jho@ihuxn.UUCP (Yosi Hoshen) (05/30/84)
From Bill Mitchell: >Frankly, I find it hard to relate to "modern" classical music - it doesn't >contain sound patterns that I can relate to as musical in the way that >pre-twentieth century classical music, or relatively modern jazz works do. I have been exposed to classical music since childhood. Yet, I was never able to appreciate twentieth century classical music (with very few exceptions). Almost every concert nowadays includes 20th century music. It is usually a modern piece sandwiched between two classical ones, so you cannot escape listening to modern music. I have been trying very hard to listen and "understand" this music, but with very little success. It seems to me that those who can appreciate modern classical music are a minority. In a way I envy these people, since they can always hope to hear something new. On the other hand, those of us who are limited to pre-20th century music are really face with a dead-end. Unfortunately, there will not be another Mozart or Beethoven. We are stuck with the existing music repertoire without a hope for expanding it. I sometimes wonder whether future generations will have the same appreciation to 20th century music as we have to 19th century music. Did music reach its apex in the 19th century? -- Yosi Hoshen Bell Laboratories Naperville, Illinois (312)-979-7321 Mail: ihnp4!ihuxn!jho
wjm@whuxj.UUCP (MITCHELL) (05/30/84)
While I'm pleased to see that Yosi Hoshen agrees with my feelings about modern classical music, I hope that his view of the future is not accurate, and that all the "listenable" works have not yet been written. I once read an paper in one of the audio or communication theory journals along those lines, addressing the fact that there were only N listenable patterns of sound (let us say digital encodings of a given work of music - we can without loss of generality leave the method of encoding the written score totally arbitrary - although some coding schemes are more efficient (use less bits to encode a given work) than others). Although N is a large number, it is finite and at some time T, all N patterns will be discovered. This author contended that T was reached some time in the 1940's and therefore we have no hope of a future Beethoven benefiting our society. Personally, I disagree, since I think N is extremely large. Although, as I mentioned in my original article that began this discussion, I am disturbed by "modern" classical music, I still hope that a new composer will come up with some works that I'll enjoy as much as I enjoy those by Dvorak, Brahms, and Mahler. One thing that gives me some hope is that I still like some new music on the popular side of the house (For now I'll include jazz here). Not hard rock, but some new jazz works, recent country songs, and some recent show/movie music. Perhaps this will provide the inspiration Composer X needs to write his Symphony, Piano Concerto, or whatever. Bill Mitchell (whuxj!wjm)
gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (05/30/84)
I'm hazarding a guess here, but I'd be curious to know how you feel you fare with the art (Literature, Theatre, Visual Stuff) of the past century itself. While M. Hoshen is not the source of the following judgement, he echoes some of the superficial features one has encountered in the 20th century discourse: the tendency to listen to something "as music, period", the spoken or unspoken committment that music must have "beauty", and must or should exist within the confines of the 19th century view of art as the Academy, and the notion that there's a sort of Darwinian arc of culture (which we're on the slide side of ). I intend this as no flame whatsoever, nor insult. I am, however, interested to discover if those of you who have trouble with the music of the modern world experience similar difficulties with the products of modern culture in general....... g(STILL working on the libretto of Calvino's "Invisible Cities")taylor@cornell :wq :wq
fish@ihu1g.UUCP (Bob Fishell) (05/31/84)
(oo)
I don't know if you can lump all the music written in the 20th century
together into one category and call it "modern." How do you compare
Debussy with Berg or Mahler with Stravinsky? You don't. The 20th
century is a point of departure for serious music, and it seems to have
taken on myriad different forms, ranging from the sublime to the
ridiculous. There is some lovely music that has been written since 1900,
and it's a shame to lump it in with crap like "Wozzeck," which seems to
have been written just to alienate people.
I suppose that I've just offended a few Alban Berg fans and forever
branded myself an artless lowbrow, but I know I'm not alone. I'll
take a lyric violin over breaking light bulbs any day.
--
Bob Fishell
ihnp4!ihu1g!fishmwg@mouton.UUCP (05/31/84)
++ I wonder why there are so many people who can't find any recent music they like; and why there aren't some modern composers who, feeling likewise, would write something listenable. Part of it, no doubt, is that all that modern noise is so entrenched in musical academia that if you can't stand it, you won't make it. The twentieth century composers started in with the experimentation because they were (are) bored with limited forms of music. Some of the experiments are only academically interesting [eg most of Cage, all of Stockhausen ~:-)], some fail miserably, and some are quite sucessful. Perhaps because musicians (esp composers) take music more seriously than the casual listener, they realize the limitation of the old styles and write in new ones; whereas those who do not study music enough to see those limitations are confined by them. Now we are getting composers who are tired of unlistenable music too. But they still experiment. Much of the minimalist school's compositions are wonderfully consonant. Phil Glass might be too minimal for you but Steve Reich is beautiful and complex (much like Bach), if you can stand the repetition. If you really listen, you will find that after some time it no longer seems repetitious because you can hear the subtle changes. Try "Music for 18 Musicians". -Mark Garrett ...allegra!mouton!mwg
gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (05/31/84)
Alright. This is much more like it! Before I do anything else, I'd like to anticipate the flames somewhat on all you net.music.classical folks who think that the minimalists are all swill (you know who you are, and so does my still smoking mailbox) by virtue of being too simple. Rather than stooping to a philosophical defense of what is a "musical" question, I would like to recommend 2 pieces of pleasant and consonant minimalist work to you. I suspect that it may either provide you with either something you might like, or give you a *really* good example of the form to lambaste on the net: Steve Reich: "Tehilleem" (ECM) a setting of four sections of the Hebrew psalms which is the most recent version of Reich's growing modification of the Minimalist aesthetic. There is actually more straight canon here than Reich's trademark slow-roll hocketing (at least until "This Desert Music"-his setting of William Carlos Williams' poetry is released). You can even hum along to it. David Borden: "Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments" (Red Records) specifically, I'd recommend the pieces from the "comtinuing story of counterpoint" series here. David is, in my opinion, one of the real lights of the minimalist school, ignored because he doesn't reside in NYC largely. His approach involves the adaptation of Renaissance species counterpoint to the minimalist enterprise. There's enough "real theory in action" to keep even the stuffiest baroqueophile tuned in. NOW: back to the discussion in action....It's certainly clear from our little "Berg and the Bulb" posting that there's some strong feelings here. I have even gotten a few (thank you, one and all) quite seriously worded responses to my question about living in the 20th century. A good deal of the argument seems to center around these ideas: a)20th century music does not have the collection of attributes that I expect music to have. This line of reasoning embraces everything from the structural features of melody and motif to the larger perceptions of the composer's intent (20th century composers are dishonest charlatans) and a collision of the writers view of what music SHOULD do (entertain, relax, stimulate) and what it does. b)20th Century music is not music. THis often appears alongside a), but not necessarily. c)THis is not music, but a theoretical system (to be fair, I think that the amplified version of this is "a theoretical system which does not engage me on the level that I expect given a)"). d)Yes, I'm quite comfortable with the other aesthetic paradigms of the modern world, but I don't like the music because music is not like other art (there's GOT to be someone better to quote than Leonard Bernstein here......). e) Sure, I accept that all the music I profess to like is in fact a constructed system with rules often as rigourous as the stuff I profess to hate. It's just that I don't like the idea that the system is so explicit. f) Music has nothing to do with these theoretical structures. It is something you hear. As you can guess, I am enjoying all this quite a bit. This is an attempt to spit back some of the results of the responses from my last posting. As this continues I think I'm beginning to see a sense of how some netters think about art (or do not think, but rather "experience") keep talking(you listening, Twiss?). gtaylor
linda@inuxd.UUCP (Linda Pearlstein) (06/01/84)
My tastes in art are as contemporary as my tastes in music are classical and baroque. My favorite composer is Bach, and my favorite artist is Miro, who -- in addition to still being alive! -- uses chiefly primary colors and, to me, relatively simple lines and shapes. I'm fond of saying of my taste in art -- " if I can tell what it is (a bird, a tree) -- I don't like it." Extremely abstract, in a word. My favorite museum is Museum of Modern Art, which I visit as often as I visit New York. I also love contemporary architecture and interiors. My tastes -- far from baroque |-) are absolutely stark. I've not been able to explain this seeming paradox. Anyone else? Linda Pearlstein AT&T Consumer Products Indianapolis -
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (06/01/84)
References: Much of what we regard as great music from the past was not all that popular in its own day. Although some of the greatest composers were nearly instant hits (as Stravinsky and Ravel have been in this century), many were appreciated much later. Consequently I don't feel that our disaffection with much of modern music is all that unusual. There is an enormous number of modern composers. It may take 50 years to sift them out and concentrate on intelligent performances of the best 150. It's too early to guess how long the music of, say, Steve Reich will be played, or whether, say, Ligety's witty piano compositions will gradually become very popular, etc... Perhaps the easiest thing to see is how twenty or so composers working early in the 20th century have become established, easy-to-listen-to alltime greats (like Bartok). For those who concentrate on past music, the situation is not "dead". There will never be another Beethoven, but there will always be another interpretation of him, and our ability to understand our favorite composers is always (I hope) growing. - Toby Robison (not Robinson!) allegra!eosp1!robison decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison princeton!eosp1!robison
asente@decwrl.UUCP (Paul Asente) (06/01/84)
Perhaps one of the reasons many people dislike "modern classical music" is that there hasn't been time yet to weed out what is good from what is just mediocre. Yes, even Mozart and Beethoven wrote music that wasn't great. Have you ever heard Beethoven's Symphony #2? There's nothing wrong with it, it just isn't great. Beethoven's opera "Fidelio" would probably be forgotten if anyone else had written it. Every one in a while we get treated to some long-lost piece by some famous composer and, surprise, it's DULL. (Not always, of course, but sometimes.) Also, most older pieces have either had a chance to be revised and improved by the composer later in his life or come from the composer's older days. For some reason I think that the most interesting modern work being done is being written for voice or chorus. Steve Reich's recent "Tehillim" (Psalms) is very worth looking into; I have always liked Steve Reich but this piece absolutely blew me away when I heard it live 3 years ago. Also check out John Adams' "Harmonium" (due out on Phillips anytime now recorded by the SF Symphony.) This is settings of three poems by John Donne and Emily Dickenson for chorus and large orchestra. Not choral but really good if you can find it is "Windows" by Jacob Druckman. This won the Pulitzer Prize for music when it first came out. The main idea is that there is a "wall of sound"; occasionally you come to "windows" in the wall and hear little snatches of music in various recognisable styles, then you move on to the next window. The little snatches all are almost recognisable; they all seem to tug at your "I know that!" feeling, but they were all acutally written by Druckman himself. This record is very hard to find (I've been trying for years). In short, don't give modern music the complete write-off. There's a lot of dreck out there but there are some diamonds, too. The only difference between now and 150 years ago is that the trash then was quiet and boring; now it's loud and boring. -paul asente (decvax, ucbvax, ihnp4...)!decwrl!asente "It is easier to fight for your principles than to live up to them."
kissell@flairvax.UUCP (06/02/84)
(tap tap)
One underestimated reason for the dearth of "good" "modern" "classical"
music is that many, if not most individuals with instrumental and
compositional talent have chosen to work in jazz and other idioms,
where they can find audiences. This leaves "classical" composition
mainly in the hands of academics, reactionaries, and experimentalists.
Kevin D. Kissell
Fairchild Research Center
Advanced Processor Development
uucp: {ihnp4 decvax}!decwrl!\
>flairvax!kissell
{ucbvax sdcrdcf}!hplabs!/
"Any closing epigram, regardless of truth or wit, grows galling
after a number of repetitions"