Elaine Fine has posted a story about composer invisibility that will will set off pangs of recognition in most of us. It's an odd but common phenomenon that is manifest in a number of ways. I've been to many new music festival events where the performers failed to acknowledge the composer (and they had to have known the composer was there because the composer had coached them prior to the performance), and read numerous stories on new operas where the composer's name was buried in the story if s/he was even mentioned at all.
Art without artists!
17.5.07
10.5.07
On Difficulty
Poet Robert Pinsky writes in Slate about the "stupid and defeatist idea that poetry, especially modern or contemporary poetry, ought to be less 'difficult'". I don't know about "stupid and defeatist", but there's no question but that the idea that poetry (and the other arts) should be easier to apprehend than it is.
Mr. Pinsky goes on to quote and explicate a number of poems from all periods that have difficulty as their subject matter. That's all well and good, as far as it goes. He says that there is intrinsic value in difficulty:
Oddly, the poems Mr. Pinsky explicates (by Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and listen favorite Wallace Stevens, among others) aren't especially difficult to understand, which I think undercuts his thesis as I understand it--that difficult art gives pleasure directly because of that difficulty, not in spite of it.
That's not to say that difficulty is inherently a good thing in art, any more than simplicity is an inherent good thing. There are those who would argue both sides of that, as well as their corollaries, that difficulty and simplicity are inherently bad artistic qualities. This is the basis of the Style Wars.
Since music is inherently abstract and poetry is not, the issue of difficulty in music requires a different approach. One parallel does exist, though, in the virtuoso composition, be it a concerto or unaccompanied work. There, difficulty of execution is definitely one of the subjects of the piece.
Pieces of music that pose difficulty of apprehension are a different kettle of fish, and you will often read commentary along the lines of the point-of-view derided by Randall Jarrell, as quoted by Mr. Pinsky:
I think Jarrell's tone is unnecessarily snotty, with its implication that anyone who decries Eliot is an utter philistine, but there is a point there. Many people who decry certain what they call excess difficulty in music draw the line at the most "difficult" music that they dig, and say "This far; no further". (It's different when composers do it, because attacking music that's different from yours is a time-honored defense mechanism.) For some, Beethoven is the limit in difficulties, for some, it's Wagner. For some, it's Dylan.
To my ears, music is "difficult" when the ambiguities in the musical discourse exceed what I have learned to process or are of a different nature altogether from what I am accustomed to. When the ambiguities are overcome, the music is assimilated and is no longer difficult, at least not in the same way.
When a critical mass in difficulty is reached, a significant number of composers begin a simplifying movement, and the process starts anew. We can see that happening in recent times, with the rise of aggressively simple (not simplistic or simple-minded, to be sure) tonal music in response to the ambiguities of various schools of High Modernism and Postmodernism in the 50s through the 70s of the century just past. And we are now seeing rising complexity in music that derives from those schools (postminimalism and metametrical msuic, e.g.). And then it will star all over again.
Daniel Wolf has some related posts here and here, and Kyle Gann here.
Mr. Pinsky goes on to quote and explicate a number of poems from all periods that have difficulty as their subject matter. That's all well and good, as far as it goes. He says that there is intrinsic value in difficulty:
Difficulty, after all, is one of life's essential pleasures: music, athletics, dance thrill us partly because they engage great difficulties. Epics and tragedies, no less than action movies and mysteries, portray an individual's struggle with some great difficulty. In his difficult and entertaining work Ulysses, James Joyce recounts the challenges engaged by the persistent, thwarted hero Leopold and the ambitious, narcissistic hero Stephen. Golf and video games, for certain demographic categories, provide inexhaustible, readily available sources of difficulty.
Oddly, the poems Mr. Pinsky explicates (by Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and listen favorite Wallace Stevens, among others) aren't especially difficult to understand, which I think undercuts his thesis as I understand it--that difficult art gives pleasure directly because of that difficulty, not in spite of it.
That's not to say that difficulty is inherently a good thing in art, any more than simplicity is an inherent good thing. There are those who would argue both sides of that, as well as their corollaries, that difficulty and simplicity are inherently bad artistic qualities. This is the basis of the Style Wars.
Since music is inherently abstract and poetry is not, the issue of difficulty in music requires a different approach. One parallel does exist, though, in the virtuoso composition, be it a concerto or unaccompanied work. There, difficulty of execution is definitely one of the subjects of the piece.
Pieces of music that pose difficulty of apprehension are a different kettle of fish, and you will often read commentary along the lines of the point-of-view derided by Randall Jarrell, as quoted by Mr. Pinsky:
When a person says accusingly that he can't understand Eliot, his tone implies that most of his happiest hours are spent at the fireside among worn copies of the Agamemnon, Phèdre, and the Symbolic Books of William Blake.
I think Jarrell's tone is unnecessarily snotty, with its implication that anyone who decries Eliot is an utter philistine, but there is a point there. Many people who decry certain what they call excess difficulty in music draw the line at the most "difficult" music that they dig, and say "This far; no further". (It's different when composers do it, because attacking music that's different from yours is a time-honored defense mechanism.) For some, Beethoven is the limit in difficulties, for some, it's Wagner. For some, it's Dylan.
To my ears, music is "difficult" when the ambiguities in the musical discourse exceed what I have learned to process or are of a different nature altogether from what I am accustomed to. When the ambiguities are overcome, the music is assimilated and is no longer difficult, at least not in the same way.
When a critical mass in difficulty is reached, a significant number of composers begin a simplifying movement, and the process starts anew. We can see that happening in recent times, with the rise of aggressively simple (not simplistic or simple-minded, to be sure) tonal music in response to the ambiguities of various schools of High Modernism and Postmodernism in the 50s through the 70s of the century just past. And we are now seeing rising complexity in music that derives from those schools (postminimalism and metametrical msuic, e.g.). And then it will star all over again.
Daniel Wolf has some related posts here and here, and Kyle Gann here.
30.4.07
Tallahassee Symphony: Faure, Sibelius, Higdon, Ravel
Review, Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, 30 April 2007.
28.4.07
FSU Percussion Tour
The Florida State University Chamber Percussion Ensemble, under the direction of John W. Parks IV, is giving a performance at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City this coming Friday, 4 May 2007, at 8pm.
DISCLAIMER: I am proud to consider John Parks a friend and colleague. I am writing a concerto for him, and consider him an artist of the highest caliber. I want to be upfront about that.
The Ensemble will play music by David Skidmore, Blake Tyson, Andrew Thomas, Bob Becker, and Minoru Miki on the program, which they previewed here in Tallahassee last night. Post-minimalism carried the day in just about all of the pieces, and its influence could be heard throughout the program.
The performances were really good--intense, tight, and expressive. The Ensemble will be stopping along the way to New York to paly the program:
April 29, The University of Georgia (Athens) School of Music , 8pm
April 30, Furman University (Greenville, SC), Daniel Recital Hall, 8pm
May 1, Spring Arts Festival, Kimbrell-Warlick Fine Arts Center (Gastonia, NC), 7:30pm
May 2, The University of Virginia (Charlottesville) School of Music, 8pm
If you have the opportunity to hear them, go. You won't be sorry if you do.
DISCLAIMER: I am proud to consider John Parks a friend and colleague. I am writing a concerto for him, and consider him an artist of the highest caliber. I want to be upfront about that.
The Ensemble will play music by David Skidmore, Blake Tyson, Andrew Thomas, Bob Becker, and Minoru Miki on the program, which they previewed here in Tallahassee last night. Post-minimalism carried the day in just about all of the pieces, and its influence could be heard throughout the program.
The performances were really good--intense, tight, and expressive. The Ensemble will be stopping along the way to New York to paly the program:
April 29, The University of Georgia (Athens) School of Music , 8pm
April 30, Furman University (Greenville, SC), Daniel Recital Hall, 8pm
May 1, Spring Arts Festival, Kimbrell-Warlick Fine Arts Center (Gastonia, NC), 7:30pm
May 2, The University of Virginia (Charlottesville) School of Music, 8pm
If you have the opportunity to hear them, go. You won't be sorry if you do.
27.4.07
Tristan Does New York
What do A. C. Douglas and Savanna Samson have in common? A love of Wagner, of course!
Ms. Samson is interviewed as part of WNYC radio's multimedia "Tristan Mysteries" project, a web and radio enterprise timed (it runs from 28 April to 5 May) to coincide with the Lincoln Center presentation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the Peter Sellars/Bill Viola/Esa-Pekka Salonen Tristan Project.
(Alex Ross vividly reviewed a Paris performance here.)
"Tristan Mysteries" includes an interview with composer/writer Danny Felsenfeld, among others. An overview can be found here.
Tristan und Isolde was the first opera I ever saw. It was at the Met in January 1975, with Erich Leinsdorf conducting. I had studied the "Prelude and Liebestod" in school, but had not heard the rest of the opera. It was an overwelming experience, and perhaps the fastest five hours of my life.
Ms. Samson is interviewed as part of WNYC radio's multimedia "Tristan Mysteries" project, a web and radio enterprise timed (it runs from 28 April to 5 May) to coincide with the Lincoln Center presentation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the Peter Sellars/Bill Viola/Esa-Pekka Salonen Tristan Project.
(Alex Ross vividly reviewed a Paris performance here.)
"Tristan Mysteries" includes an interview with composer/writer Danny Felsenfeld, among others. An overview can be found here.
Tristan und Isolde was the first opera I ever saw. It was at the Met in January 1975, with Erich Leinsdorf conducting. I had studied the "Prelude and Liebestod" in school, but had not heard the rest of the opera. It was an overwelming experience, and perhaps the fastest five hours of my life.
If you build it . . . (I)
A reader writes:
I'll deal with this in some detail soon, but I want to open the question up to anybody who cares to take a shot at it, either in the comments or from their own podium.
I think that musical structure is, regardless of style, a very useful illusion. Wallace Stevens built an entire poetics around the idea that the human mind has such a "rage for order" that we will impose order, or "structure", even where there is no inherent order:
Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
Composers place "jars" in their music as ways for listeners to create/perceive and order to the music they are hearing. Performers can differ as to where in the piece the jars are located, and through accents of various kinds point them out to the listener.
We think of structure in functionally tonal music as a result of the deployment of changes and different melodies in time, to create a convincing musical argument. How is structure created or implied or facilitated in music that is not functionally tonal? Conversely, given our rage to order, is unstructured music even possible?
What determines the formal structure in 20th century music? It seems that much of the music written in the early decades of the 20th century would lack structure (so it sounds to me)... Any thoughts?
I'll deal with this in some detail soon, but I want to open the question up to anybody who cares to take a shot at it, either in the comments or from their own podium.
I think that musical structure is, regardless of style, a very useful illusion. Wallace Stevens built an entire poetics around the idea that the human mind has such a "rage for order" that we will impose order, or "structure", even where there is no inherent order:
Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
Composers place "jars" in their music as ways for listeners to create/perceive and order to the music they are hearing. Performers can differ as to where in the piece the jars are located, and through accents of various kinds point them out to the listener.
We think of structure in functionally tonal music as a result of the deployment of changes and different melodies in time, to create a convincing musical argument. How is structure created or implied or facilitated in music that is not functionally tonal? Conversely, given our rage to order, is unstructured music even possible?
Slava
The great Russian cellist, conductor, and artistic rights champion Mstislav Rostropovich has died.
Allan Kozinn's New York Times obituary includes this:
As if that list wasn't amazing enough, for its variety as well as its length, there's this:
He will be missed, but his artistic legacy remains as comfort, inspiration, and living memorial.
Allan Kozinn's New York Times obituary includes this:
As a cellist, Mr. Rostropovich played a vast repertory that included works written for him by some of the greatest composers of the 20th century. Among them were Shostakovich Cello Concertos, Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, Cello Sonata and Symphony-Concerto, Britten’s Sonata, Cello Symphony and three Suites. He also played the premieres of solo works by Walton, Auric, Kabalevsky and Misaskovsky, and concertos by Lutoslawski, Panufnik, Messiaen, Schnittke, Henri Dutilleux, Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki, Lukas Foss and Giya Kancheli.
As if that list wasn't amazing enough, for its variety as well as its length, there's this:
Mr. Rostropovich always said that one of the principal lures of the podium was that the orchestral repertory seemed so vast when compared with the cello repertory. But he did not confine himself to the established classics. He commissioned regularly, and led the premieres of more than 50 works. Two of the pieces written for him during his National Symphony years — Stephen Albert’s “Riverrun” Symphony and Morton Gould’s “Stringmusic” — won Pulitzer Prizes. Leonard Bernstein, Jacob Druckman, Richard Wernick, Gunther Schuller and Ezra Laderman were among the other composers who wrote for him, or whose works had their world premieres under his baton.
He will be missed, but his artistic legacy remains as comfort, inspiration, and living memorial.
9.4.07
Future: Tense
The debate about the future of our music continues apace.
With friends like Gene Weingarten, who needs enemies? The condescending tone of Mr. Weingarten's article about Joshua Bell playing in a Washington (DC) subway station, has drawn notice elsewhere in the popular press and in the political blogosphere. I'm not sure concert music's worst enemy could have put together a more embarrassing and guaranteed-to-blow-up-in-everbody's-face cock-up if they had tried.
[Side note from the Pedagogy Department here at listen101: Mr. Bell oversells the Bach "Chaconne" here:
And speaking of pompous, Norman Lebrecht doesn't even have the whatever to name ALEX ROSS by name when attempting to refute ALEX ROSS' very fine post on the sale of recording of concert music. Mr. Lebrecht seems to equate the world of concert music with big recording companies, which equation doesn't add up, as ALEX ROSS demonstrates. Also, be sure to read ALEX ROSS' survey of the New York music scene here.
Finally, Helen Radice offers her always-more-than-two-farthings-worth:
Read the whole enlightening thing here.
With friends like Gene Weingarten, who needs enemies? The condescending tone of Mr. Weingarten's article about Joshua Bell playing in a Washington (DC) subway station, has drawn notice elsewhere in the popular press and in the political blogosphere. I'm not sure concert music's worst enemy could have put together a more embarrassing and guaranteed-to-blow-up-in-everbody's-face cock-up if they had tried.
[Side note from the Pedagogy Department here at listen101: Mr. Bell oversells the Bach "Chaconne" here:
not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.I can tell you from painful experience that that is a set-up for a tepid response, even though it's true. Tell them it's got some great moments, show them how to follow it, and make sure they know it's long.]
And speaking of pompous, Norman Lebrecht doesn't even have the whatever to name ALEX ROSS by name when attempting to refute ALEX ROSS' very fine post on the sale of recording of concert music. Mr. Lebrecht seems to equate the world of concert music with big recording companies, which equation doesn't add up, as ALEX ROSS demonstrates. Also, be sure to read ALEX ROSS' survey of the New York music scene here.
Finally, Helen Radice offers her always-more-than-two-farthings-worth:
Some people may be more fufilled by literature, galleries, the theatre, football, or even by what I believe is called 'popular music'. But there remain many people throughout the world passionately in love with 'classical music' (if so it must be called). Like any other major art form, it - recorded or otherwise - is not fucking dying. It is evolving, like anything else alive. It may be there is less of a market for more CDs of 'The Four Seasons', but there now exist 435 recordings of this piece, and even a seminal pop album like The Bends only comes out the once, give or take some re-mixes.
Read the whole enlightening thing here.
7.4.07
Arts Funding
The Tallahassee (FL) Democrat published a piece by a local political columnist this past Thursday, which piece called for the elimination of public funding for the arts.
My response is here. There's a lot more to say on this topic, and I hope at least some of you will say what you have to say in comments.
My response is here. There's a lot more to say on this topic, and I hope at least some of you will say what you have to say in comments.
3.4.07
400
According to Maynard Solomon (my memory may be less than perfect on this, and any corrections would be more than welcome) about 400 people heard the three premiere performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto 24, in c minor (K. 491, 1786). The fame and reputation of the concerto and its composer has grown exponentially since that beginning. Of course, Mozart was, well, Mozart, and times are different, but I wonder if there isn’t an encouraging lesson to be found here.
Among these 400 there must have been other musicians of the professional or amateur variety. Musicians who talked about the piece, obtained a copy of the score, and learned it. More important, there must have been people in the audience who heard the piece and were struck or moved by it, and proceeded to talk about it with others, people who weren’t in the audience for the premiere.
Mozart’s time was a before mass markets and mass media, obviously. Just as obviously, our time is an age of mass media and related markets:
I think Mozart’s experience and Aimard’s comments point us to a new approach, one that is rooted, in part, in the long tail theory and in compound interest. Concert music is a niche market, very small and diminishing, or slowly growing, depending on who you read and on their agenda. The new and emerging technologies of internet distribution and electronic “rendering” of scores in recordings that are very close to performance quality enables composers to find their 400. If they are like the audience Mozart had you may see interest in your work grow. It’s a long, agonizing process, but if you can get 400 people to “go forward into the emptiness” with you, it will be worth it in the long run.
Among these 400 there must have been other musicians of the professional or amateur variety. Musicians who talked about the piece, obtained a copy of the score, and learned it. More important, there must have been people in the audience who heard the piece and were struck or moved by it, and proceeded to talk about it with others, people who weren’t in the audience for the premiere.
Mozart’s time was a before mass markets and mass media, obviously. Just as obviously, our time is an age of mass media and related markets:
We live in a society that observes very much the mass reactions, and is all about markets, including in music. I think our responsibility is to work against that, to have a taste for adventure, to be courageous enough to go forward into the emptiness, to open new doors, and then be followed—or not—by our audiences. --Pierre-Laurent Aimard, quoted by Jeremy Eichler in the Boston Globe, 25 March 2007
I think Mozart’s experience and Aimard’s comments point us to a new approach, one that is rooted, in part, in the long tail theory and in compound interest. Concert music is a niche market, very small and diminishing, or slowly growing, depending on who you read and on their agenda. The new and emerging technologies of internet distribution and electronic “rendering” of scores in recordings that are very close to performance quality enables composers to find their 400. If they are like the audience Mozart had you may see interest in your work grow. It’s a long, agonizing process, but if you can get 400 people to “go forward into the emptiness” with you, it will be worth it in the long run.
1.4.07
30.3.07
The Best Disinfectant
Stirling Newberry, posting at the Agonist, asks bloggers to remove On an Overgrown Path from our blogrolls because of this post, which links to an article in the American Spectator on affirmative action in orchestras. Mr. Newberry believes that the linking of the article is an indication of "soft bigotry" on the part of Pliable, the Path blogger.
The article is indeed a fetid pile of half-truths, unsupported assertions, condescension, frat-boy style bigotry, and false concern. (I say "false concern" becuase in the world dreamed of by the editors and writers of that magazine, there would be no elite orchestras, because they wouldn't be able to make it in that market-driven pit.) However, I won't remove the blog from my roll because I believe that we do better in fighting for what we believe in when those we opposed are exposed to the light of day. I don't know if that was Pliable's point in linking to the article, because he doesn't comment on it.
And that brings me to the action that I will take in response to this. I frequently post links to other sites, be they blogs, magazines, etc., and offer them without comment. In the future I will endeavor not to do that.
The article is indeed a fetid pile of half-truths, unsupported assertions, condescension, frat-boy style bigotry, and false concern. (I say "false concern" becuase in the world dreamed of by the editors and writers of that magazine, there would be no elite orchestras, because they wouldn't be able to make it in that market-driven pit.) However, I won't remove the blog from my roll because I believe that we do better in fighting for what we believe in when those we opposed are exposed to the light of day. I don't know if that was Pliable's point in linking to the article, because he doesn't comment on it.
And that brings me to the action that I will take in response to this. I frequently post links to other sites, be they blogs, magazines, etc., and offer them without comment. In the future I will endeavor not to do that.
27.3.07
Oh, why not?
Matthew Guerrieri's Proustian quiz:
1. Name an opera you love for the libretto, even though you don't particularly like the music.
Stephen Paulus' The Postman Always Rings Twice.
2. Name a piece you wish Glenn Gould had played.
Basic Training, Lee Hyla.
3. If you had to choose: Charles Ives or Carl Ruggles?
Ives, but I love Ruggles' Sun-Treader.
4. Name a piece you're glad Glenn Gould never played.
Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie.
5. What's your favorite unlikely solo passage in the repertoire?
The piccolo solo that ends Carter's Symphonia.
6. What's a Euro-trash high-concept opera production you'd love to see? (No Mortier-haters get to duck this one, either—be creative.)
Parsifal in Vegas.
7. Name an instance of non-standard concert dress you wish you hadn't seen.
Pass; we don't get much of that around here. One I'm glad I did see was Dr. John Boda wearing a scarlet tux to play on my doctoral recital.
8. What aging rock-and-roll star do you wish had tried composing large-scale chorus and orchestra works instead of Paul McCartney?
Ugh. Jeez. Hell, I don't know. Crap. The guy that sang for the Ides of March, I guess.
9. If you had to choose: Carl Nielsen or Jean Sibelius?
The Finn.
10. If it was scientifically proven that Beethoven's 9th Symphony caused irreversible brain damage, would you still listen to it?
It doesn't?
1. Name an opera you love for the libretto, even though you don't particularly like the music.
Stephen Paulus' The Postman Always Rings Twice.
2. Name a piece you wish Glenn Gould had played.
Basic Training, Lee Hyla.
3. If you had to choose: Charles Ives or Carl Ruggles?
Ives, but I love Ruggles' Sun-Treader.
4. Name a piece you're glad Glenn Gould never played.
Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie.
5. What's your favorite unlikely solo passage in the repertoire?
The piccolo solo that ends Carter's Symphonia.
6. What's a Euro-trash high-concept opera production you'd love to see? (No Mortier-haters get to duck this one, either—be creative.)
Parsifal in Vegas.
7. Name an instance of non-standard concert dress you wish you hadn't seen.
Pass; we don't get much of that around here. One I'm glad I did see was Dr. John Boda wearing a scarlet tux to play on my doctoral recital.
8. What aging rock-and-roll star do you wish had tried composing large-scale chorus and orchestra works instead of Paul McCartney?
Ugh. Jeez. Hell, I don't know. Crap. The guy that sang for the Ides of March, I guess.
9. If you had to choose: Carl Nielsen or Jean Sibelius?
The Finn.
10. If it was scientifically proven that Beethoven's 9th Symphony caused irreversible brain damage, would you still listen to it?
It doesn't?
21.3.07
The Times Are Never So Bad (II) (Updated)
Stirling Newberry has another essay up at The Agonist, the subject of which is the response of the arts to the events of the last five years. Needless to say, he finds the response inadequate, to say the least. However, there is hope, if not for redemption, at least for realization and rebuilding.
The first comment is very good.
Update: Mr. Newberry puts his music where his mouth is, with a video based on the last three minutes of the second movement ("There Must Be Peace") of his C Major Piano Sonata (Ares), from a soon-to-be-released CD. I'm agnostic on the idea of attaching images to concert music, but it is certainly one way to to provide entrée into the music.
The first comment is very good.
Update: Mr. Newberry puts his music where his mouth is, with a video based on the last three minutes of the second movement ("There Must Be Peace") of his C Major Piano Sonata (Ares), from a soon-to-be-released CD. I'm agnostic on the idea of attaching images to concert music, but it is certainly one way to to provide entrée into the music.
20.3.07
Liberation
Stirling Newberry posts on the "liberation of classical music" over at The Agonist. The questions that Stirling raises in this piece are not new; in fact, raising them again and again in new contexts seems to be an important part of his work. They are worth asking and worth thinking about.
19.3.07
14.3.07
Class Divide
Daniel Wolf wants to start a campaign to get publishers to make study scores available on the web for free. That's a very good idea. An indication that publishers would not be the only roadblock to this open source conception of music comes in this article (from The New York Sun) by Fred Kirshnit (h/t to Robert Gable):
I'm assuming here that Mr. Corigliano was not celebrating this as a triumph of the internet's ability to spread our music all over the world, and if I'm wrong about that I'd love to be informed about it. (I'm less thrilled about a pirated recording, but I don't know the specific circumstances of that, either.)
My point in quoting this is to say that there is a class divide between the haves of the composition world, represented by Mr. Corigliano, and those of us who struggled to be heard and studied. Mr. Wolf's idea, even if it were to be implemented on a modest scale, would be a step in the direction of getting more of us studied, played, and heard.
Copyright and royalties are a major issue as well. Mr. [John] Corigliano recalled encountering a student in Beijing who is writing her thesis on his Symphony No. 2, a work neither published nor commercially recorded. She possessed on her computer not only the score to the piece, but a pirated recording as well.
I'm assuming here that Mr. Corigliano was not celebrating this as a triumph of the internet's ability to spread our music all over the world, and if I'm wrong about that I'd love to be informed about it. (I'm less thrilled about a pirated recording, but I don't know the specific circumstances of that, either.)
My point in quoting this is to say that there is a class divide between the haves of the composition world, represented by Mr. Corigliano, and those of us who struggled to be heard and studied. Mr. Wolf's idea, even if it were to be implemented on a modest scale, would be a step in the direction of getting more of us studied, played, and heard.
12.3.07
Catching Up
The American Music Center has launched Counterstream Radio, billed as a "showcase for new music by United States composers". Check it out.
I want to echo Daniel Wolf's call for music publishers to make study scores available for downloading over the internet at no charge. Mr. Wolf makes a convincing case that any hit the publishers might take on sales of these scores (which wouldn't be all that much) would be made up for in the increased performances and the related performance and mechanical reproduction fees. A few of my scores are posted (in pdf form) at my Classical Lounge page. I'm working on ways to get more of them out there, and am interested in hearing from composers and performers about what works from their repective perspectives.
Not un-related to this is Mr. Wolf's earlier call for those of us with an interest of one kind or another in new concert music to increase the web presence of ourselves and our music:
I come upon performers blogs less frequently than I do composers' or crtics' blogs, but when I do I always learn alot about performers' all-important perspective. So it is with soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird's blog. In this post, she links to a discussion by baritone Thomas Meglioranza about the process he goes through to learn complex and/or pantonal pieces. Note the comment by a listener to the effect that this kind of inside knowledge is valuable to his experience with music.
Adam Baratz has a quote from Jon Brion (composer of some of my favorite film scores):
Actually, it's my experience that there is far more of this particular form of anality in the rock/pop world than there is in concert music. Stories of rock/pop performers wanting the concert to sound just like the record are legion, while it is very rare for (especially experienced) concert music performers not to try new things during a performance, even if they've played a piece hundreds of times.
The Standing Room offers this observation:
Finally, if you are thinking of getting me a gift, I'd really like to have this.
I want to echo Daniel Wolf's call for music publishers to make study scores available for downloading over the internet at no charge. Mr. Wolf makes a convincing case that any hit the publishers might take on sales of these scores (which wouldn't be all that much) would be made up for in the increased performances and the related performance and mechanical reproduction fees. A few of my scores are posted (in pdf form) at my Classical Lounge page. I'm working on ways to get more of them out there, and am interested in hearing from composers and performers about what works from their repective perspectives.
Not un-related to this is Mr. Wolf's earlier call for those of us with an interest of one kind or another in new concert music to increase the web presence of ourselves and our music:
After having spent too much of the past two weeks monitoring activity in the online new music blogs and fora, I've come to the conclusion that one problem is that we, as a community, are generating simply too little heat: too little new of interest in the way of sounds, scores, or ideas, and too little controversy or passion, and even too little in the way of intellectual challenges. But most of all, through the underwhelmingly small amount of material we present to the world, we're simply giving out the impression that nothing is really happening in little Newmusicville. At this point in time, a new music equivalent of the "Instapundit" could probably get by with a bi-weekly post delivered by burro.Matthew Guerrieri posts a thoughtful, evocative response to an essay on the atmosphere at performances of concert music by Erika Lange, a student of Greg Sandow. Ms. Lange's essay includes a number of extra-musical suggestions for "add[ing] some spice" to concert music events, including lighting effects, attire, etc. Mr Guerrieri sums up his disagreement:
. . . I finally figured out that it's not about being knocked out of my chair, it's about being able to aurally go up to the music and engage it actively, openly, maybe even foolishly. The more that classical music borrows from popular music, the more the artistic content is skewed in a pop direction: towards sensation and away from contemplation, and more crucially, towards expectation and away from exploration. The most important music is the music we don't yet know that we want. Structuring the presentation along popular lines makes it that much more unlikely that we'll ever find it.
I come upon performers blogs less frequently than I do composers' or crtics' blogs, but when I do I always learn alot about performers' all-important perspective. So it is with soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird's blog. In this post, she links to a discussion by baritone Thomas Meglioranza about the process he goes through to learn complex and/or pantonal pieces. Note the comment by a listener to the effect that this kind of inside knowledge is valuable to his experience with music.
Adam Baratz has a quote from Jon Brion (composer of some of my favorite film scores):
The truth of the matter is, most rock bands are classical musicians and they don’t know it. Because it’s "This song starts with this drumbeat, at this time; halfway through, the guitar comes in, playing this part, with all down strokes on the fifth, with a clean sound; at this point you turn on your distortion and you play the barre chord, and then it’s muted at this point . . ." And every time they play the song, it’s the same thing. That’s classical music!
Actually, it's my experience that there is far more of this particular form of anality in the rock/pop world than there is in concert music. Stories of rock/pop performers wanting the concert to sound just like the record are legion, while it is very rare for (especially experienced) concert music performers not to try new things during a performance, even if they've played a piece hundreds of times.
The Standing Room offers this observation:
Snobbishness is not the opposite of ignorance; in fact, I would argue that they share space on the same side of the coin.
Finally, if you are thinking of getting me a gift, I'd really like to have this.
6.3.07
Workshop (VIII)
At the risk of giving A. C. Douglas the vapors, I want to talk a little bit about my working methods on the percussion concerto I'm writing for John Parks.
The piece is cast in three movements, with the second movement constituting an interruption of the first and third. I find myself approaching II very differently from I/III. II is a slow movement in which I'm "building" the percussion part as I write the band part--the solo part is growing as the piece grows. On the other hand, in I/III, which is mostly fast music of one kind or another, I find myself writing the percussion part first, and following 20 measures or so with the band, so the percussion line is like a spinal cord, holding up the whole thing.
The three movements share a common harmonic basis, which I'm not inclined to discuss at this time.
Listening:
Walkin', Miles Davis All Stars
"Someone to Love", Fountains of Wayne
The piece is cast in three movements, with the second movement constituting an interruption of the first and third. I find myself approaching II very differently from I/III. II is a slow movement in which I'm "building" the percussion part as I write the band part--the solo part is growing as the piece grows. On the other hand, in I/III, which is mostly fast music of one kind or another, I find myself writing the percussion part first, and following 20 measures or so with the band, so the percussion line is like a spinal cord, holding up the whole thing.
The three movements share a common harmonic basis, which I'm not inclined to discuss at this time.
Listening:
Walkin', Miles Davis All Stars
"Someone to Love", Fountains of Wayne
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