer the original question, since I do not know other piano teachers really than my own. I think she would teach me anything I would ask if it isn't too hard. But I can explain why I do not stydy contemporary music (by living composers) or the more "modern" type music composed on the 20th century. I do not even know enough about how to classify it, so I just talk about modern, including atonal, serial or whatever.

I do not really know much about the music composed on the last century except for composers like Scriabin and Shostakovich. When I seriously got into piano music I started exploring and I still find new composers all the time. I have no doubt that when I have exhausted the baroque, classical (not much there for me) and romantic periods, I will get deeper into the more contemporary stuff. I just haven't got there yet. I also do not have such easy access to sheet music as I have for the older stuff.
 
When I occasionally hear modern music I often enjoy it a lot. I enjoy any music where the relationship of sounds touch me at some level or create a physical sensation. The music doesn't have to be beautiful in the traditional sense and too much sweetness actually makes me a bit sick. I do not even need "happy endings" to enjoy the gloomy parts (referring here to Alistair's post). I also don't need to understand music on the theoretical or technical level to enjoy it. So no doubt there would be many modern pieces I would like to learn. I don't know if anyone would want to listen to those, but I have no problem playing just for myself.

It could be that much of the modern music requires some maturity to be enjoyable, so not all young people continue their piano journey to the age when they would really be interested in the less known or less popular composers anyway. But maybe not, since I listened to some very weird stuff even when I was young. It might really be a personality issue.

But the main reason why I have been stuck to the older and more traditionally composed music is simply because I find it much easier to study piano technique and tackle my physical and mental issues in playing when my ear immediately tells me when I go wrong on the notes.  Most older stuff is very predictable. That's why I sometimes think I will sooner or later get bored and be forced to move into something  less predictable. I'm just not there yet, there's too much older music still to uncover and so much basic stuff to learn.

[ahinton]

This post is quite revelatory.  The composer finally speaks:  soulfully and without convoluted linguistics to hide his feelings.  Yes, ahinton finally speaks.  I suppose Garbo weaps.  One can only conjecture.  It is a milestone, however.  Honesty.  You know?  From anyone.

And interestingly, the composer speaks in quite romantic terms about his own work and our collective response to it. Darkness to light.  Romantic.  Feeling states aspiring, striving,
struggling, resolving.  Harmony, of a sorts.  The pursuit of harmony.  This is what much contemporary music denies listeners.  And those who reject the progressive compositional state of harmonic dissolution as the church of musical progress, reject Boulez and his school.  You seem to understand why most reject contemporary music.  You've all but acknowledged it.

I thought long and hard before mentioning anything of mine in this context; I'm not in the habit of drawing attention to my work in this manner. However, it might not be unreasonable to assume that, as I'm still alive (as far as I can tell), what I write must fall into the category of "contemporary classical music", so I've tried to make a constructive comment here with the help of such illustration.

But where does the state of affairs that you mention actually begin ("the church of musical progress", as you put it? Schönberg? (who, for example, wrote some wonderful and thrilling tonal music). Varèse? (about whose early music written in his native land we'll almost certainly never know anything, as all but one song appears to have been lost to us forever). The rise of equal temperament? Who can say, really? That church has surely been almost constantly added to and redesigned for as long as there has been such a thing as music!

Is there really a "school of Boulez"? I'm not sure that, if there is, Boulez himself might be dismissed from it today! Much of his more recent work is, I find, considerably more approachable that, say, his Deuxième Sonate (one of the first pieces I was taught about - though not, of course, to play! - when I commenced my musical studies); it seems more clearly to acknowledge his debt to his heritage, especially that of Debussy, without, of course, actually sounding anything like Debussy.

I've not actually "acknowledged" anything, by the way. I believe that we all have - and must try to find - different ways to compositional salvation and the fact that there is now such a diversity of approach to musical composition surely illustrates this fact.

It's not necessary to defend the vanguard when it clearly steers clear of human emotion.  Art is nothing without it.

I'm seeking neither to defend nor accuse either "the vanguard" or anything else, actually, but yes, art is indeed nothing - or at least severely compromised - without human emotion.

I would, however, go farther and suggest that art can - and some indeed does - expand emotional horizons. Elliott Carter's reference to the fact of human life being more complex than ever and humans likewise surely implies, among other things, that human emotion is also a more complex phenomenon today than it was in, say, Haydn's day. The more to which humans are subjected and the wider their experiences, the more their emotional capacity can - and sometimes does - expand to meet them intelligently (and I mean intelligently, not intellectually). This, perhaps, is why he felt so negative about much of the work of the American minimalists, with their endless and mindless repetitions of material usually based upon simple harmonies and rhythm patterns - it can strike some listeners almost as a wilful rejection of human emotion, so it did nothing for him and does nothing for me.

Can one realistically reflect or express ever-increasingly complex emotional states by means of simple music (simple, that is, in terms of its basic contents - harmony, melody, rhythm, counterpoint, etc.)? It would seem unlikely, I think.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I cannot answer the original question, since I do not know other piano teachers really than my own. I think she would teach me anything I would ask if it isn't too hard. But I can explain why I do not stydy contemporary music (by living composers) or the more "modern" type music composed on the 20th century. I do not even know enough about how to classify it, so I just talk about modern, including atonal, serial or whatever.

OK, so at least you make some attempt to define what you mean by "modern music" - music written in the past 112 years or so; how valid, however, do you believe the term "modern" to be as a descriptor for music that was already being composed before the birth of Elliott Carter?...

I do not really know much about the music composed on the last century except for composers like Scriabin and Shostakovich.

Two very different composers of different generations!

When I occasionally hear modern music I often enjoy it a lot. I enjoy any music where the relationship of sounds touch me at some level or create a physical sensation. The music doesn't have to be beautiful in the traditional sense and too much sweetness actually makes me a bit sick. I do not even need "happy endings" to enjoy the gloomy parts (referring here to Alistair's post). I also don't need to understand music on the theoretical or technical level to enjoy it. So no doubt there would be many modern pieces I would like to learn. I don't know if anyone would want to listen to those, but I have no problem playing just for myself.

Good points all. I have no interest in writing music to be listened to only by other composers or people whose principal interest is confined to particular areas of contemporary music, nor am I concerned to write music only for people who are musically literate and have studied music. Music has indeed to excite, as you suggest when you write of being touched or sensations being created in you by it; we're none of us going to get that from all music, of course!

That's not to say that intellect has other than an important part to play in music - merely to point out that one doesn't need consciously to apply detailed scientific expertise in examining every cell of a musical body when listening to the whole - which is not to suggest that the listening experience should not extend beyond merely letting the music wash over you, however - the excitement in the music engages the brain, which is where intellectual processes and emotions each have their origins.

As to your remark about "sweetness" and the context within which you place it in terms of wanting music only to evoke "nice" sensations, what about that "nice" and popular composer Mendelssohn, the best of whose work, as Daniel Barenboim has observed, is beautifully crafted and splendid but did nothing at all to alter the course of musical history? Well, composers don't always have to do that in order for their work to merit attention, of course - and Mendelssohn was indeed the darling of audiences in his day - so what on earth must those whose expectations of him were set in some kind of "sweetness and light" mould have made of his Sixth String Quartet (the F minor, Op. 80)? With some of its roots in Beethoven's Op. 95 quartet (with which it shares a tonal centre), its first movement is frequently angry, aggressive and dark and the scherzo that follows is likewise - even the tender bitter-sweetness of the third movement is somehow underpinned by the troubled and stormy nature of the other three movements and the finale, unlike the sunny F major with which Beethoven ends his F minor quartet, merely winds up the tension and ends in an even more violent and explosively devastating F minor. "Nice Herr Mendelssohn"? Not there, for sure!...

It could be that much of the modern music requires some maturity to be enjoyable, so not all young people continue their piano journey to the age when they would really be interested in the less known or less popular composers anyway. But maybe not, since I listened to some very weird stuff even when I was young. It might really be a personality issue.

There is the issue that some newer piano music involves disciplines that some earlier music doesn't or only does to a lesser degree and this can sometimes threaten to make it more difficult for people with insufficient experience to learn - but the same could be said of earlier music, too; would anyone seriously think about learning Liszt's Sonata or Alkan's solo Concerto without first getting a thorough grounding in Bach, Haydn and Beethoven? Would anyone realistically try to address the last five Beethoven sonatas without sufficient experience of earlier music?

But the main reason why I have been stuck to the older and more traditionally composed music is simply because I find it much easier to study piano technique and tackle my physical and mental issues in playing when my ear immediately tells me when I go wrong on the notes.

Apart from the wrong note issue, that's fine. OK, there are certain kinds of musical language, familiarity with which enables one to detect wrong notes more easily than in others, but that's another matter, really.

Most older stuff is very predictable. That's why I sometimes think I will sooner or later get bored and be forced to move into something  less predictable. I'm just not there yet, there's too much older music still to uncover and so much basic stuff to learn.

Again, that's fine and understandable except the "predictability" bit; although I'm sure you don't mean it to do so, mightn't that come across as something of a put-down?! If you'd ever told Bach that his Art of Fugue was "predictable" or made a similar comment to Beethoven about his Op. 111 sonata or Chopin about his F major Ballade, I suspect that you might have ended up with quite a few bruises for your trouble!...

[outin]

OK, so at least you make some attempt to define what you mean by "modern music" - music written in the past 112 years or so; how valid, however, do you believe the term "modern" to be as a descriptor for music that was already being composed before the birth of Elliott Carter?...

With modern I was simply referring to the kind of music that is so different in language to the pre 1900 music that it doesn't appeal to those who's tastes are deeply rooted in the earlier music. I don't have the words to define it better because of my ignorance of the subject.
That would include experimental music that surfaced on the last century but also music that evolved from earlier classical music to the point that people in general would find it significantly different. So I guess I would exclude music that a listener could not distinguish from something written on the earlier centuries, if he didn't know who wrote it.

In my mind some composers who actually wrote music on the last century kind of blend in with the later composers of the previous one. I also didn't consider most of the early century impressionists modern in this discussion. This just shows how little thought I have actually given to the subject yet...

That's not to say that intellect has other than an important part to play in music - merely to point out that one doesn't need consciously to apply detailed scientific expertise in examining every cell of a musical body when listening to the whole - which is not to suggest that the listening experience should not extend beyond merely letting the music wash over you, however - the excitement in the music engages the brain, which is where intellectual processes and emotions each have their origins.

For me enjoyment and interest has to come first, after that becomes the intellectual processes. I am curious by nature, so if I enjoy something, sooner or later I want to know WHY. Since my time on this earth is limited, I don't care to study everything and later decide whether I like them or not.

As to your remark about "sweetness" and the context within which you place it in terms of wanting music only to evoke "nice" sensations, what about that "nice" and popular composer Mendelssohn, the best of whose work, as Daniel Barenboim has observed, is beautifully crafted and splendid but did nothing at all to alter the course of musical history?

As usual I was too vague. I really like Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte for example. Nothing wrong with sweetness and harmony when there's substance and it appeals to me. Music doesn't have to be groundbreaking. Forced angst can also be very tiresome. For me it's enough if music is good (to define good would require 100 pages and is highly subjective anyway). But the artists/composer doesn't have to try to please me for me to enjoy his work. And too much trying to please may end up driving me away.

Again, that's fine and understandable except the "predictability" bit; although I'm sure you don't mean it to do so, mightn't that come across as something of a put-down?! If you'd ever told Bach that his Art of Fugue was "predictable" or made a similar comment to Beethoven about his Op. 111 sonata or Chopin about his F major Ballade, I suspect that you might have ended up with quite a few bruises for your trouble!...

LOL  

With predictability I mean that I am familiar with the musical language/style of those eras/composers so I would by instinct know when it sounds wrong. Nothing negative about that. As I said I am so ignorant about piano music of the latest 50 years or so, so anything would go past me. But am I completely wrong to assume that older music followed more common rules than modern music as defined above and in that sense it was more predictable?

[ahinton]

With modern I was simply referring to the kind of music that is so different in language to the pre 1900 music that it doesn't appeal to those who's tastes are deeply rooted in the earlier music. I don't have the words to define it better because of my ignorance of the subject.

That would include experimental music that surfaced on the last century but also music that evolved from earlier classical music to the point that people in general would find it significantly different. So I guess I would exclude music that a listener could not distinguish from something written on the earlier centuries, if he didn't know who wrote it.

OK - well, you're talking and thinking about this rather than making bald statements that seek to brook no argument. I think, though, that it's also important, in order to develop a more realistic perspective on this, to think about it from an earlier standpoint. Imagine, if you will, that we're having this exchange in, say 1908; mightn't we still be considering how, a generation or two ago, some people would have found the late works of Liszt, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Bruckner's Fifth Symphony and even some of Brahms's late piano pieces very different to the music of Beethoven's day or even the earlier music of Schumann, Chopin, Weber, Rossini et al? In other words, would it have been any different then, other than in variety and degree? I'm not so sure, actually. And then, of course, there's Berlioz - a composer who predates Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Mendelssohn and whose treatment of the orchestra must have seemed very "experimental" a the time and who was also probably regarded as something of a maverick in that he was arguable the first European composer of any note who had no proficiency at an instrument!

In my mind some composers who actually wrote music on the last century kind of blend in with the later composers of the previous one. I also didn't consider most of the early century impressionists modern in this discussion. This just shows how little thought I have actually given to the subject yet...

Actually, I would say that it shows the opposite! You have given thought to this and are presumably giving more to it...

For me enjoyment and interest has to come first, after that becomes the intellectual processes. I am curious by nature, so if I enjoy something, sooner or later I want to know WHY. Since my time on this earth is limited, I don't care to study everything and later decide whether I like them or not.

Absolutely correct - especially from the listener's perspective. The listener may or may not be able to read music and, of those who can, only a small proportion ever take scores with them into the concert or recital hall (and almost no one into the opera house!) and follow them while the performance is taking place. It's not just about the limited lifespan that you mention (although that has its own pertinence, of course); it's about the fact that music is simply not written for the purpose of offering its listeners the opportunity first to determine whether or not or to what extent they might be able to follow and grasp the intellectual processes that have given rise to it before freeing them up to think about whether or not they feel that they have benefited in other ways from the listening experience! Horrseco referens!

As usual I was too vague. I really like Mendelssohn's Lieder Ohne Worte for example. Nothing wrong with sweetness and harmony when there's substance and it appeals to me. Music doesn't have to be groundbreaking.

Correct.

Forced angst can also be very tiresome.

"Can"? "Always is", I would say!

For me it's enough if music is good (to define good would require 100 pages and is highly subjective anyway). But the artists/composer doesn't have to try to please me for me to enjoy his work. And too much trying to please may end up driving me away.

Again, this is eminently good sense. My own principle with all of this (from the other side of the fence, so to speak), is based on an adaptation of the old adage "never apologise, never explain" (which has been variously attributed to a number of distinguished British people but appears to have originated with the naval officer Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher in the latter 19th century) - it is "never ingratiate, never alienate".

Elliott Carter once said "as a young man, I harbored the populist idea of writing for the public - I learned that the public didn’t care -so I decided to write for myself -since then, people have gotten interested"; one has to take a little care in understanding this stance correctly, I think, because, just like Michelangeli (this is a piano forum, after all!), he did not set out to alienate his public, or even specifically to challenge it - more to challenge himself and, by so doing, be honest about and in what he was seeking to do. What Carter did, therefore, was to care greatly about his audience (why else would he have bothered, on another occasion, to say that he hoped that they would concentrate when listening just as he did when composing?) but never to pander to their probably mythical and externally imagined whims. What's important, therefore, is to be honest and sincere and to be generous to one's audience, but never to try to do them favours; after all, you can't really "write for your audience" in any case because you cannot possibly know in advance of whom they might consist!

With predictability I mean that I am familiar with the musical language/style of those eras/composers so I would by instinct know when it sounds wrong. Nothing negative about that. As I said I am so ignorant about piano music of the latest 50 years or so, so anything would go past me. But am I completely wrong to assume that older music followed more common rules than modern music as defined above and in that sense it was more predictable?

Yes, I think you are rather. Haydn, for example - a great composer of (among many other things) piano trios - was already looking well and truly askance at the three works in which his student Beethoven had finally felt sufficient confidence to reserve for his Op. 1 - the first two for their sheer scale (which of Haydn's own 45 trios even has four movements, for example?) and the third for its predominantly tenebrous emotions and symphonic breadth, each unprecedented elements of a piano trio in the final decade of the 18th century; what on earth he, as an inveterate composer of piano sonatas would have made of Beethoven's last five sonatas or as the greatest string quartet composer before Mozart would have thought of Beethoven's last five quartets is barely imaginable! - but then what would Schubert have made of Berlioz's treatment of the orchestra? - or Weber of Alkan's more extreme piano music? There are many more such examples from long before the 20th century, not least Brahms's take on Bruckner as a "symphonic boa-constrictor"! No, I don't think that this is at all a phenomenon of recent origin, since you ask!

Best,

Alistair

[outin]

I think, though, that it's also important, in order to develop a more realistic perspective on this, to think about it from an earlier standpoint. Imagine, if you will, that we're having this exchange in, say 1908;

True, we cannot assume that what's novel, radical or experimental now is more so than something else was 200 years ago. I was very much looking at this issue from the perspective of someone born in the 1960's.

... after all, you can't really "write for your audience" in any case because you cannot possibly know in advance of whom they might consist!

But one can try and many do...My worry is that the present media and culture is leaning towards this type of creativity, which would be a pity. I'm all for variety, even if there's much that I do not personally appreciate.

Yes, I think you are rather. Haydn, for example - a great composer of (among many other things) piano trios - was already looking well and truly askance at the three works in which his student Beethoven had finally felt sufficient confidence to reserve for his Op. 1 - the first two for their sheer scale (which of Haydn's own 45 trios even has four movements, for example?) and the third for its predominantly tenebrous emotions and symphonic breadth, each unprecedented elements of a piano trio in the final decade of the 18th century; what on earth he, as an inveterate composer of piano sonatas would have made of Beethoven's last five sonatas or as the greatest string quartet composer before Mozart would have thought of Beethoven's last five quartets is barely imaginable! - but then what would Schubert have made of Berlioz's treatment of the orchestra? - or Weber of Alkan's more extreme piano music? There are many more such examples from long before the 20th century, not least Brahms's take on Bruckner as a "symphonic boa-constrictor"! No, I don't think that this is at all a phenomenon of recent origin, since you ask!

My interest lately has almost solely been towards piano music. I have no doubt if one starts digging one will find music from any era that didn't fit into the general picture at all. But much of it must also have disappeared, because unlike the present, there were few ways to preserve music. The things that are created today usually exist in many forms and quickly spread widely, but if someone on the 18th or 19th century did something no-one else understood and was never published, we wouldn't even know about it.

I am yet to explore Weber or Alkan, so we will have to get back to them...

[ahinton]

To my observation that
"after all, you can't really "write for your audience" in any case because you cannot possibly know in advance of whom they might consist!"
you responded

But one can try and many do...My worry is that the present media and culture is leaning towards this type of creativity, which would be a pity. I'm all for variety, even if there's much that I do not personally appreciate.

Indeed so - and painful are the results sometimes, as might reasonably be expected when confronting the results of someone having made efforts to do something that is demonstrably impossible! What's more important than this, though, is the very principle upon which some seek to found such a notion, as though one has some kind of moral obligation to give one's audience what it wants - as though one can tell in advance what it wants and why! It's also flawed in that an audience is, by definition, not a single entity but a group of individuals who cannot be expected all to want or even expect the same thing; furthermore, if one's music is to have any future, the possibility of even attempting to determine what the members of an audience might want in 50 or 150 years' time becomes the more remote the longer the period of time involved.

My interest lately has almost solely been towards piano music. I have no doubt if one starts digging one will find music from any era that didn't fit into the general picture at all. But much of it must also have disappeared, because unlike the present, there were few ways to preserve music. The things that are created today usually exist in many forms and quickly spread widely, but if someone on the 18th or 19th century did something no-one else understood and was never published, we wouldn't even know about it.

Actually that's not quite true, given the sometimes obsessively questing diligence of musicologists and other researchers in that, as long as the music still exists in some form, there's always a chance that it will be found and something done about it. One has only to consider the sheer number of examples of such "rediscoveries" long after the event of composition - not only have, for example, quite a few works by Roslavets long thought to have disappeared been found, reassembled (if and where need be) performed and recorded, there have over the years been discovered pieces by such luminaries as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Liszt which had either been thought lost or not even previously documented; for example, my own teacher, the English composer Humphrey Searle - a distinguished Liszt scholar - discovered several small works by Liszt and was instrumental in helping to track down the Grand Duo for violin and piano by Alkan which had not been known to have received any performances for well over a century and which is a stunning piece of music without which our view of Alkan would undoubtedly be somewhat compromised whose central movement is, incidentally, about as "nice" and full of "sweetness" as one might expect from a piece including some clusters and being a sonic representation of Hell (l'Enfer)...

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

I would, however, go farther and suggest that art can - and some indeed does - expand emotional horizons. Elliott Carter's reference to the fact of human life being more complex than ever and humans likewise surely implies, among other things, that human emotion is also a more complex phenomenon today than it was in, say, Haydn's day. The more to which humans are subjected and the wider their experiences, the more their emotional capacity can - and sometimes does - expand to meet them intelligently (and I mean intelligently, not intellectually).

Can one realistically reflect or express ever-increasingly complex emotional states by means of simple music (simple, that is, in terms of its basic contents - harmony, melody, rhythm, counterpoint, etc.)? It would seem unlikely, I think.

Best,

Alistair

Well, I, of course, agree with Elliott Carter that "human life is more complex than ever," but I respectfully disagree with his implication that human emotion is also a more complex phenomenon as a result.  

I'm not a composer, but I am a psychoanalyst.  My observations bear out that humans have surrounded themselves with more complex technology, thus complicating their lives (despite protests that technology simplifies their lives) -- this I agree with, but human emotions are a fixed set of various shades of responses to the "events" humans encounter.  These responses are finite and unchanged throughout human history  And these "events" have hardly changed since Bach, Haydn or Beethoven:  war, war and more war.  Greed and avarice.  The struggle to stay alive, to love.  

It's my feeling that Elliott Carter's deserved success has had a limited impact for the average music lover.  The reason is the same as it is for other composers (Boulez, certainly) whose works are regarded as "complex" and difficult to fathom.  If Carter and Boulez's work did, in fact, mirror or resonate with a contemporary human's increasingly complex emotional life, I would imagine that you'd see more of a  response from the average music lover.  You normally do not.  You see responses from highly educated and technically proficient musicians who can grasp the import of these complex compositions from an intellectual viewpoint.  Perhaps their sophistication leads to emotional engagment with complex works over time.  I don't rule that out.  As a boy, on first hearing the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto, I was baffled and unmoved.  Time passes, my education continues, and now, of course, I see it as standard repertoire stuff, which it is.  An extraordinary piece of music that is seething with emotion.

Emotions, in the psychological realm, are responses to thoughts.  What do we think about?  The same things the audiences of Haydn's day.  In this arena, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  Only the pace of life and its resultant complication has changed.  Killing is quicker and more efficient but it still elicits the same response in people affected by it.

I think the music that has and will endure is the music that captures the timelessness of human emotions.  Beethoven, a wild and crazy experimenter, grew closer to profundity with his simplest utterances.  Yes, he dazzled and got our attention, through more daring and complex means, but he won our hearts through making us feel what is universal.  Complexity often obscures this feature.  Unless, of course, in the hands of a bona fide, inspired genius.  They are rare.

[ahinton]

Well, I, of course, agree with Elliott Carter that "human life is more complex than ever," but I respectfully disagree with his implication that human emotion is also a more complex phenomenon as a result.  

I'm not a composer, but I am a psychoanalyst.  My observations bear out that humans have surrounded themselves with more complex technology, thus complicating their lives (despite protests that technology simplifies their lives) -- this I agree with, but human emotions are a fixed set of various shades of responses to the "events" humans encounter.  These responses are finite and unchanged throughout human history  And these "events" have hardly changed since Bach, Haydn or Beethoven:  war, war and more war.  Greed and avarice.  The struggle to stay alive, to love.  

It's my feeling that Elliott Carter's deserved success has had a limited impact for the average music lover.  The reason is the same as it is for other composers (Boulez, certainly) whose works are regarded as "complex" and difficult to fathom.  If Carter and Boulez's work did, in fact, mirror or resonate with a contemporary human's increasingly complex emotional life, I would imagine that you'd see more of a  response from the average music lover.  You normally do not.  You see responses from highly educated and technically proficient musicians who can grasp the import of these complex compositions from an intellectual viewpoint.  Perhaps their sophistication leads to emotional engagment with complex works over time.  I don't rule that out.  As a boy, on first hearing the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto, I was baffled and unmoved.  Time passes, my education continues, and now, of course, I see it as standard repertoire stuff, which it is.  An extraordinary piece of music that is seething with emotion.

Emotions, in the psychological realm, are responses to thoughts.  What do we think about?  The same things the audiences of Haydn's day.  In this arena, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  Only the pace of life and its resultant complication has changed.  Killing is quicker and more efficient but it still elicits the same response in people affected by it.

I think the music that has and will endure is the music that captures the timelessness of human emotions.  Beethoven, a wild and crazy experimenter, grew closer to profundity with his simplest utterances.  Yes, he dazzled and got our attention, through more daring and complex means, but he won our hearts through making us feel what is universal.  Complexity often obscures this feature.  Unless, of course, in the hands of a bona fide, inspired genius.  They are rare.

I'm too preoccupied with other matters right now to address the points that you have made here, so must of necessity be brief, but not so much so as to omit to say that you have put forward some extremely well considered and thoroughly thought out ideas here in a very well balanced and pragmatic manner, for which I am - and other members here will surely be - most appreciative, I look forward to returning to these later but, in the meantime, very many thanks!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Well, I, of course, agree with Elliott Carter that "human life is more complex than ever," but I respectfully disagree with his implication that human emotion is also a more complex phenomenon as a result.

In fairness to him, it's probably rather more my take on such an implication than one to which he would for certain have subscribed himself. What I'm putting forward here, however, is not the notion that the increasing complexities of life have given rise to new human emotions per se but that they have gone hand in hand with - and perhaps also encouraged the development of - more and wider nuances to existing ones, rather as the continuing expansion of verbal and musical language has done.

I'm not a composer, but I am a psychoanalyst.

Well, far be it from me to argue indiscriminately with a psychoanalyst in such matters!

My observations bear out that humans have surrounded themselves with more complex technology, thus complicating their lives (despite protests that technology simplifies their lives) -- this I agree with, but human emotions are a fixed set of various shades of responses to the "events" humans encounter.  These responses are finite and unchanged throughout human history  And these "events" have hardly changed since Bach, Haydn or Beethoven:  war, war and more war.  Greed and avarice.  The struggle to stay alive, to love.

Whilst I accept this in principle, is it really the case that those basics of human emotions (which were never exactly simple in the first place) have remained basic and not been expanded as a consequence of those increasing complexities of life and the human condition?

It's my feeling that Elliott Carter's deserved success has had a limited impact for the average music lover.

No doubt - and, even then, it's taken long enough!

The reason is the same as it is for other composers (Boulez, certainly) whose works are regarded as "complex" and difficult to fathom.  If Carter and Boulez's work did, in fact, mirror or resonate with a contemporary human's increasingly complex emotional life, I would imagine that you'd see more of a response from the average music lover.  You normally do not.  You see responses from highly educated and technically proficient musicians who can grasp the import of these complex compositions from an intellectual viewpoint.  Perhaps their sophistication leads to emotional engagment with complex works over time.  I don't rule that out.  As a boy, on first hearing the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto, I was baffled and unmoved.  Time passes, my education continues, and now, of course, I see it as standard repertoire stuff, which it is.  An extraordinary piece of music that is seething with emotion.

Fascinating observations all! It occurs to me that the final five quartets of Beethoven really didn't resonate with most listeners - even some of the more dedicated and broad-minded ones - until some three quarters of a century after their completion, so maybe this is some kind of illustration of what may come in time.

On the opposite side of the coin, Carter's perceived personal "failure" with "populist" American-oriented pieces in the latter 1930s and early 1940s must now sit rather uneasily with the fact that, when he made far more efforts to be himself and to be true to that self when found, people gradually became more interested in what he was doing.

One other problem today is that the overbearing weight and omnipresence of pop musics of one kind and another and other pursuits and facilities (not least the "always available, always online" phenomenon) has encouraged the expectation of instant gratification phenomenon that has in part begotten discouragement of concentration on anything that needs concentration to get anything much out of it.

Emotions, in the psychological realm, are responses to thoughts.  What do we think about?  The same things the audiences of Haydn's day.  In this arena, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  Only the pace of life and its resultant complication has changed.  Killing is quicker and more efficient but it still elicits the same response in people affected by it.

Do we really only think as the audiences of Haydn's day did? You might be right (and, as a professional psychoanalyst, you should know more about this than I!) - but I cannot help question the veracity of such an idea. Even if there is "nothing new under the sun", there is a great deal more of it, whatever it is and it would seem inconceivable that this fact made no material impact on the way people think and the emotions that they experience or to which they otherwise become subject.

Not only that, I am reminded of that aspect of additive human response conditioning that was once obliquely illustrated by the English composer Robert Simpson when referring with some degree of reservation on the value of what we have since come to describe as "HIPP" (i.e. Historically Informed Performance Practice) by asserting that we cannot now listen to the music of Bach, however it is performed, with the ears and responses of Bach's contemporaries because we have listened to Xenakis; in other words (in this context), our reactions to Bach will inevitably be tempered to some degree by our experiences not only of Bach but of other aspects of our listening habits and experiences, including those that would be entirely outside those of Bach and his contemporaries.

I think the music that has and will endure is the music that captures the timelessness of human emotions.  Beethoven, a wild and crazy experimenter, grew closer to profundity with his simplest utterances.  Yes, he dazzled and got our attention, through more daring and complex means, but he won our hearts through making us feel what is universal.  Complexity often obscures this feature.  Unless, of course, in the hands of a bona fide, inspired genius.  They are rare.

Fair comment - and a penetrating one, too! I cannot help but remember, however, that some of Beethoven's utterances took a great deal longer to impact upon more than the tiniest sector of human consciousness than others did - and the immense and broadly unprecedented musical and psychological complexities that abound in the Op. 106 and Op. 111 sonatas and the Op. 130 and Op. 131 quartets decidedly fell into the former category.

Speaking of quartets, I think that, in some ways, the first of Carter's five is the most demanding and complex, yet its roots in Beethoven are far more apparent than they seem to be in his other four.

Thanks once again for a most insightful post!

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

You raise many provocative issues, the most intriguing to me is how does one define "complexity," after all.  Particularly regarding Beethoven: those late quartets have always "spoken" to me, i.e. not seemed inscrutable.  But Opus 106 leaves me in the dust.  That massive slow movement and final fugue strike me as so severe and almost unapproachable musically.  Yes, titanic achievements, for sure.  But Opus 111 walks right up to me and speaks very directly.  Almost too directly.

Maybe I'm arguing about something much more mysterious than simple "complexity" that blocks my way to understanding and accepting works.  Deryck Cooke (if I remember this correctly) once wrote that our acceptance, understanding and love of particular musical works is a mystery.  He confessed in an essay to disliking one of the movements of the Beethoven Fifth (I forget which one), almost with shame.  He was aware of its greatness, but had almost no response to it emotionally.  He referred to this, simply, as his particular "closed door."  I can relate to this.  There are many indisputably great works I get no gratification from.  And it's not simply that they are too complex.

So, perhaps, as you wisely pointed out, and I sense as well, it's growing familiarity with new musical vocabularies that wins us over to them.  My experience with Prokofiev as a boy, for example.  We must practice to be good listeners and practice is thoughtful, patient repetition.

I agree that we "think" about many more things than Haydn's audience did.  We do have an accumulated history that conditions more elaborate and perhaps different responses (thank you, Mr. Simpson!)  But the emotions, the feelings aroused by those thoughts, I feel, are the same that humans throughout history have always experienced.  There is nothing new there, I believe.  Anger is anger.  Disgust, disgust, etc.  What arouses those emotions may be different over the centuries, but I am not so sure about that.  

I recently read Stephen Mitchell's new translation of "Gilgamesh," and was astounded at the modern feel of the story.  All those ancient emotions are as fresh and lurid as the trashiest American Reality TV Show. The story predates the "Iliad" by 1,000 years but its universality in depicting human striving and suffering is timeless.  Its emotional landscape feels anything but "ancient" to readers.  It feels contemporary.  Emotions, I believe, don't change or evolve.  They remain fixed, but, yes, our intellectual responses to events (altered by cultural conditioning, and defense mechanisms such as denial, rationalization, etc.) are undoubtedly more complex, as you pointed out.  But the emotional palette remains the same -- if we don't block it with defense mechanisms.  But these mechanisms are not new or modern.  They've been with us forever.

Well, this is all conjecture on my part, of course, but enjoyable conjecture.  Thanks for commenting!        

[ahinton]

You raise many provocative issues, the most intriguing to me is how does one define "complexity," after all.  Particularly regarding Beethoven: those late quartets have always "spoken" to me, i.e. not seemed inscrutable.  But Opus 106 leaves me in the dust.  That massive slow movement and final fugue strike me as so severe and almost unapproachable musically.  Yes, titanic achievements, for sure.  But Opus 111 walks right up to me and speaks very directly.  Almost too directly.

I think that one should define "complexity" in music differently to consideration of what might "speak" to you or to anyone; "complexity" is surely of texture, melody, rhythm, counterpoints and the rest whereas, as you write

Maybe I'm arguing about something much more mysterious than simple "complexity" that blocks my way to understanding and accepting works.  Deryck Cooke (if I remember this correctly) once wrote that our acceptance, understanding and love of particular musical works is a mystery.  He confessed in an essay to disliking one of the movements of the Beethoven Fifth (I forget which one), almost with shame.  He was aware of its greatness, but had almost no response to it emotionally.  He referred to this, simply, as his particular "closed door."  I can relate to this.  There are many indisputably great works I get no gratification from.  And it's not simply that they are too complex.

Cooke's remark, cited in his essay The Futility of Music Criticism (from his book Vindications: Essays of Romantic Music [ed. David Matthews; Faber & Faber, London, 1982) - see https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&sqi=2&ved=0CEYQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eliranavni.com%2Fdocs%2Fdocument.doc&ei=XGu-UNfEKYin0AXc6oGwCw&usg=AFQjCNF_EbvWWCfTxi8gzmkwWyI1w141Rw - refers to his view that the opening melody of the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as a poor one, so I presume that it is this to which you refer here!

So, perhaps, as you wisely pointed out, and I sense as well, it's growing familiarity with new musical vocabularies that wins us over to them.  My experience with Prokofiev as a boy, for example.  We must practice to be good listeners and practice is thoughtful, patient repetition.

Well, yes, growing familiarity does indeed help, but there are other considerations here. First, not every work hits certain listeners between the ears first time around. Secondly, not every one that even does that necessarily yields all of its secrets to that listener first time around. Practising to be good listeners for the purpose of increasing familairity is, of course, important, as you imply.

I agree that we "think" about many more things than Haydn's audience did.  We do have an accumulated history that conditions more elaborate and perhaps different responses (thank you, Mr. Simpson!)  But the emotions, the feelings aroused by those thoughts, I feel, are the same that humans throughout history have always experienced.  There is nothing new there, I believe.  Anger is anger.  Disgust, disgust, etc.  What arouses those emotions may be different over the centuries, but I am not so sure about that.

I'm still struggling to accept that this is the case. The fundamental emotions are just as they've always, been, of course, but the very fact that you talk about emotions as instinctive reactions to what's going on around us suggests strongly to me that, whilst the fundamental basic human emotions have not changed, the very fact that such emotions are reactive phenomena indicates that, as there are now so many more complex aspects of human life to which to react and respond, the nuances that grow upon those basic human emotions mean that the emotions themselves expand and develop to take due account of those increased experiences. Why else might it be that what is expressed in the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, Schönberg et al is more heightened than in Haydn?

I recently read Stephen Mitchell's new translation of "Gilgamesh," and was astounded at the modern feel of the story.  All those ancient emotions are as fresh and lurid as the trashiest American Reality TV Show. The story predates the "Iliad" by 1,000 years but its universality in depicting human striving and suffering is timeless.  Its emotional landscape feels anything but "ancient" to readers.  It feels contemporary.  Emotions, I believe, don't change or evolve.  They remain fixed, but, yes, our intellectual responses to events (altered by cultural conditioning, and defense mechanisms such as denial, rationalization, etc.) are undoubtedly more complex, as you pointed out.  But the emotional palette remains the same -- if we don't block it with defense mechanisms.  But these mechanisms are not new or modern.  They've been with us forever.

Yes, but I think that I've answered this above!

All that said, we seem to have come a long way from the question of what piano repertoire some piano teachers do or don't teach and why!

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

.  Nevermind. I really shouldn't be attempting to be in this conversation.

[ahinton]

.  Nevermind. I really shouldn't be attempting to be in this conversation.

Why not? That's up to you, of course - you're as welcome to participate as is anyone else here.

Best,

Alistair

[lostinidlewonder]

My teacher happily lets me bring in music from different video game OSTs that I really enjoy...

This is becoming more and more common for me as a teacher seeing people being inspired by computer game music and brining the sheets in. As you mentioned in your post it does teach a lot of different technique and if the student is passionate about it it really does help them on their musical journey.

I think teaching only the "old" standard set of music, the old classical paths are still very good and who is to say you cannot pick and choose elements of this well walked path, but in the 21st century there is a great deal more information out there and different media that can enhance musical choices. There are students who are not interested in playing classical one bit but want to play everything from a movie or computer game series, some have favourite singers and they just want to learn all of their music etc. So as a modern teacher we need to be able to teach music of our time, if we don't or can't we are living in the past

As for teaching complicated "random" sounding pieces, it is extremely rare for me to come across a student who is interested in this or even capable to attempt it. I myself even find uselessness studying overly complicated music because I do not see spending hours mastering one page an effective use of my time. If the results produced sounds which where pleasing to my ear yes certainly, but there is plenty of beautiful ultra complicated piano music that sounds good to my ear, why would I want to study music that I don't like the sound of just because it poses learning challenges and complications? Why would I bother mastering complications which produce sounds that are not pleasing to my ear?

... what greater way is there to get a student to learn something than for them to love it? They do pretty much 99% of the legwork, all you have to do is sand the rough edges. If you give them stuff they're not particularly fond of, then it just becomes pure work, and work with no passion is just no good at all, well, with regards to music anyway.

This is really true and a shame that there are teachers that miss this point. Sure it's important to do things you may not like when learning the piano, everyone who plays at a high level will admit this, but predominantly we study pieces and/or towards pieces that excite us to learn. I have had students who solely study Japanese computer game music one of which eventually outgrew the challenges that this genre could pose him, but he still enjoyed sharpening skills to be able to sight read them immediately and even naturally gravitated towards classical/jazz pieces I introduced him to that extended/reinforced ideas from his video game music.

[Derek]

Why not? That's up to you, of course - you're as welcome to participate as is anyone else here.

Best,

Alistair

Cause I'm a total hypocrite. I lash out against people who like loud and dissonant music, and yet I listen to things like this.

Maybe that's why few people are into dissonant classical---they are having too much fun making dissonant music with guitars?

Thus ended Derek's futile campaign against fellow dissonance lovers.

To continue discussing the actual topic though. I guess lostinidlewonder is making the point that piano teachers do in fact teach music from living composers (video game composers, etc.)---just usually not self described "classical" composers, who, for the most part, compose music that most people, for whatever reason, think is bad. I earnestly feel that until self described "classical" composers start figuring out why that is, it'll probably remain true!

[cmg]

Cause I'm a total hypocrite. I lash out against people who like loud and dissonant music, and yet I listen to things like this.

Maybe that's why few people are into dissonant classical---they are having too much fun making dissonant music with guitars?

Thus ended Derek's futile campaign against fellow dissonance lovers.

I don't think you're a "hypocrite" at all.  This style of music example you gave is what my young friends discuss with me all the time.  The ones who are trained musicians, even just self-trained musicians with real intelligence, categorize this stuff as "noise to jump around to while you're totally buzzed on drugs and want to get laid."  They don't actually regard it as music.  More of cultural phenomenon.  Music-less music characterized by a relentless rhythm and deafening sound. 

I'm no expert on this stuff, so after I spend six months in an East Berlin warehouse with a bunch of international slackers dreaming to be artists and sort of "jamming", I'll report back. :-) 

[ahinton]

To continue discussing the actual topic though. I guess lostinidlewonder is making the point that piano teachers do in fact teach music from living composers (video game composers, etc.)---just usually not self described "classical" composers, who, for the most part, compose music that most people, for whatever reason, think is bad. I earnestly feel that until self described "classical" composers start figuring out why that is, it'll probably remain true!

The extent to which teachers teach new piano music to their piano students is inevitably in part determined by how difficult some of that music is for them to play, but this is not really much different to the case with earlier music; just consider how much Beethoven, Alkan, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and Rachmaninov would be off-limits to many piano students until they'd acquired the facility to be able to try to address it. Furthermore, piano composers have not stopped writing music specifically for educational purposes.

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

I don't think you're a "hypocrite" at all.

Nope, I'm definitely a hypocrite. The reason is---the only reason I ever lash out against those who support the creation of such music as Xenakis' and others, is because it is dissonant, loud, and unsettling (in general). Since those very adjectives can describe a lot of music I like---I am therefore being inconsistent. Whether or not one or the other has intellectual merit does not interest me, however.

[mahlermaniac]

It seems that a lot of people are hearing "modern" music and think "classical atonal". That's hardly the case, there is plenty of beautiful music from modern new age solo piano composer-performers. David Nevue & Philip Wesley, both of whom have their sheet music available for purchase online.  Packed full of melody. There are musical scores from video game music, some of which is high quality (think Nubuo Uematsu).

I think the responsibility for the playing of new music is both the responsibility of the student and the teacher. If the student wants to play a certain style of music, some of the onus should be on them to bring in that material and request help working on it. At the same time, it's not good enough for a teacher "to teach in the style they were taught in" Part of anyone's job criteria in modern society is to adapt to the fluctuating needs of their clientele. I work in the medical field, and we are expected to keep pace with the changing trends in medicine all the time. Does this mean that a piano teacher needs to spend four hours weekly learning Xenakis and the latest pop hit from Lady Gaga? Perhaps not to that degree, but they SHOULD seek out some alternate material for their library, do some periodic evaluation for new repoirtoire, and if they have no interest in teaching such things perhaps help guide students on where they can get help to learn such music.

[bluthner]

From about November 30th through December 4th, I have found this thread to be just about the most absorbing and enjoyable one I have yet encountered on this forum, and mindful of the kind invitation,

Why not? That's up to you, of course - you're as welcome to participate as is anyone else here.

I hope I will be forgiven for expanding on two or three issues that are to me -- neither an (aspiring) musician nor a psychoanalyst, but a literary historian -- of particular interest.

I begin with the allegation that human life is more complex now than it was in the past, which in this thread has been conceded both by those who think that man's emotional response to this increased complexity is invariable, and by those who don't. Intuitively unassailable though the notion of life's increased complexity may seem -- given the sheer number and variety of stimuli with which man is nowadays confronted every minute of his waking existence -- I do not think that it can be validated in any other terms than that of prima facie intuition. 'Complexity' is a matter, not so much of subjectivity (as in: 'if I think life [or a piece of music or literature] is complex, then it is complex [for me]'), as of relativity (as in: 'speaking of complexity is meaningful only in relation to my capacity to accommodate multiple stimuli'). A multiplicity of stimuli simply does not, by itself, make for 'complexity'. Ergo, computing the number of stimuli confronting wakeful human beings in 2012 and comparing that number with the corresponding number in 1912 or in 1812 or even in 2012 BC cannot by itself support the allegation quoted above. Complexity, being a relational concept, is by its definition incommensurable: the statement that our lives are more complicated than those of our ancestors (no matter how remote) is, for all its intuitive unassailability, meaningless.

If we do want to compare our experience of our world's complexity with that of those who lived a hundred, or four thousand, years before us, we must not only consider the invariability (or not) of man's basic emotions and the sheer amount of (cultural) history that has intervened between them and us, but also -- and this, I feel, has not been sufficiently stressed in previous contributions to the topic -- to the human mind's plasticity. Life is 'complicated' only in relation to the mind's capacity to deal with its complications: our minds may have more, and more diverse, stimuli to deal with than the minds of those who lived before, but from that it does not follow that they had an easier job making sense of life than we. I cannot think of any kind of evidence (other than intuition) that would prove that our minds are otherwise adapted to the 'complexity' of our world than our ancestors' minds were to the complexity of theirs. Surely, life is just as difficult to grasp and deal with for us as it was for Henry James or Marcel Proust -- witness their incomparably subtle and searching accounts of that very process -- or, for that matter, for the Greek tragedians or for the poet of the Iliad?

Coming to the point: I think it is both misguided and patronising to say that

that what is expressed in the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, Schönberg et al is more heightened than in Haydn

(unless no more is implied than that Haydn had a debased response to life, which is merely judgmental);
or to say that

the increasing complexities of life have... gone hand in hand with - and perhaps also encouraged the development of - more and wider nuances to existing (emotions), rather as the continuing expansion of verbal and musical language has done.

I think the instances of Henry James and Proust given above (to say nothing of Homer: don't get me started...) disprove the notion that verbal language has 'continuously expanded' -- in any other sense, that is, than in the trivial sense that we can now choose to write of life a) as Dickens did, b) as James did, c) as Joyce did and d) as David Mitchell does; whereas for Henry James, only a) and b) were available. The point I wish to make being that, if one is David Mitchell, one has no need for a) through c), as they have been done: (literally) beyond compare. If anything, verbal language has become the poorer, since now, nobody can use the same words as James or Joyce without plagiarising the masters. Viewed thus, every successful work of art subtracts from the richness of the verbal language that is available to subsequent generations of artists.

None of this exactly goes against anything that has been implied in those wonderful contributions of last week, but I do wish people would stop relaying the meaningless truism that life is more complex or complicated than it was, not just for Haydn but also for the artists who decorated the Lascaux caves. It is not; and the allegation that it is can never be a justification for writing, composing and appreciating art in any other way than those who came before us.

And surely, to do so (viz. write, compose... etc.) requires no such justification? Which brings me to a second topic that has been addressed above, which is the question in what way the artist must approach, or target his/her audience. No one in his right mind would require that an artist worthy of the name exclusively pander to what the public wishes or expect to experience. If, indeed, art must 'refresh the soul' of its consumers, then something at least must be added (or subtracted) from the consumer's soul for art's mission to succeed. Nor, as has been observed, should it be the artist's aim only to alienate. Yet -- here comes the crux -- what lies in between these two extremes, I think, is not a matter of the artist targeting an ideal balance or compromise between the positive and the negative capabilities of his/her actual, real-life audience. Rather -- and I do feel uncomfortable writing about what an artist 'must' and 'mustn't' do: please note that I am merely proposing what I, as a consumer of art, wish an artist to do, and that this wish is based on what I perceive the greatest artists of the past to have done (which, truly, is the only viable yardstick I can think of) -- rather, what lies between the extremes of 'ingratiating and alienating' is the artist individually creating his/her audience. By going through the myriad decisions -- emotionally as well as intellectually informed decisions -- that the creation of a work of art require, the artist projects an image of the (ideal) audience for this particular piece of work. And it is up to the actual audience to live up to this image. Mostly, I think, audiences do -- if not always rightaway (but that is immaterial [except as concerns the 'material' aspect of creation, viz. the paychecks]). The point is that, ultimately, the artist's responsibility for the enjoyment of his/her art is strictly limited to the avoidance of 'ingratiating and alienating'. For what comes in between -- the actual enjoyment of art -- the responsibility is wholly on the part of the actual audience: viz., living up to the image of the 'audience' projected by the artist.

I don't know about music criticism and musicology or psycho-analysis, but in my field (literary studies), the scenario proposed above is pretty mainstream. It brings me in a roundabout way to the original topic of this thread, which I will address with nothing more than a profession of faith: I firmly believe that it is the given task of any one who will describe him/herself as 'teacher' to help enable those whom he/she teaches to realize their responsibility, as audience or recreators, towards any work of art -- whether it be a contemporary response to life's (increased) complexity or an (equally demanding) historical artefact.

Many thanks for your patience!
Bluthner

[cmg]

Thanks for your thoughts.  

I'm so glad you brought in literature more fully.  Yes, a reading through great literature shows the "complexity" of any epoch, one epoch differing from the other, in my view, only in the technological achievements of its respective time.  

Earlier, I used the example of warfare (a prominent subject in great literature) to show how unchangeable human history actually is.  The means to kill grows more complex (blunt clubs to drones) but the effect is the same and the emotional response is the same.  (Stanley Kubrick in "2001 Space Odyssey" captures this perfectly in one image:  the ape discovering weaponry among shattered bones, killing, then triumphantly tossing the bone into the air, where it spins and morphs cinematically into the space ship. In other words, so much for "progress.")  

If Haydn or Mozart chose to compose music of a more ordered and harmonious nature, it was the particular cultural leaning of the Enlightenment, not the fact of a less complex life:  one distanced one's self from the violence and complexity of life by assuming correctly that mankind had it in its nature to behave better.  The music of Haydn and Mozart reflects this, I believe, rather than the fact that the times were easier, simpler than those of today.

Ironically, in dystopian novels, such as "1984" and "Brave New World" the "complexity" of futuristic, modernistic times actually reduces humans to nearly primitive states ruled by brutal, fascist regimes or cowed into docility and dumbed down (simplified) by drugs.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

[ahinton]

Thanks for your thoughts.  

I'm so glad you brought in literature more fully.  Yes, a reading through great literature shows the "complexity" of any epoch, one epoch differing from the other, in my view, only in the technological achievements of its respective time.  

Earlier, I used the example of warfare (a prominent subject in great literature) to show how unchangeable human history actually is.  The means to kill grows more complex (blunt clubs to drones) but the effect is the same and the emotional response is the same.  (Stanley Kubrick in "2001 Space Odyssey" captures this perfectly in one image:  the ape discovering weaponry among shattered bones, killing, then triumphantly tossing the bone into the air, where it spins and morphs cinematically into the space ship. In other words, so much for "progress.")  

If Haydn or Mozart chose to compose music of a more ordered and harmonious nature, it was the particular cultural leaning of the Enlightenment, not the fact of a less complex life:  one distanced one's self from the violence and complexity of life by assuming correctly that mankind had it in its nature to behave better.  The music of Haydn and Mozart reflects this, I believe, rather than the fact that the times were easier, simpler than those of today.

Ironically, in dystopian novels, such as "1984" and "Brave New World" the "complexity" of futuristic, modernistic times actually reduces humans to nearly primitive states ruled by brutal, fascist regimes or cowed into docility and dumbed down (simplified) by drugs.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Ah, oui - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose! - and many thanks for bluthner's most considered and thoughtful responses here, for which I am immensely grateful even though I may not agree with every letter of them!

The entire "complexity" phenomenon is perhaps misunderstood as something inherently resistant and off-putting; let's look at it from the standpoint of the music consumer who wonders what to find to listen to in the light of the observation made by Elliott Carter about how he and his two elder compatriots Copland and Sessions (and others) fought long and hard for the permanent establishment of musical composition as a bona fide and legitimate study subject at university; Carter has said that there were just a few tens of American composers before it and now there are tens of thousands of them, all clamouring for an audience in a climate in which millions of hours more music is not only created but also made relatively easily available to listeners than ever before - and many of them teaching even more of them! Like in so many other walks of life, there's vastly more from which to choose and accordingly more choices to make. If that doesn't at least embrace the capacity to expand emotional responses, one might wonder why it's all there in the first place! Furthermore - and more importantly, I think - if the outcomes of human imagination do little or nothing to expand that capacity, one might have reason to question whether humanity is even developing at all!

Thanks again for some very interesting ideas!

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

Carter has said that there were just a few tens of American composers before it and now there are tens of thousands of them, all clamouring for an audience in a climate in which millions of hours more music is not only created but also made relatively easily available to listeners than ever before - and many of them teaching even more of them! Like in so many other walks of life, there's vastly more from which to choose and accordingly more choices to make. If that doesn't at least embrace the capacity to expand emotional responses, one might wonder why it's all there in the first place! Furthermore - and more importantly, I think - if the outcomes of human imagination do little or nothing to expand that capacity, one might have reason to question whether humanity is even developing at all!

Thanks again for some very interesting ideas!

Best,

Alistair

"Vastly more to choose and accordingly more choices to make." But we really aren't permitted to be exposed to the complexity of expanding choices. The overwhelming bulk of it falls away and disappears under the few "choices" that do emerge -- that's where the field of marketing and branding comes in.  These almost innumerable choices have been winnowed out, not by quality necessarily, but by "marketing specialists."  For example, in consumer products, huge amounts of money and product endorsements from celebrities, etc., subtly coerce the consumer to choose A over B, for a myriad of reasons, most silly!  Look at the internet -- glutted with "complexity" but search engines winnow it out and present only a few salient "choices," all the result of some form of marketing which dispatches the millions of other choices into cyber-oblivion.

Okay, forgive this theory, but I believe the same thing happens in art.  Growing up in the 1960s I was aware that compositional departments (at least at the schools I attended) induced students to write music of a "newness" that this music sounded "complex" to many listeners.  I had a composer friend at Columbia University, who was a closeted "Romantic," who purposely wrote a maddeningly complex symphony, almost indecipherable on the page for a competition in Brazil.  He won first prize.  I asked about the performance of his work, was he pleased?:  "It sounded as it looked in the score," he said.  "Like a traffic jam."

That aside, as well as his cynicism, there was Samuel Barber who was a victim of new music marketing agents (in this case, primarily academia and others pushing newer, more "complex" music.)  Barber wrote what he felt and suffered for his Romantic tendencies in an age when Romanticism in serious music was openly dismissed by those "marketing" the new trend.  Who drove the "marketers?"  Great question!  I think they were those highly influential musicians (and their sympathetic and powerful coterie of sympathetic critics) who already held the power to be influential in the new musical forms and vocabularies.  Boulez, being one, and forgive me for picking on him.  He simply comes to mind as a most influential artist who was dedicated to the new.  His opinions and compositions acted as a form of marketing in influencing young composers who needed an audience.  The result for many listeners was music that was inscrutable.

So, complex music as the result of complex times?  I disagree, respectfully.  Marketing shapes opinions and the powerful avant-garde and their critics were the marketers.  You see the reaction known as Minimalism (hardly an improvement, in my opinion) that, equally, has been driven not strictly by merit but by the marketing of critics who have trumpeted the welcome accessibility of music to listeners flummoxed by earlier, modern compositional styles.  I doubt that audiences have driven any of the innovations in composition in recent decades.  They've been rather cool to "complexity."  In Carter's case, I would suggest that being championed by some of our greatest musicians helped his cause.  But, his music, in all its complexity, still has a smallish audience.  

[the89thkey]

Option 3

[shazeelawan]

The piano program which I go to is the Japanese yamaha program,where we have activity books containing different pieces to play. Even though there are a few classical works,most of the pieces are written by modern Japanese composers. So,I guess it depends on...the music program? (This is in relation to music programs such as the ABRSM,etc,not to individual music teachers).

[whartley]

As someone who hopes to start teaching next year, I think I will at least at the beginning teach classical music and for chord study, hymns.  The reason is that you get a solid foundation in music and patterns.  I am not opposed to students learning music from people who are alive, however.  After they have a good musical foundation, then modern day songs will be added.  So many modern day songs just have the melody line or are very simple so a good classical music foundation would enable them to improve the songs and make them fuller and sound better.