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Why doesn't anybody like contemporary music?


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Mostly Not Mozart

Few orchestras play the works of contemporary classical composers, and almost no one buys their albums. Is their music uninspired—or do we simply not get it?

By Tara Pepper

NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL

Aug. 18 issue — Last month at Royal Albert Hall, a capacity audience of 6,000 cheered and applauded wildly at the European premiere of Scottish composer James MacMillan’s stirring Third Symphony. A few days later, John Adams’s European premiere of “On the Transmigration of Souls” received a similar reaction.

AFTERWARD, THE LONDON newspapers raged with debate about the musical merits and overall morality of Adams’s work, which includes text from missing-person posters put up in New York after 9/11 and a list of names of the dead. Could it be that contemporary classical music has finally found its niche? Not likely. This particular moment in the spotlight will probably last only as long as the BBC Proms, the 109-year-old summer concert series that makes it a point to include 20th-century composers. Come September, when the season draws to a close, Beethoven and Brahms will reign again.

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Come September, when the season draws to a close, Beethoven and Brahms will reign again.

Of course they will, and one of the reasons is that is what classical music stations play. In New York City (a mere 8 million people) we have only ONE classical music station. I think most concertgoers who hear this music once aren't going to rush out and buy a CD---it takes more familiarity with the music---and there aren't many repeat performances on the radio.

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Good point -- there's little exposure to new music.

Back when both ballet and modern dance were creative forces in this country :) one of the draws to get young composers to work with choreographers, I've read, was that they saw working with a ballet company as a chance to gain exposure for their work. The ballet would receive six to ten performances in a season and, if it was a hit, would come back the next season. There were a lot of people drawn to new music through dance.

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I see a parallel between ballet and classical music in this regard. For some reason that I cannot fathom, many people seem to prefer the museum pieces to contemporary work. These same people often have a great deal of contempt for new work it seems.

I know one of things I feel really good about is my “discovery” of contemporary classical music. I always knew I had no interest in the old Romantic ballets, and found only the more contemporary ballets held my interest. A similar thing has occurred for me with respect to classical music, though unlike ballet I do like the classical music museum pieces also.

I was lucky I guess in that my classical music radio station does occasionally play contemporary classical music. I know they lead me to the Naxos label for recordings and they have many recordings of more contemporary composers (at least 20th century composers).

Just last Monday on the St. Paul Orchestra radio concert, the program was entirely a John Taverner program with the debut of a new piece. I don’t know if it was a live or prerecorded concert, but I’m sure it was a 21st century concert nonetheless.

Three cheers to my local classical station. It’s a treasure.

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As far I have seen it is almost compulsory for art created today to be "experimental". In music it should preferrably be with a lot of strange sounds and harmonies. In fact as many as possible!

I guess it is somewhat regarded as synomymes that art should be brought forwards with new experiments and new way to express yourself.

It is almost the same thing with picture arts. How many artists try to paint as Rembrant or Monet?

My impression is that most people I have come in contact with looks down on both classical music and ballet no matter if the "classical" was created today or not. As soon as it sounds or looks classical it is regarded as "boring stuff". But then I live in the country of the Cullbergbalett :)

We also have a lot of music-writers who write pop-music, and it is almost regarded as more "genuine" if you don't know how to read a score and if you haven't taken a music lesson in your whole life. Benny Andersson, one of the former members of the 70's band ABBA, is almost set as an example and he has announced that he doesn't read scores.

As we all know both classical music and ballet requires years and years of proper training and devotion from the student as well as the teacher. So the "natural talent without any lesson"-person can't exist.

Most people I know of just listen to the most famous classical pieces (the Moonlight sonata by Beethoven and the four seasons by Vivaldi for example) and think that it is enough. Then they move on to those pieces with a more experimental nature.

I agree about the publicity and exposure, I hardly know any classical composers of today. :shrug: But myself, I don't like the contemporary classical music. I even find Stravinsky having too odd harmonies for my taste :wink: .

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I don't mean to generalise, but a more challenging question would be, 'Why does anybody like contemporary music?' Of course, some of it can be powerful and moving, but in my experience most of it is completely awful. :yucky:

Example: I turned on the radio (BBC Radio 3) the other day and heard about 10 seconds of string instruments playing random continuous glissandos, and turned it off again. Hmmm.

In a music lesson at school the other day we listened to some Lutoslawski: again, horrible. The point is, the main point of classical music until sometime mid-20th century was to be 'nice' to listen to, and also to be creative, and perhaps demonstrate some degree of skill. Then, as Susanne said, it became about being 'new' and 'experimental'. It may be creative, but where is the skill?

And don't get me STARTED on John Cage. :off topic::dry:

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Not sure I agree with the premise. The Golijov festival at the Rose Theater was a sell-out last spring. The First Emperor was a sell-out at the Met. Grendel was a sell-out at Lincoln Center Festival last summer and in LA before that. Messiaen's St. Francis (if that can be considered "new") was a sell-out in San Francisco. Dr. Atomic was a sell-out ..

Most of these are operas but contemporary music nonetheless.

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Quite a few classical music composers whose works are popular today were not popular in their own lifetimes. And there a quite a few works that failed initially but became popular years later (e.g., Prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto). This isn't entirely a new phenomena.

People tend to prefer the familiar so orchestras and radio stations, which need to attract the largest possible audience for financial reasons, will go with the "tried and true".

It probably will shock a lot of people, but Jeffrey Kahane, the music director of the Colorado Symphony, thinks that some day Lutoslawski will be considered a truly great composer.

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It probably will shock a lot of people, but Jeffrey Kahane, the music director of the Colorado Symphony, thinks that some day Lutoslawski will be considered a truly great composer.

And so he is!

Hmmm.... I may yet be persuaded, I guess. :) (It wasn't so much the music as its method of composition that I objected to....)

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Just as I was just getting ready to write a post on how much new music is on offer in NYC if you know where to look, Alex Ross saved the day with his latest New Yorker piece, which covers the subject much more knowledgeably than I ever could:

The New Yorker: Club Acts

Be sure to check out the on-line, link-loaded addendum on who to hear where:

The New Yorker: Sites and Sounds

I think the internet really has made it much more straightforward to hear new music and engage with the community of individuals who are composing it, performing it, listenting to it, and thinking about it than it was even just a decade ago.

Also, although WNYC isn't a full-time classical music station, it does play a fair amount of new or newish music during its evening classical music broadcasts, and of course, provides a home for John Schaefer and his shows Soundcheck and New Sounds - the latter of which focuses on new music by definition. Every episode of New Sounds can be downloaded in its entirety at WNYC.org in case you're in bed or, alternatively, still out on the town at 11PM ...

If you subscribe to eMusic, you can download a iPod full of new music to try out at a relatively reasonable price -- the entire Naxos catalogue is available as well as a lot from other labels that feature new music (e.g., Cantaloupe, Black Box, Cedille, etc ...).

Klavier: Agreed! :) In fact, I think I'll cue up some Lutoslowski to wrap up my afternoon and move me on into the evening ...

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It probably will shock a lot of people, but Jeffrey Kahane, the music director of the Colorado Symphony, thinks that some day Lutoslawski will be considered a truly great composer.

And so he is!

Hmmm.... I may yet be persuaded, I guess. :) (It wasn't so much the music as its method of composition that I objected to....)

I've actually never heard any of Lutoslawski's works. There was a symphony on the CSO schedule but Kahane has suffered some serious health problems and they had to bring in a substitute conductor at the last minute. The substitute didn't have time to learn a new piece so he changed the program to include works that he already knew.

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Hmmm.... I may yet be persuaded, I guess. :) (It wasn't so much the music as its method of composition that I objected to....)

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If the music persuades, why concern yourself with the process behind it?

Personally, I am a great lover of 20th-century music, and by that I don't necessarily mean the more conservative, "accessible" stuff - some of which is really tripe, IMO. I have a strong love for Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Varèse, Ives, Boulez, Berio, and Carter - just to name some of the top names that come immediately to mind.

But anyone who frequents classical music forums will know this question is debated constantly, with heated opinions on all sides.

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Personally, I am a great lover of 20th-century music, and by that I don't necessarily mean the more conservative, "accessible" stuff - some of which is really tripe, IMO. I have a strong love for Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Varèse, Ives, Boulez, Berio, and Carter - just to name some of the top names that come immediately to mind.

This points to something interesting, because all of these composers are 20th century composers, and only Boulez and Carter, both seniors, but neither a part (in the strictest sense) of the newest developments. But I think for many people, and most likely for the purpose of this post, all these composers, who used to be 'contemporary' and some of whom are exponents of what is now called 'modernism' and 'high modernism' but are not 'post-modern', to be sure, are still the ones that many people have trouble with and will never accept in the same way they still cling to 19th century music and older. Much newer music which is being taken seriously has an 'easier' quality to it, which is often, as you say, 'tripe'. But music that is too inaccessible for all but a few may sometimes remain so, even if that wasn't the pattern in the past (this is probably good, at least it's not a matter of yet another form of endless repetition). There was always 'easy music' side by side with all that that you've named, but the two are less separated now, and that's borne out by some of the New Yorker piece posted above. Of the ones you named, Bartok, Stravinsky and Prokofiev are far more embraced than Webern and Boulez. This could go on endlessly, but the fact that Webern, who goes way back, is still mostly loved by a relatively small, knowledgeable group says something. There are many works of Stravinsky and Bartok and Prokofiev that are as popular as Brahms and Schubert, by contrast. Serial music is wonderful if you can take the time for it, but it has something a little too cold to it that does not endear it to people--this is partially because most of the elements of Romanticism (I realize that covers a huge territory) have been cancelled out. You can find a volcanic romanticism in Boulez, for example, and great sensuality of sound-world, as in 'repons', but it is not like Prokofiev's Russian sounds in 'Romeo and Juliet' and Bartok's flesh-and-blood music.

Music and art that is mostly cerebral does not sound quite human in the same sense, so it is not going to be as popular until the human becomes equally cerebral on a large scale (not necessarily a wonderful prospect.)

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Hmmm.... I may yet be persuaded, I guess. :clapping: (It wasn't so much the music as its method of composition that I objected to....)

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If the music persuades, why concern yourself with the process behind it?

I can't remember which piece it was, but it was like, 'Here are some notes and rhythms for each player, play them as fast or slow as you like and repeat until you hear the drum hit'. I didn't really like the piece anyway, but this kind of composition annoyed me, I suppose because it's not what I would conventionally describe as 'musical' composition. Sorry, I'm still at the stage (or perhaps will always be) where I cling to music pre-Berg/Schoenberg, but I hope to widen my horizons if possible! I have yet to be persuaded by 'contemporary' music as opposed to, say, the Brahms violin sonatas (yes, schmaltzy but beautiful) that I'm listening to at the moment.

(By the way, I'm interested to know some examples of 20th century conservative tripe!)

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Does anyone have opinions on Phillip Glass?

His music is being used in Glassworks, In the Upper Room, Seven or Eight Pieces, and proobably a few others I am not aware of.

I find his music to be rather monotonous, yet climactic at the same time. Perhaps this is due to the repetitive choices in instruments for a number of his compositions. There always seems to be a token opera singer. Speaking only of the music in In the Upper Room , I was rather exhausted just listening to the music, let alone thinking of the dancers in the nine grueling, non-stop, sections of the 40-minute ballet.

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