greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley) (08/14/84)
There are two points that have come up several times with regard to contemporary "classical" music that I feel compelled to argue with. First; one hears continually the notion that the situation of the public vs. the contemporary composer is really essentially the same as it was for most of the now-recognized major composers of the last centuries and that, therefore, those composers and works which are now shunned are likely to be recognized as masterpieces a hundred years from now. Those who really like to read in depth about the musical past rather than swallowing the more superficial and shoddy examples of musical "scholarship" and perpetuating facile myths know that this only applies to a small minority of actual cases. Mozart and Schubert didn't die in poverty because nobody was able to appreciate their music; rather they suffered from their own squandering of their financial resources and inability to prevent unscrupulous publishers and "patrons" from taking advantage of them. The works of Wagner weren't booed or ignored because they were too harmonically adventurous. A major segment of the public which heard them were enraptured by them from the start and caused them to be perpetuated. Those critics which took exception to them did so for the same musical and philosophical reasons that critics today continue to attack them. The debacle over the world premiere of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" is often quoted, but a minimal amount of research into the story uncovers the fact that the public reaction was primarily directed at the current ballet politics and the actual staging rather than being due to the inability of the audience to comprehend the music. In fact, the disturbances began so early in the performance that the greatest likelihood is that the majority of the audience present were unable to hear the music and judge it one way or the other. The second point that I've seen raised is that music of the same greatness as the last century's is being constantly written, but that the public is too uneducated to appreciate it. This has a degree of plausibility in an age where this sort of education, and the humanities in general, are being chopped out of high school and university programs right and left in an effort to convert education into an extended form of job training. However, there is something dreadfully wrong with an art that necessitates that the observer play extensive intellectual glass bead games in order to derive any expressive content from it. Much contemporary music has deteriorated into this sort of sterile amusement for the composer and the elite few who can "get it", if even they do (or are we back to the Emporer's new clothes?). The greatness of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, and even in more recent times the better works of Britten, Stravinsky, Virgil Thomson and Charles Griffes is that they present something to a broad panorama of the reasonably sensitive public (i.e., those who can sit for five minutes and listen to anything other than THUD..THUD..THUD). Those with no penchant for intellectuality could appreciate the surface beauty and powerful emotionality which is being expressed directly, rather than encoded in a series of tone rows and clusters. On the other hand, these composers also made use of technical resources in such a way as to provide the musicologist and academician something to probe into. When a contemporary work with this depth of appeal surfaces, it has no trouble finding an appreciative public. You can't, however, throw just anything at the public and expect instant recognition if it does not at least come half way toward communicating with them. It's as if you were to sit a group of people who speak and understand only English at a lecture conducted in Finnish and then chide them for not being thrilled at what they heard. - Greg Paley
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/15/84)
After reading Greg's thoughtful and interesting article, I want to
expand on one thing he said and add another observation.
I also have heard it said many times that more education or intellect is
required to appreciate modern music (especially that which uses serialist
structures) than earlier music. I don't believe it, and I agree it would
say bad things about that music if it were true.
But this music *does* sound *much* different than most of the musical sounds
most people hear when they're growing up. In particular, dissonance of the sort
found in, say Pierrot Lunaire seems to be an acquired taste for most people.
So what? So's whiskey, and it's immensely popular. (Of course, there are no
social pressures to listen to Pierrot Lunaire.) Anyway, I believe this
dissonance and general strangeness (ie, unfamiliarity with the vocabulary) is
mainly what is responsible for the lack of popularity of modern music.
The only way for the individual to overcome this is just to listen to all of
it he can find, without prejudgement. Even if it sounds awful at first.
I guess I'm lucky, in that there was social pressure on me, both in school
and at home, to listen to it (you thought I was joking about social pressure,
weren't you?). Another thing which might help is to read what Schoenberg
wrote about his own and others' music (and he wrote a lot - painted too).
I came away convinced that this guy knew what he was talking about (ie,
I agreed with what he wrote) - that provided a kind of intellectual pressure
for me. And once you can make the transition to appreciating this music, you
shouldn't have too much trouble extending that appreciation to more truly
modern work.
Then again, I have met people who seemed to have an instinctive liking for
it. Earle Brown claimed that when he first started improvising on the piano,
it came out sounding like "middle Schoenberg". I realize that this is hardly
modern, but it is a good example of the kind of dissonance I'm talking about.
12 days in a week, right?
Jeff Winslowjtm@syteka.UUCP (Jim T. McCrae) (08/15/84)
Well said! Buy that man a drink! Jim McCrae ...!hplabs!sytek!jtm