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The Music Room => Classical Music for Beginners => Topic started by: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 08:39:13 AM

Title: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 08:39:13 AM
Hello GMG, I have been reading extensively from this forum and learning a lot.  I'm familiar with some of the work of the great composers before the modern era, but looking for some specific recommendations on contemporary composers.  Pierre Boulez has been my favorite composer the last couple years.  Although his music is often complex, dissonant, and atonal, I hear plenty of beauty in it as well (not that complexity, dissonance and atonality preclude beauty, but it seems as though composers from previous eras designed their music more often with beauty of sound in mind, even when expressing drama or melancholy).  I hope that I can get some recommendations on contemporary composers who make pretty sounds sometimes like Boulez (I'm glad there is a section for beginners here lol).  I hear power and richness in other contemporary composers like Stockhausen, Varese, Berio, and some others, but it seems to me that they lack the ravishing, glistening sounds of Boulez. 
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: jochanaan on June 29, 2015, 09:21:41 AM
Milton Babbitt, Luigi Nono, and Elliott Carter come to mind.  Carter is one of the more fascinating figures in music; he passed away in 2012 at the age of 103 and at the time of his death was still composing cutting-edge music! ;D

I've also heard good things about the music of Brian Ferneyhough, although I've not yet had the chance to listen to any of it myself.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on June 29, 2015, 09:23:12 AM
Like Boulez?

Well, yes, I rather do.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mirror Image on June 29, 2015, 09:31:19 AM
Can't say I'm a fan of Boulez's music (his conducting, however, is quite impressive to me ) as I prefer Dutilleux. Check out some Dutilleux whenever you get the chance. Plenty of music on YouTube to sample.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: EigenUser on June 29, 2015, 11:55:23 AM
Quote from: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 08:39:13 AM
Hello GMG, I have been reading extensively from this forum and learning a lot.  I'm familiar with some of the work of the great composers before the modern era, but looking for some specific recommendations on contemporary composers.  Pierre Boulez has been my favorite composer the last couple years.  Although his music is often complex, dissonant, and atonal, I hear plenty of beauty in it as well (not that complexity, dissonance and atonality preclude beauty, but it seems as though composers from previous eras designed their music more often with beauty of sound in mind, even when expressing drama or melancholy).  I hope that I can get some recommendations on contemporary composers who make pretty sounds sometimes like Boulez (I'm glad there is a section for beginners here lol).  I hear power and richness in other contemporary composers like Stockhausen, Varese, Berio, and some others, but it seems to me that they lack the ravishing, glistening sounds of Boulez.
I really enjoyed reading this (mostly because I 100% agree with you :D).

When I joined this forum a over a year ago I hated Boulez. Now he is really a favorite of mine. There is definitely a beauty in his music not often found with those associated with him (and funny you should mention Berio -- I was just listening to his really cool Sinfonia an hour ago). I often hear an "atonal Ravel", if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Have you heard any Ligeti? He, too, has a very delicate side in works like Lontano, Atmospheres, Melodien, and Clocks and Clouds. Coming from Boulez, I'd particularly recommend Melodien (parts of it remind me of Derive I or Repons) if you haven't already heard it.

Dutilleux is a good suggestion, too, as Mirror Image stated. Not the same as Boulez, but it is perhaps something you would enjoy. Maybe Timbres, Espaces, Mouvements would be a good start?
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Ken B on June 29, 2015, 12:50:19 PM
I don't much like Boulez. However if that's your bent try Pousseur.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on June 29, 2015, 03:40:41 PM
Many of the names being given here are composers I too greatly admire. But the sonorous qualities the poster is looking for seem to me very different from the styles of (say) Carter, Ligeti, or even Berio. You might find closer examples in Boulez-inspired disciples like George Benjamin, Marc Dalbavie, and Gilbert Amy. I would also look at Boulez's near-contemporary jean Barraqué, whose beautiful Séquence has some of the same stylistic qualities. Or some of the early Stockhausen, like his Refrain for Three Players.

Don't forget, though, that the emphasis on iridescent beauty so typical of Boulez has its immediate roots in Debussy. And there is also a strong influence from Indonesian gamelan music.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 06:26:56 PM
Dutilleux's music does seem to have plenty of beauty in it, I will certainly listen to more, hints of the dazzling sounds of Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, who all influenced Boulez.  I will also check out Pousseur.  Thanks (poco) Sforzando, you articulated precisely what I was asking and gave the exact kind of suggestions I was looking for, I have a lot to listen to. Thanks everyone for your responses, I appreciate the suggestions. 
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: amw on June 29, 2015, 07:05:12 PM
Of the Italian crowd, I think Berio and Nono are much less 'Boulezian' than, say, Maderna and Castiglioni. This kind of sound world also seems to lead in to the works of younger Italians like Luca Francesconi, Stefano Gervasoni and Bruno Mantovani. (And in a very obtuse way Sciarrino, but he gets more from Lachenmann than any of the mainstream Darmstadters. I find Sciarrino's music the most 'beautiful' of any contemporary composer's but I know this is a really idiosyncratic opinion!)

Also may be worth checking out some of the works of Heinz Holliger esp. the more recent ones.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on June 30, 2015, 04:14:11 AM
Quote from: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 08:39:13 AM
Hello GMG, I have been reading extensively from this forum and learning a lot.  I'm familiar with some of the work of the great composers before the modern era, but looking for some specific recommendations on contemporary composers.  Pierre Boulez has been my favorite composer the last couple years.  Although his music is often complex, dissonant, and atonal, I hear plenty of beauty in it as well (not that complexity, dissonance and atonality preclude beauty, but it seems as though composers from previous eras designed their music more often with beauty of sound in mind, even when expressing drama or melancholy).  I hope that I can get some recommendations on contemporary composers who make pretty sounds sometimes like Boulez (I'm glad there is a section for beginners here lol).  I hear power and richness in other contemporary composers like Stockhausen, Varese, Berio, and some others, but it seems to me that they lack the ravishing, glistening sounds of Boulez.

Pascal Dusapin, maybe. The question's hard. I think sfz's suggestion of Barraqué Sequences is one well worth exploring.

The problem is that all the music with glistening timbres I can think of lacks Boulez's hard modernism. And all the hard modernist music I can think of lacks his Frenchy timbres.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on June 30, 2015, 04:53:36 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on June 30, 2015, 04:14:11 AM
Pascal Dusapin, maybe. The question's hard. I think sfz's suggestion of Barraqué Sequences is one well worth exploring.

Thank you, but let me emphasize that the piece in question is properly Sequence, not Sequences. It is a single work for soprano and small ensemble, not a series of works.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on June 30, 2015, 04:55:13 AM
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on June 30, 2015, 04:53:36 AM
Thank you, but let me emphasize that the piece in question is properly Sequence, not Sequences. It is a single work for soprano and small ensemble, not a series of works.

Yes, I saw that mistake.

I'm in the middle of my third attempt to read Mort de Virgil, really inspired by Barraqué's music. I'm getting further than ever before (I've read up to the end of Fire now) Reading it in French - I wonder how much is lost in translation.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on June 30, 2015, 01:47:54 PM
I listened to pages d'éphéméride and thought that anyone who likes it would like Snowdrifts (Finnissy)

But then I listened to the 1981 version of Repons and to Eclats/Multiples and drew a complete blank, the music is unique, nothing I can think of resembles it.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 01, 2015, 02:00:29 AM
Here's another.

If you like Explosante-Fixe then you'll like Pulse Shadows (Birtwistle), at least the instrumental parts.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 01, 2015, 04:19:58 AM
I think that the idea that Boulez composes "pretty sounds" would be taken as an insult by him.
As he says "All these years, I've been trying to convince people that music is not there to please them; it's there to disturb them.'

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/face-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%E2%80%98acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%E2%80%99?utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.it%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CDUQFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gramophone.co.uk%252Ffeature%252Fface-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%2525E2%252580%252598acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%2525E2%252580%252599%26ei%3DoNmTVdzoEcrXU_W9uMgE%26usg%3DAFQjCNFnnYDLIi3OQndbF1dow5elIVe8LQ%26bvm%3Dbv.96952980%2Cd.d24%26cad%3Drja (http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/face-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%E2%80%98acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%E2%80%99?utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.it%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CDUQFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gramophone.co.uk%252Ffeature%252Fface-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%2525E2%252580%252598acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%2525E2%252580%252599%26ei%3DoNmTVdzoEcrXU_W9uMgE%26usg%3DAFQjCNFnnYDLIi3OQndbF1dow5elIVe8LQ%26bvm%3Dbv.96952980%2Cd.d24%26cad%3Drja)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 01, 2015, 04:29:23 AM
Quote from: escher on July 01, 2015, 04:19:58 AM
I think that the idea that Boulez composes "pretty sounds" would be taken as an insult by him.
As he says "All these years, I’ve been trying to convince people that music is not there to please them; it’s there to disturb them.’

How like him, this shallow b-&-w thinking  ;)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on July 01, 2015, 05:39:07 AM
Quote from: escher on July 01, 2015, 04:19:58 AM
I think that the idea that Boulez composes "pretty sounds" would be taken as an insult by him.
As he says "All these years, I've been trying to convince people that music is not there to please them; it's there to disturb them.'


You're right, "pretty sounds" is the wrong way to put it.  But Boulez would not have been insulted if his listeners took pleasure from his music and deemed parts beautiful.  I don't only listen to Boulez for the beauty, his music is richer than that.

Here he talks about conducting, but the same could apply to his music in general:

"The sensual pleasure afforded by the work?"

P.B. "An accurate performance of the work includes that.  It also involves translating it into sound, and when that's done properly, it satisfies you intellectually and physically. In the end, that's all that counts...

"And that's pleasure?"

P.B. "Oh, it's far more than pleasure.  If that's the vocabulary you want to use, it would be better to say 'joy' rather than 'pleasure'."

Conversations with Boulez: Thoughts on Conducting


I was being confusing and superficial with the concepts I was using.  Was just seeking recommendations on contemporary composers with the "sonorous qualities" that (poco) Sforzando articulated.  However, I do agree that might be completely idiosyncratic, like amw said.  Maybe people find the music of Xenakis, for example, just as beautiful as the music of Boulez.  Despite not being clear, I have received plenty of great recommendations here, thanks again.

Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on July 01, 2015, 05:41:08 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 04:29:23 AM
How like him, this shallow b-&-w thinking  ;)

lol, having read many of his interviews, this is very true.  I believe I have fallen victim to the same kind of thinking in here.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Ken B on July 01, 2015, 08:28:56 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 04:29:23 AM
How like him, this shallow b-&-w thinking  ;)

FTFY. 
It deserves to be more prominent ...

>:D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 01, 2015, 12:55:40 PM
Just to be clear, I completely disagree with him on that kind of mentality and I hope that some great chef just because eating is culture and culture has to disturb will serve him a big turd on a plate. If the culture has to disturb, bon appetit Pierre!
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 01, 2015, 01:45:01 PM
Quote from: escher on July 01, 2015, 04:19:58 AM
I think that the idea that Boulez composes "pretty sounds" would be taken as an insult by him.
As he says "All these years, I've been trying to convince people that music is not there to please them; it's there to disturb them.'

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/face-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%E2%80%98acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%E2%80%99?utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.it%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CDUQFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gramophone.co.uk%252Ffeature%252Fface-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%2525E2%252580%252598acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%2525E2%252580%252599%26ei%3DoNmTVdzoEcrXU_W9uMgE%26usg%3DAFQjCNFnnYDLIi3OQndbF1dow5elIVe8LQ%26bvm%3Dbv.96952980%2Cd.d24%26cad%3Drja (http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/face-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%E2%80%98acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%E2%80%99?utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.it%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CDUQFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gramophone.co.uk%252Ffeature%252Fface-to-face-with-pierre-boulez-%2525E2%252580%252598acquire-and-destroy-acquire-and-destroy-then-go-further%2525E2%252580%252599%26ei%3DoNmTVdzoEcrXU_W9uMgE%26usg%3DAFQjCNFnnYDLIi3OQndbF1dow5elIVe8LQ%26bvm%3Dbv.96952980%2Cd.d24%26cad%3Drja)
Thanks for the link, Escher. I had read tis when it was first published, and believe it is a fair and well-measured appraisal of Boulez's thought and personality.

And just for the record, I'd say Boulez's remark is probably spot-on as far as any great art is concerned.  ;)

Frankly, I cannot understand how anyone who's read the article or is acquainted with Boulez's thinking can peceive it as "shallow".

Cheers,
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 01, 2015, 01:54:15 PM
That was one of the best articles/interviews about/with Boulez that I've read.

Thanks for posting it.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 01, 2015, 03:19:12 PM
Quote from: ritter on July 01, 2015, 01:45:01 PM
Thanks for the link, Escher. I had read tis when it was first published, and believe it is a fair and well-measured appraisal of Boulez's thought and personality.

And just for the record, I'd say Boulez's remark is probably spot-on as far as any great art is concerned.  ;)

Frankly, I cannot understand how anyone who's read the article or is acquainted with Boulez's thinking can peceive it as "shallow".

Cheers,

well, to me the idea that art has to necessarily disturb and does not have to please is completely arbritrary (without even saying that for thousand of years art has been a lot of other things than just something made to disturb).
As I find shallow and superficial his idea (that he seems to imply when he dismisses any composer who's still using tonal elements as "non existent") that progress in the art is just the ability to use new techniques. It's possible to be original using techniques of the past and I'm tempted to say that it is even more difficult than just the elaboration of a new idea. The ability to elaborate new concepts and the ability to produce great music with those concept are completely different things.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 01, 2015, 03:41:27 PM
He takes only those things of narrow interest to himself as being of artistic significance.  That, I am afraid, strikes me as shallow.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Cato on July 01, 2015, 03:59:17 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 03:41:27 PM
He takes only those things of narrow interest to himself as being of artistic significance.  That, I am afraid, strikes me as shallow.

I noticed that: criticizing e.g. Feldman for thinking himself godlike, and then evincing the same attitude.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 01, 2015, 04:03:35 PM
Quote from: escher on July 01, 2015, 03:19:12 PM
well, to me the idea that art has to necessarily disturb and does not have to please is completely arbritrary (without even saying that for thousand of years art has been a lot of other things than just something made to disturb).
As I find shallow and superficial his idea (that he seems to imply when he dismisses any composer who's still using tonal elements as "non existent") that progress in the art is just the ability to use new techniques. It's possible to be original using techniques of the past and I'm tempted to say that it is even more difficult than just the elaboration of a new idea. The ability to elaborate new concepts and the ability to produce great music with those concept are completely different things.

However, I did not exactly get from his comments what you describe.  What came across to me, and it is an idea that I generally agree, he thought that a composer like Poulenc was not responding to the music of Schoenberg.  Boulez considers this a problem for Poulenc; of course I do not, and no one else has to agree with Boulez.  But given the personal priorities of Boulez it makes perfect sense for him to think what he does.  The same goes for the younger composers writing in a neo-tonal style who he dismisses.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 01, 2015, 03:41:27 PM
He takes only those things of narrow interest to himself as being of artistic significance.  That, I am afraid, strikes me as shallow.
Well, we discuss this on and off on a regular basis, and we'll never agree I'm afraid.

In the bigger picture, though, it appears to me that music is the only art form in which complacently applying archaic and surpassed means of expression is considered acceptable (by the wider public and a good part of critics) for a major composer.

A painter emulating, for instance, Manet in the mid-20th century would have been laughed out of the museums, and yet Poulenc's music (pleasant as it may be) is even called "great" by a lot of people.

I cannot think of any composer who deserves the epithet of "major" who has not made the art of music move forward...not a single one! And IMHO that is the point that Boulez the writer has been making for the past 65 years. And as a composer, he himself falls squarely in that category....
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 06:54:21 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
Well, we discuss this on and off on a regular basis, and we'll never agree I'm afraid.

In the bigger picture, though, it appears to me that music is the only art form in which complacently applying archaic and surpassed means of expression is considered acceptable (by the wider public and a good part of critics) for a major composer.

It's all right if we never quite agree.  The only shame would be if, in disagreeing, we could not go on respecting one another.

As to your second point, much depends on three words there:  complacently, archaic and surpassed.

1.  I agree broadly that there is artistic complacency out there on the part of some big-name composers.  But the application of that adverb (complacently) is hardly a cut-&-dried matter, and some people (the namesake of this thread, for instance) apply it with narrow-sighted strictness.

2.  The creative use of archaism is an evergreen element in the art of Music;  that remained true in the work of Schoenberg throughout his career, and if Boulez has been fond to pontificate that the musical world changed radically with le mort de Schoenberg, no matter:  Boulez saying something, doesn't make it so.  If you really mean to use archaic as some sort of "dirty word," you cannot expect to get much purchase.

3.  No musical method is "surpassed" as long as artists of stature create vital work using it.  No amount of New Music Nazi posturing by Boulez is going to alter that cultural fact;  it only highlights Boulez's own blindspots.  Of course, Boulez has a history of touting his artistic blindspots as if they were, somehow, signal virtues.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 06:57:24 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
I cannot think of any composer who deserves the epithet of "major" who has not made the art of music move forward...not a single one!

"Forward motion" is a bit chimerical, don't you think?  All right:  in what way did Ravel "make the art of music move forward"?  Even Boulez, I suppose, considers Ravel a major composer.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 02, 2015, 06:58:57 AM
Of course I refuse to categorize composers as between the great and the non-great, but that said, plenty of composers write  vibrant and important music without feeling the need to chart brave new musical worlds.  Rachmaninoff is the example I was thinking of.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 07:00:48 AM
Quote from: sanantonio on July 02, 2015, 06:58:57 AM
Of course I refuse to categorize composers as between the great and the non-great, but that said, plenty of composers write  vibrant and important music without feeling the need to chart brave new musical worlds.  Rachmaninoff is the example I was thinking of.

Completely agreed, and (I expect) a perfect example of a great composer for whom Boulez probably has nothing but contempt.  So much the worse for Boulez.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:11:32 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 06:54:21 AM
It's all right if we never quite agree.  The only shame would be if, in disagreeing, we could not go on respecting one another.

As to your second point, much depends on three words there:  complacently, archaic and surpassed.

1.  I agree broadly that there is artistic complacency out there on the part of some big-name composers.  But the application of that adverb (complacently) is hardly a cut-&-dried matter, and some people (the namesake of this thread, for instance) apply it with narrow-sighted strictness.

2.  The creative use of archaism is an evergreen element in the art of Music;  that remained true in the work of Schoenberg throughout his career, and if Boulez has been fond to pontificate that the musical world changed radically with le mort de Schoenberg, no matter:  Boulez saying something, doesn't make it so.  If you really mean to use archaic as some sort of "dirty word," you cannot expect to get much purchase.

3.  No musical method is "surpassed" as long as artists of stature create vital work using it.  No amount of New Music Nazi posturing by Boulez is going to alter that cultural fact;  it only highlights Boulez's own blindspots.  Of course, Boulez has a history of touting his artistic blindspots as if they were, somehow, signal virtues.
I see no danger of us not continuing to respect one another.  :)

Perhaps the word "archaic" doesn't encompass what I really mean...the Spanish word is "vetusto" ("vetuste" in French), with a meaning closer to "surpassed" and "dilapidated"... Yes, archaism (and quotation) are fanatastic artistic tools, used by a whiole lot of great composers... but the "langauge" of those great compsoers was/is a "language" of their time that may incorporate such a tool, not a mannerist continuation of something that was fresh 50 years earlier, but is no longer applicable to the times and the Zeitgeist.

As for your third point, I'm afraid I disagree totally... My position is that an artist cannot possible be of "sature" if   he uses these "surpassed methods" (here we run the risk of a real catch-22 situation  ;D ). I wouldn't admire a painter who today painted the Sixtine Chapel, I wouldn't admire a writer who today writes Don Quixote...  The same rule I apply to music (pleasnt as some of that music may be  ;) )... Yep, Rachmaninoff (excellent example!)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 07:16:49 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:11:32 AM
I wouldn't admire a painter who today painted the Sixtine Chapel, I wouldn't admire a writer who today writes Don Quixote... 

Don't worry, not a single one painter or writer of today could do that.  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 07:20:03 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:11:32 AM
I see no danger of us not continuing to respect one another.  :)

Perhaps the word "archaic" doesn't encompass what I really mean...the Spanish word is "vetusto" ("vetuste" in French), with a meaning closer to "surpassed" and "dilapidated"... Yes, archaism (and quotation) are fanatastic artistic tools, used by a whiole lot of great composers... but the "langauge" of those great compsoers was/is a "language" of their time that may incorporate such a tool, not a mannerist continuation of something that was fresh 50 years earlier, but is no longer applicable to the times and the Zeitgeist.

As for your third point, I'm afraid I disagree totally... My position is that an artist cannot possible be of "sature" if   he uses these "surpassed methods" (here we run the risk of a real catch-22 situation  ;D ). I wouldn't admire a painter who today painted the Sixtine Chapel, I wouldn't admire a writer who today writes Don Quixote...  The same rule I apply to music (pleasnt as some of that music may be  ;) )... Yep, Rachmaninoff (excellent example!)

Our agreement is partial . . . I am thinking of a fellow whose professed aim is to write music just like Mendelssohn (in which he does not succeed).  I think that the focus on method is imperfect and misleading, and that the art should be judged on its own merits, Rakhmaninov furnishing an excellent example.  But of course, Boulez is famously contemptuous of Shostakovich, whose work I hold in high estimation.  I suppose you do not care for it, yourself, since there is probably no way in which his music "moved the art forward."

I find the work of both Rakhmaninov & Shostakovich vital and uniquely expressive, and not in any way "dilapidated."
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 07:21:05 AM
Quote from: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 07:16:49 AM
Don't worry, not a single one painter or writer of today could do that.  ;D ;D ;D

No, indeed!  For only one thing, we live in an entirely different world.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 07:27:24 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:11:32 AM
I wouldn't admire a painter who today painted the Sixtine Chapel, I wouldn't admire a writer who today writes Don Quixote...

You do not think that a painter or writer in our day who is capable of those respective feats, is therefore possessed of talent and skill worthy of admiration?

Naturally, such an artist working today, would create work distinct from either the Chapel ceiling or Don Quixote.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 02, 2015, 07:30:20 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
Well, we discuss this on and off on a regular basis, and we'll never agree I'm afraid.

In the bigger picture, though, it appears to me that music is the only art form in which complacently applying archaic and surpassed means of expression is considered acceptable (by the wider public and a good part of critics) for a major composer.

A painter emulating, for instance, Manet in the mid-20th century would have been laughed out of the museums, and yet Poulenc's music (pleasant as it may be) is even called "great" by a lot of people.

it depends with what we consider "emulating". For instance, I guess that great  painters as Vuillard and Bonnard could be considered derivative because of their link with the impressionist movement, even with all their originality and individuality.

Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
I cannot think of any composer who deserves the epithet of "major" who has not made the art of music move forward...not a single one!

What about Brahms,  Bach, Mozart, Britten, Shostackovich for instance.
(Obviously Boulez hates the last two)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 07:33:13 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 07:21:05 AM
No, indeed!  For only one thing, we live in an entirely different world.

Of course. Any such comparisons or counter-factual conditionals are meaningless.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 02, 2015, 07:36:10 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:11:32 AM

As for your third point, I'm afraid I disagree totally... My position is that an artist cannot possible be of "sature" if   he uses these "surpassed methods" (here we run the risk of a real catch-22 situation  ;D ). I wouldn't admire a painter who today painted the Sixtine Chapel, I wouldn't admire a writer who today writes Don Quixote...  The same rule I apply to music (pleasnt as some of that music may be  ;) )... Yep, Rachmaninoff (excellent example!)

and what if you don't know for some reason when a piece of music has been created? Let's say that you don't know about All night vigil (an incredible masterpiece in my opinion) and someone would say to you that it was a revolutionary work created in the 15th century, it will change your consideration of it?
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:43:42 AM
Quote from: escher on July 02, 2015, 07:30:20 AM
What about Brahms,  Bach, Mozart, Britten, Shostackovich for instance.
(Obviously Boulez hates the last two)
This list is a bit of a mixed bag, IMHO. Bach and Mozart on one side, a bunch of "derivatives" on the other  ::)  ;)
Quote from: escher on July 02, 2015, 07:36:10 AM
and what if you don't know for some reason when a piece of music has been created? Let's say that you don't know about All night vigil (an incredible masterpiece in my opinion) and someone would say to you that it was a revolutionary work created in the 15th century, it will change your consideration of it?
I for one cannot dissociate art (whatever art) from the time and place of its creation...
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 07:52:29 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:43:42 AM
I for one cannot dissociate art (whatever art) from the time and place of its creation...

That's a bit contradictory to your previous statement that

Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 06:41:35 AM
I cannot think of any composer who deserves the epithet of "major" who has not made the art of music move forward...

, methinks.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 08:00:06 AM
 Well, Florestan, then possibly I haven't expressed myself correctly, or you haven't understood me, because I see nothing remotely contracditory in those two statements...
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 02, 2015, 08:00:15 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 07:43:42 AM
This list is a bit of a mixed bag, IMHO. Bach and Mozart on one side, a bunch of "derivatives" on the other  ::)  ;) I for one cannot dissociate art (whatever art) from the time and place of its creation...

We now could marvel about the intricacies of his counterpoint butBach was considered a musicians composing in a outdated style back then.
You know, Boulez talking of the outdated tonality reminds me of those old critics who said that figurative painting was outdated in the twentieth century, even in spite of the complete originality of many great figurative painters. They never explain why it's outdated, it's more like an axiom that have to be accepted as it is.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 08:02:55 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 08:00:06 AM
Well, Florestan, then possibly I haven't expressed myself correctly, or you haven't understood me, because I see nothing remotely contracditory in those two statements...

Beethoven moved music forward --- that implies that his music was ahead of its time.

Yet you can't dissociate Beethoven's music from the time it was created.

What am I getting wrong?
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 08:25:49 AM
Quote from: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 08:02:55 AM
Beethoven moved music forward --- that implies that his music was ahead of its time.

Yet you can't dissociate Beethoven's music from the time it was created.

What am I getting wrong?
Well...you must associate Beethoven's music to the time it was composed to apprerciate the fact that he moved the art form forward...

Schoenberg composed in the first half of the 20th century, and gave a huge impulse to the art of music. Hans Pfitzner lived in roughly the same time and place, and didn't move the art form forward an inch  0:)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 08:57:01 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 08:25:49 AM
Schoenberg composed in the first half of the 20th century, and gave a huge impulse to the art of music. Hans Pfitzner lived in roughly the same time and place, and didn't move the art form forward an inch  0:)

A fact which doesn't prevent me from enjoying Pfitzner more than Schoenberg.  :D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Cato on July 02, 2015, 09:51:21 AM
Quote from: escher on July 02, 2015, 07:36:10 AM
and what if you don't know for some reason when a piece of music has been created? Let's say that you don't know about All Night Vigil (an incredible masterpiece in my opinion), and someone would say to you that it was a revolutionary work created in the 15th century, will  it change your consideration of it?

Yes!  Or would pianists and conductors sniff at e.g. Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto and refuse to perform it, if they were approached by a young 21st-century Rachmaninov today?

In fact, there have been parallel experiments about this in literature, where literary agents and publishers are sent type-written copies of things like Great Expectations or Crime and Punishment or The Sound and the Fury or even Jane Austen's novels, and they are not only roundly rejected, the trick is rarely recognized! :laugh:
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:21:34 AM
Just a point about Boulez. He thinks it a good thing that composers are inspired by aspects of the best music from the past. He was himself inspired by early aniphonal msuic in Repons, and by baroque counterpoint in the second sonata. He has said this in interviews and documentaries.


Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 11:24:14 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:21:34 AM
Just a point about Boulez. He thinks it a good thing that composers are inspired by aspects of the best music from the past.

Sure, but he thinks he's appointed referee to decide who is using the past artistically.  And again, that's all great, if you wear much the same blinders that Boulez does.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:30:48 AM



Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 07:20:03 AM


I find the work of both Rakhmaninov & Shostakovich vital and uniquely expressive, and not in any way "dilapidated."

I expect that Boulez finds them uniquely expressive too. I don't think that's his point.

Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:31:15 AM
Quote from: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 08:57:01 AM
A fact which doesn't prevent me from enjoying Pfitzner more than Schoenberg.  :D

Now we're getting closer to something. The genre, classical music, isn't about producing stuff for people to enjoy, though of course people may enjoy it. Being enjoyable isn't of the essence. It never was -- not for Bach or Beethoven or any of them.

I guess Boulez is saying that, given what music aims to do, you can't do it and write common practice style. The way to get clear about his ideas is to focus on what he thinks the aim of music is.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 11:34:43 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:31:15 AM
The genre, classical music, isn't about producing stuff for people to enjoy [...]

Sorry, I missed this memo (as, persumably, did Mozart, Haydn & Chopin, to name but three).  Please point me to the authoritative document here.  TIA.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:35:24 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 11:24:14 AM
Sure, but he thinks he's appointed referee to decide who is using the past artistically.  And again, that's all great, if you wear much the same blinders that Boulez does.

I agree that this is a bit disturbing, prima facie. But my point is that his idea of "artistically" is the point to focus attention in the discussion -- though I've not read enough of his writing to make much of a contribution.

He could just be a little Hitler, a wanker, but I doubt it, you know. He may be wrong, but he's thought it through and argued it out with some of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:36:39 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 11:34:43 AM
Sorry, I missed this memo (as, persumably, did Mozart, Haydn & Chopin, to name but three).  Please point me to the authoritative document here.  TIA.

Haydn maybe was writing entertainment, I don't know much about him. But Mozart was writing politically revolutionary music. And Chopin too, political and spiritual and psychological.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 11:40:17 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:36:39 AM
Haydn maybe was writing entertainment, I don't know much about him. But Mozart was writing politically revolutionary music. And Chopin too, political and spiritual and psychological.

Yes, that's fine.  Why do you feel this means they were not writing entertainment?  Think outside the pigeonholes, dear chap!  Don't let Boulez sucker you into thinking it's all B&W!
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 11:45:04 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:35:24 AM
. . . He may be wrong, but he's thought it through and argued it out with some of the greatest minds of the 20th century.

Yes, he's thought it through, and argued with great minds, and he's just figured that, luckily, he has been right all along.  Doesn't mean that his viewpoint is not inartistically narrow.  Just means he's, erm, satisfied himself.  So, perhaps a wanker, after all.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 02, 2015, 11:55:58 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:35:24 AM
He may be wrong,

This is a question without a wrong answer.  That doesn't mean Boulez's answer is right for everyone.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Jubal Slate on July 02, 2015, 11:56:33 AM
He's okez.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 12:11:16 PM
Quote from: sanantonio on July 02, 2015, 11:55:58 AM
This is a question without a wrong answer.  That doesn't mean Boulez's answer is right for everyone.

What I want to know is why he feels so negative about |common Practice harmony. Why he picks on that, and yet is OK with aniphonal structure.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 02, 2015, 12:26:52 PM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 08:25:49 AM
Well...you must associate Beethoven's music to the time it was composed to apprerciate the fact that he moved the art form forward...

Schoenberg composed in the first half of the 20th century, and gave a huge impulse to the art of music. Hans Pfitzner lived in roughly the same time and place, and didn't move the art form forward an inch  0:)

what about the nineteen century?
Anthon Reicha did a lot of stuff that was incredibly ahead of his time. Nobody knows about him.
Brahms, a conservative, is one of the most famous (and for many one of the greatest) composers ever.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 02, 2015, 01:27:29 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:31:15 AM
Now we're getting closer to something. The genre, classical music, isn't about producing stuff for people to enjoy, though of course people may enjoy it. Being enjoyable isn't of the essence. It never was -- not for Bach or Beethoven or any of them.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 11:34:43 AM
Sorry, I missed this memo (as, persumably, did Mozart, Haydn & Chopin, to name but three).  Please point me to the authoritative document here.  TIA.
I believe Mandryka has raised an excellent point here, Karl. And he himself has given you the answer in advance: "Being enjoyable isn't of the essence" (I would add the word "necessarily" just before the word "of"  ;) ). Surely we all agree that music that we call "classical" will, most of the time, trascend pure enjoyment and have a deeper (if very elusive)  meaning. If not, it is a purely decorative art, and degenartes into something banal. And this applies to Haydn and Mozart, as much as to Schoenberg and Stravinsky (none of which can be seen as purely decorative or banal, don't you think?). Is the right word "disturb", as Boulez says? Or "provoke"? I don't know, but certainly there is, there must be something to music beyond sheer contemplation and passive listening. But that does not mean it cannot be enjoyed, it may not be beautiful, etc., etc.

Quote from: escher on July 02, 2015, 12:26:52 PM
what about the nineteen century?
Anthon Reicha did a lot of stuff that was incredibly ahead of his time. Nobody knows about him.
Brahms, a conservative, is one of the most famous (and for many one of the greatest) composers ever.
Fame really has nothing to do with it, I'm afraid. And Brahms may be regarded as one of the greatest by many, but not by me FWIW  ::). I must check out Reicha, though. Thanks for the tip!  :)

Quote from: Florestan on July 02, 2015, 08:57:01 AM
A fact which doesn't prevent me from enjoying Pfitzner more than Schoenberg.  :D
Good for you!  :)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on July 02, 2015, 03:53:01 PM
So he was heavy on the rhetoric and not very modest in his writings and interviews when he was younger.  It's a bit weird but not that offensive to me.  He mellowed out as he got older.  Although he often discusses his influences, one doesn't have to be given that info to hear the influence of Debussy, Webern, etc., it's pretty apparent.  Again, blowing up opera houses and destroying the Mona Lisa are weird things to say.  Maybe he had a little mania when he was younger, but later he seemed to develop a calmer, classier persona in interviews and most people who interacted with him have high praise and respect for the man.  May he live one more decade.

To my ears and limited knowledge, despite the influences clearly heard in his work, his music is very unique and "pushed music forward," or what have you.  Obviously great composers have influences and push music forward.  No work is an island.  I'm not sure there's a way to give a good estimation on how far music is pushed, but he did make a strong call to push music forward.  He obviously knew music is a synthesis of the past, present, and future, he wouldn't have been Boulez without having "absorbed" the music of the past. 
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 04:24:15 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 12:11:16 PM
What I want to know is why he feels so negative about |common Practice harmony. Why he picks on that, and yet is OK with aniphonal structure.

Artists are sometimes perfectly irrational in their dislikes.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 04:31:11 PM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 01:27:29 PM
I believe Mandryka has raised an excellent point here, Karl. And he himself has given you the answer in advance: "Being enjoyable isn't of the essence" (I would add the word "necessarily" just before the word "of"  ;) ).

And my counter-argument is that this is only an assertion;  that in fact there is a body of art of which it is perfectly fair to say "being enjoyable is of the essence, is the point" (one remark which comes to mind is Debussy's "Pleasure is the law.")  Perhaps we agree, since you are amenable to adding the adverb necessarily.  Music whose principal aim is the enjoyment of the listener is not therefore banal.  And lo! we have discerned another weaselly word, because we are not going to get twelve composers to agree just where to draw the line where the art "lapses into the banal."  All that is certain, is that banal is used as a dismissal, and is therefore not an artistic standard, but an indicator of the listener's personal taste.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 02, 2015, 04:32:10 PM
Quote from: Niko240 on July 02, 2015, 03:53:01 PM
So he was heavy on the rhetoric and not very modest in his writings and interviews when he was younger.  It's a bit weird but not that offensive to me.

Nor offensive to me.  I believe in knowing the dodgy thought and judgments for what they are, though  8)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Ken B on July 02, 2015, 06:36:54 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 04:24:15 PM
Artists are sometimes perfectly irrational in their disikes.
FTFY oh Mennin 8 fan.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: EigenUser on July 03, 2015, 12:11:48 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 01:27:29 PM
I believe Mandryka has raised an excellent point here, Karl. And he himself has given you the answer in advance: "Being enjoyable isn't of the essence" (I would add the word "necessarily" just before the word "of"  ;) ). Surely we all agree that music that we call "classical" will, most of the time, trascend pure enjoyment and have a deeper (if very elusive)  meaning. If not, it is a purely decorative art, and degenartes into something banal. And this applies to Haydn and Mozart, as much as to Schoenberg and Stravinsky (none of which can be seen as purely decorative or banal, don't you think?). Is the right word "disturb", as Boulez says? Or "provoke"? I don't know, but certainly there is, there must be something to music beyond sheer contemplation and passive listening. But that does not mean it cannot be enjoyed, it may not be beautiful, etc., etc.
Yesterday afternoon I was listening to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians (not Reicha, just to avoid confusion since I saw that name mentioned) and this thread came to mind. I thought "you know, what Reich is doing is really clever and interesting, though far from what was happening in Europe at the time (1970s)." He introduces a series of 11 chords at the introduction. Then he thoroughly explores each individual chord by slowly building unique melodies in the 11 sections that follow (one section per chord), constructing them note-by note and then deconstructing them in a symmetric fashion (so that the full melody is heard several times at the center of each section). The whole work comes across as this beautifully symmetric arch.

Yet, serialists and minimalists tend to not get along so well. Why do people have this attitude that we must choose one or the other, as if it is some kind of musical sin? I think that it is the most fun (not to mention the most rewarding) to try and find redeeming qualities in all works and to appreciate them for what they are -- not what we want them to be. Maybe this doesn't make any sense...

And ritter, you know I love Boulez! In fact, the other day I got the sheet music for Anthemes I from the library so I can take a crack at it. Haven't had the chance, but I will report back when I do.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 01:00:08 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 02, 2015, 11:31:15 AM
The genre, classical music, isn't about producing stuff for people to enjoy, though of course people may enjoy it.

What is it about?

Quote
Being enjoyable isn't of the essence. It never was 

What is of the essence?

Quote
given what music aims to do,

What does it aim to do?

Quote
Mozart was writing politically revolutionary music.

Please name 3 of his works that were politically revolutionary.

Quote
And Chopin too, political and spiritual and psychological.

Please name 1 political, 1 spiritual and 1 psychological work of his.

TIA for all answers.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 01:17:56 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2015, 04:31:11 PM
Music whose principal aim is the enjoyment of the listener is not therefore banal.

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul. - JS Bach

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music. - WA Mozart

They must have missed the "Essence of Music 101".

Quote
All that is certain, is that banal is used as a dismissal, and is therefore not an artistic standard, but an indicator of the listener's personal taste.

Amen, brother!
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 01:21:08 AM
Quote from: escher on July 02, 2015, 12:26:52 PM
Brahms, a conservative,

According to Schoenberg, he was a progressive.  :D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 03, 2015, 02:04:45 AM
Quote from: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 01:21:08 AM
According to Schoenberg, he was a progressive.  :D

and I'm ok with that, because as Morton Feldman said about Delius, "The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical." It depends if one looks at the work of a composer superficially (as karlhenning says, black and white like tonal:old, atonality:new) or with more attention to the original aspects of the music.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: EigenUser on July 03, 2015, 02:39:13 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 02:04:45 AM
and I'm ok with that, because as Morton Feldman said about Delius, "The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical." It depends if one looks at the work of a composer superficially (as karlhenning says, black and white like tonal:old, atonality:new) or with more attention to the original aspects of the music.
Wrong elius. Sibelius, not Delius.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 03, 2015, 03:22:39 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 02:04:45 AM
and I'm ok with that, because as Morton Feldman said about Delius, "The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical." It depends if one looks at the work of a composer superficially (as karlhenning says, black and white like tonal:old, atonality:new) or with more attention to the original aspects of the music.

I thought Feldman said that about Sibelius.  Not that it matters.   ;)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 03, 2015, 03:23:53 AM
Quote from: EigenUser on July 03, 2015, 12:11:48 AM

And ritter, you know I love Boulez! In fact, the other day I got the sheet music for Anthemes I from the library so I can take a crack at it. Haven't had the chance, but I will report back when I do.
You know I'm expecting a YouTube of this  ;) :) :)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Cato on July 03, 2015, 03:26:37 AM
This topic has brought back a memory.

I recall a debate many moons ago with a high-school friend (he was much against anything composed after Schumann)who was adamant that contemporary composers were frauds, and Boulez was high on his list as the most fraudulent.

My friend disputed that Boulez ("and others of his ilk") could mentally imagine any of his music, i.e. that few if any of the sounds in his works arose spontaneously from psycho-spiritual inspiration.  And because of this defect, the music of Boulez was ipso facto invalid and not worth a penny. 

I recall countering that  A. One cannot possibly prove what is inside the head of any composer B. That composers have been known to sit at a piano and idly tap things out, until they come across something that catches their inner ear  C. That only the final result is important anyway: how the music was composed - whether with a system or a computer or by throwing dice or by divine inspiration - does not much matter because the composer is composing it, i.e. putting it together. 

My friend countered that such an opinion explained the "dissonant messes" created by contemporary composers like Boulez.  Such composers were parallel with the "squirt-gun artists" who filled huge canvases with squiggles: "true inspiration and talent" were completely lacking in the artist and in the artwork.  People who claimed that they heard anything comprehensible or interesting or entertaining in Boulez were snobs parallel with the museum goers who would stand in front of a Pollock and claim to see anything other than the work of a fraud imitating the scribbles of a 3-year old.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 03:40:52 AM
Quote from: Cato on July 03, 2015, 03:26:37 AM
I recall a debate many moons ago with a high-school friend [...]

Your friend is a perfect illustration of the French dictum penser contre, c'est penser comme, yet if I met him I wouldn't hesitate to buy him a beer or two.  :D :P
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 03, 2015, 04:37:55 AM
Quote from: EigenUser on July 03, 2015, 02:39:13 AM
Wrong elius. Sibelius, not Delius.

I know, little lapsus.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 03, 2015, 04:44:18 AM
Quote from: Cato on July 03, 2015, 03:26:37 AM
This topic has brought back a memory.

I recall a debate many moons ago with a high-school friend (he was much against anything composed after Schumann)who was adamant that contemporary composers were frauds, and Boulez was high on his list as the most fraudulent.

My friend disputed that Boulez ("and others of his ilk") could mentally imagine any of his music, i.e. that few if any of the sounds in his works arose spontaneously from psycho-spiritual inspiration.  And because of this defect, the music of Boulez was ipso facto invalid and not worth a penny. 

I recall countering that  A. One cannot possibly prove what is inside the head of any composer B. That composers have been known to sit at a piano and idly tap things out, until they come across something that catches their inner ear  C. That only the final result is important anyway: how the music was composed - whether with a system or a computer or by throwing dice or by divine inspiration - does not much matter because the composer is composing it, i.e. putting it together. 

My friend countered that such an opinion explained the "dissonant messes" created by contemporary composers like Boulez.  Such composers were parallel with the "squirt-gun artists" who filled huge canvases with squiggles: "true inspiration and talent" were completely lacking in the artist and in the artwork.  People who claimed that they heard anything comprehensible or interesting or entertaining in Boulez were snobs parallel with the museum goers who would stand in front of a Pollock and claim to see anything other than the work of a fraud imitating the scribbles of a 3-year old.
Yep, and my 5-year old son can compose Kontra-Punkte  >:(
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 03, 2015, 04:49:23 AM
Quote from: Cato on July 03, 2015, 03:26:37 AM
This topic has brought back a memory.

I recall a debate many moons ago with a high-school friend (he was much against anything composed after Schumann)who was adamant that contemporary composers were frauds, and Boulez was high on his list as the most fraudulent.

My friend disputed that Boulez ("and others of his ilk") could mentally imagine any of his music, i.e. that few if any of the sounds in his works arose spontaneously from psycho-spiritual inspiration.  And because of this defect, the music of Boulez was ipso facto invalid and not worth a penny. 

I recall countering that  A. One cannot possibly prove what is inside the head of any composer B. That composers have been known to sit at a piano and idly tap things out, until they come across something that catches their inner ear  C. That only the final result is important anyway: how the music was composed - whether with a system or a computer or by throwing dice or by divine inspiration - does not much matter because the composer is composing it, i.e. putting it together. 

My friend countered that such an opinion explained the "dissonant messes" created by contemporary composers like Boulez.  Such composers were parallel with the "squirt-gun artists" who filled huge canvases with squiggles: "true inspiration and talent" were completely lacking in the artist and in the artwork.  People who claimed that they heard anything comprehensible or interesting or entertaining in Boulez were snobs parallel with the museum goers who would stand in front of a Pollock and claim to see anything other than the work of a fraud imitating the scribbles of a 3-year old.

I don't think it's a good parallel, because I don't think nobody here is saying that modern music is a fraud (personally I really like many modern composers, from Webern to Ligeti). It's more against the superficial rhetoric used by Boulez to say that all modern music should conform to certain standards (like atonality or that stupid idea that music and art have necessarily to disturb) or it's useless or without value. I mean he probably don't care even for composers like Scelsi or Ohana just because they have chosen a different musical path.
Like I have said, it's the same old mentality of those art critics that said that figurative art had no place in modern art. Does anybody here think that Edward Hopper was not an original artist?
Is he less important or deep than Rohtko or Pollock? I don't think so.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 03, 2015, 04:53:02 AM
Quote from: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 01:00:08 AM
What is it about?

What is of the essence?

What does it aim to do?

Please name 3 of his works that were politically revolutionary.

Please name 1 political, 1 spiritual and 1 psychological work of his.

TIA for all answers.

For chopin a good place to start is the (political) op 48/1 ans the (psychological) op 27/1. Mozart's easier because of the operas. I think that what is essential to a major strand of classical music is expressing and exploring ideas. But clearly a lot of classical music is really entertainment, maybe Boulez wants to separate off what he mainly does from that strand.

You get a similar state of affairs in novels. Jane Austen (=entertainment music); Herman Broch (=serious music)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 03, 2015, 05:05:41 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 03, 2015, 04:53:02 AM
For chopin a good place to start is the (political) op 48/1 ans the (psychological) op 27/1.

Not so fast, please. Explain me what is political in op. 48/1 and what is psychological in op. 27/1.

QuoteMozart's easier because of the operas.

I fail to see anything politically revolutionary in any of his operas, maybe you can be more specific.

QuoteI think that what is essential to a major strand of classical music is expressing and exploring ideas.

What is/are the idea(s) expressed in Goldberg Variations?






Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 03, 2015, 05:44:23 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 04:49:23 AM
.... It's more against the superficial rhetoric used by Boulez to say that all modern music should conform to certain standards (like atonality or that stupid idea that music and art have necessarily to disturb) or it's useless or without value. I mean he probably don't care even for composers like Scelsi or Ohana just because they have choose a different musical path.
Like I have said, it's the same old mentality of those art critics that said that figurative art had no place in modern art. Does anybody here think that Edward Hopper was not an original artist?
Is he less important or deep than Rohtko or Pollock? I don't think so.
There is one distinction to be made, Escher, and a major one: Pierre Boulez is not one "of those (art) critics", Pierre Boulez is a major composer (nobody can deny that, I'd say) who has felt the necessity, the obligation, to promote his artistic credo, and he has all the right to do so (with his music, his writing, his conducting...). He also has the intellectual capacity to do so in what many perceive as very convincing  terms, even  if in writing he can appear as too outspoken or brash (but--as Niko240 has pointed out--in person he is extremely polite and well mannered, and I personally can vouch for that).

Artists of Pierre Boulez's stature often tend to adopt a single-minded "sense of mission" because they are profioundly convinced of the need to convey their message (and applying the terms "shallow", "superficial" or "stupid" in this context is unfair and insidious). Richard Wagner did it (I'm talking of his views on art, not on other issues--let's please avoid going down that road), Igor Stravinsky did it (just read what he wrote about German music as a whole--with the exception of J.S. Bach--in the 1930s, or his early views on Mahler). We must make a distinction between a Boulez, a Wagner or a Stravinsky, on one hand, and a  Eduard Hanslick or Julius Korngold, on the other (who today are mainly  remembered only for  of the stance these critics took against certain composers).

Really, what  do people expect, for Pierre Boulez to proclaim, for instance, that  Henri Sauguet is a genius, and to program Britten regularly at IRCAM? Really ? ? ?... ::)

And I've said it elsehwere on GMG: one may agree or not with what Boulez has had to say, but I for one am glad that he's had the balls to say it. Much of his writing is of immense value, and his music is a corpus of the highest artistic relevance. And let's get one thing right, once and for all: some posters seem to think that when Boulez was spreading his artistic credo, he single-handedly managed to crowd out all the music he dismissed form concert halls. Quite the contrary: I am certain Boulez was a outspoken and uncompromising as he was precisely because in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s, concert programs and opera seasons were not open at all to the music that he was deeply convinced was worth getting audieces exposed to. One reads some posts here on GMG, and one could jump to the conclusion that Donaueschingen was dictating what was on offer in Canegie Hall!  ???

One final thought: I find it striking that a new member of this wonderful forum (Niko242 in this case) starts a thread talking about what seems to be a genuine admiration for Pierre Boulez's music and, inevitably, after several posts, the corrosive remarks about Boulez's writings start to appear. Curious, and perhaps a reflection that it's not that easy to escape from Boulez's shadow.  ;D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:03:40 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 03, 2015, 05:44:23 AM
There is one distinction to be made, Escher, and a major one: Pierre Boulez is not one "of those (art) critics", Pierre Boulez] is a major composer (nobody can deny that, I'd say) who has felt the necessity, the obligation, to promote his artistic credo, and he has all the right to do so [....]

This is marvelously apt of you to point out, because I came to the thread specifically to offer this to you, as a somewhat balancing consideration to my Loyal Opposition to so much of what Boulez sez (or, haz sed):  He is a major composer, as Wagner was a yet greater major composer;  and in both cases, their music (not that it is all unalloyedly great) rings to much greater credit to the composer, than the verbiage they both felt obliged to strew out into the world.  When Wagner wrote nonsense, we are not under any obligation to mistake it for Wisdom, just because someone who wrote some sublimely great music said it.


As for Boulez having the right, undoubtedly he does.  An individual exercising a right, does not guarantee that he uses that right wisely, nor does exercising the right to express oneself guarantee that what one is expressing is worthwhile.  A bit like Wagner again, perhaps, he blabs the same sort of thing so often, he mistakes his opinions for established artistic truths.  It's an error in judgment one grieves to see in an artist for whom, judging by the music, one would wish to entertain nothing but respect.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:05:22 AM
And if you said artists of Pierre Boulez's generation rather than stature, your comment would be rather nearer the mark, I think.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:09:17 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 03, 2015, 05:44:23 AM
And I've said it elsehwere on GMG: one may agree or not with what Boulez has had to say, but I for one am glad that he's had the balls to say it. Much of his writing is of immense value, and his music is a corpus of the highest artistic relevance.

I respect that opinion, and I for one am glad for your strong emphases of the modifiers which, in their degree, are a matter of opinion;  I say opinion merely even if, in soberer degree, they would be statements anyone might endorse:  that, say, some of what he has said (almost in spite of himself  8) ) is of value, and that he has written music of artistic relevance.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:12:20 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 03, 2015, 05:44:23 AM
There is one distinction to be made, Escher, and a major one: Pierre Boulez is not one "of those (art) critics", Pierre Boulez] is a major composer (nobody can deny that, I'd say)

personally I don't consider him an important composer (and I can mention composers and critics who find his music horrible so please spare me that "nobody can deny that"). I think of him as someone who in a period when modernism was considered the law in every field (being it Mondrian, Malevic, Loos or Le Corbusier)  has had the possibilty to be in a very important position.

Quote from: ritter on July 03, 2015, 05:44:23 AM
who has felt the necessity, the i]obligation[/i], to promote his artistic credo, and he has all the right to do so (with his music, his writing, his conducting...). He also has the intellectual capacity to do so in what many perceive as very convincing  terms, even  if in writing he can appear as too outspoken or brash (but--as Niko240 has pointed out--in person he is extremely polite and well mannered, an I personally can vouch for that).

I don't find his arguments convincing at all (as I've said, I found those arguments quite stupid actually). I can recognize he's an intelligent person and with a great knowledge and that seems to intimidate a lot of persons, but that does not certainly mean to me that he can not say stupid things. And even many musicians I really like say things that I don't share at all. I mean, I'm a great fan of Harry Partch, but that does not mean certainly that I think like him that everything composed after Bach is garbage.
But the problem with Boulez is not his strong ideas (I've read also many interesting things said by him), I know that many other composers have strong ideas as well. But his position has determined the marginalization of those composers he didn't like, even when it's clear that those composers were absolutely original artists. And that in my view is his capital sin.

Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:15:54 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:12:20 AM
personally I don't consider him an important composer (and I can mention composers and critics who find his music horrible so please spare me that "nobody can deny that"). I think of him as someone who in a period when modernism was considered the law in every field (being it Mondrian, Malevic, Loos or Le Corbusier)  has had the possibility to be in a very important position.

He is an iconic opportunist, and has a world-class talent for agit prop.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:19:26 AM
Quote from: Ken B on July 02, 2015, 06:36:54 PM
FTFY oh Mennin 8 fan.

Thanks for the chuckle!
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:26:07 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2015, 06:15:54 AM
He is an iconic opportunist, and has a world-class talent for agit prop.

Stravinsky would probably agree
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:29:47 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:26:07 AM
Stravinsky would probably agree

Very nice!

There are differences, too, of course.  Igor Fyodorovich was provoking, without being the turd in the punchbowl.  And face it, Boulez has a knack for being tediously earnest.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 03, 2015, 06:34:35 AM
My rule of thumb is unless composers are discussing/writing musical analysis I generally ignore what they say and just listen to what they compose.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 03, 2015, 06:36:20 AM
Quote from: sanantonio on July 03, 2015, 06:34:35 AM
My rule of thumb is unless composers are discussing/writing musical analysis I generally ignore what they say and just listen to what they compose.

Not at all a bad rule.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ritter on July 03, 2015, 06:39:00 AM
Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:12:20 AM
personally I don't consider him an important composer (and I can mention composers and critics who find his music horrible so please spare me that "nobody can deny that").
Fair enough: change "nobody can deny that" to "only a few would deny that"...

Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:12:20 AM
But the problem with Boulez is not his strong ideas (I've read also many interesting things said by him), I know that many other composers have strong ideas as well. But his position has determined the marginalization of those composers he didn't like, even when it's clear that those composers were absolutely original artists. And that in my view is his capital sin.
That, I'm afarid, is not substantiated by any sort of hard data...As I pointed out above, just look at the prgrams of any relevant musical institution (orchestra, opera company, record label) in the period during and after Boulez was at his most vociferous, and Shostakovich, Britten, Poulenc, Dutilleux and Sauguet were all doing very well, thank you very much.

I insist: Donaueschingen was not dictating the prgrams of Carnegie Hall, the Salle Pleyel was not following the lead of Darmstadt, and even when Pierre Boulez had a very prominent position in London (the BBC post), the variety of music perfomed in that city there was great, and I'd say even biased towards the music Boulez  dismissed...

But, if we want to make Pierre Boulez guilty of the fact that, for instance, Henri Sauguet has fallen into almost absolute oblivion today, let's go ahead and do so (and not ask ourselves whether this might have happened even if Boulez had never been born)... ::)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Cato on July 03, 2015, 06:41:39 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2015, 06:03:40 AM
... the verbiage they both felt obliged to strew out into the world.  When Wagner wrote nonsense, we are not under any obligation to mistake it for Wisdom, just because someone who wrote some sublimely great music said it.
A bit like Wagner again, perhaps, he blabs the same sort of thing so often, he mistakes his opinions for established artistic truths.  It's an error in judgment one grieves to see in an artist for whom, judging by the music, one would wish to entertain nothing but respect.

Yes, and your comments make me think immediately of actors who should stick to memorizing their lines, rather than trying to balloon their fame with opinions about the crisis-du-jour.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2015, 06:15:54 AM
He is an iconic opportunist, and has a world-class talent for agit prop.

Perhaps only Scriabin had a bigger ego?   0:)

Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:12:20 AM
personally I don't consider him an important composer ...


That Boulez is not important at the moment would be hard to square with e.g. the existence of this topic!   0:)   But whether he will remain important will be determined by the future.  Of course, one can start arguments about whether e.g. Beethoven has remained "important" vs. "popular."   :laugh:

Quote from: escher on July 03, 2015, 06:26:07 AM
Stravinsky would probably agree

For another topic: I recall reading somewhere that the Robert Craft books written "with Stravinsky" (with the latter's opinions) contain more Robert Craft than Stravinsky!

e.g. Stravinsky supposedly made a bi-lingual pun on Mahler's music, and said that he hears malheur when he hears a work by Mahler, which word, however, could be accurate, depending on the work!   8)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 03, 2015, 06:43:28 AM
Quote from: Cato on July 03, 2015, 03:26:37 AM
This topic has brought back a memory.

I recall a debate many moons ago with a high-school friend (he was much against anything composed after Schumann)who was adamant that contemporary composers were frauds, and Boulez was high on his list as the most fraudulent.

My friend disputed that Boulez ("and others of his ilk") could mentally imagine any of his music, i.e. that few if any of the sounds in his works arose spontaneously from psycho-spiritual inspiration.  And because of this defect, the music of Boulez was ipso facto invalid and not worth a penny. 

I recall countering that  A. One cannot possibly prove what is inside the head of any composer B. That composers have been known to sit at a piano and idly tap things out, until they come across something that catches their inner ear  C. That only the final result is important anyway: how the music was composed - whether with a system or a computer or by throwing dice or by divine inspiration - does not much matter because the composer is composing it, i.e. putting it together. 

My friend countered that such an opinion explained the "dissonant messes" created by contemporary composers like Boulez.  Such composers were parallel with the "squirt-gun artists" who filled huge canvases with squiggles: "true inspiration and talent" were completely lacking in the artist and in the artwork.  People who claimed that they heard anything comprehensible or interesting or entertaining in Boulez were snobs parallel with the museum goers who would stand in front of a Pollock and claim to see anything other than the work of a fraud imitating the scribbles of a 3-year old.

So, you went to high school with Daniel Asia?
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Cato on July 03, 2015, 07:01:02 AM
Quote from: sanantonio on July 03, 2015, 06:43:28 AM
So, you went to high school with Daniel Asia?

Heh-heh!   0:)  In fact, he ended up becoming a U.S. Ambassador to one of the Caribbean island states, Bermuda or the Bahamas or something like that.  We lost contact in the 90's.  I suppose I should find contact him, but as my mother used to say, "phones ring both ways."  ;)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: kishnevi on July 03, 2015, 07:10:11 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 03, 2015, 04:53:02 AM.

You get a similar state of affairs in novels. Jane Austen (=entertainment music); Herman Broch (=serious music)

Mon ami! Miss Jane Austen is a profoundly serious writer, and would not be matched again in British Literature until "George Eliot" began writing.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: San Antone on July 03, 2015, 07:13:11 AM
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on July 03, 2015, 07:10:11 AM
Mon ami! Miss Jane Austen is a profoundly serious writer

+1  I have been revisiting Austin's novels and strongly dissent from any opinion that diminishes her writing.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: kishnevi on July 03, 2015, 07:19:02 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 03, 2015, 04:44:18 AM
Yep, and my 5-year old son can compose Kontra-Punkte  >:(

Chuckle.
I would in fact  point to Stockhausen as a composer who was important but wrote horrible music.  Musical value and musical influence on others are two different things.

I must admit I at one point would have said the same thing about Maitre Pierre, when I only knew some of his earlier works (Marteau, Notations,  piano sonatas)...but I have discovered my ears to be much more sympathetic to the works composed after that.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on July 03, 2015, 07:51:15 AM
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on July 03, 2015, 07:10:11 AM
Mon ami! Miss Jane Austen is a profoundly serious writer, and would not be matched again in British Literature until "George Eliot" began writing.

Too much swearing in Jane Austen for me.

(http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000t81a6y47N9o/s/900/720/Fashion-Cartoons-Punch-1982-12-01-923.jpg)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 04, 2015, 05:25:01 AM
"If you have something to say, the idiom in which you choose to say it is irrelevant." - Lorin Maazel
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Florestan on July 04, 2015, 05:27:02 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on July 03, 2015, 07:51:15 AM
Too much swearing in Jane Austen for me.

Then I guess you avoid The Good Soldier Švejk as plague.  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on July 04, 2015, 05:30:05 AM
Od's bodikins!
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Turner on December 20, 2016, 09:48:17 AM
Quote from: Niko240 on June 29, 2015, 08:39:13 AM
Hello GMG, I have been reading extensively from this forum and learning a lot.  I'm familiar with some of the work of the great composers before the modern era, but looking for some specific recommendations on contemporary composers.  Pierre Boulez has been my favorite composer the last couple years.  Although his music is often complex, dissonant, and atonal, I hear plenty of beauty in it as well (not that complexity, dissonance and atonality preclude beauty, but it seems as though composers from previous eras designed their music more often with beauty of sound in mind, even when expressing drama or melancholy).  I hope that I can get some recommendations on contemporary composers who make pretty sounds sometimes like Boulez (I'm glad there is a section for beginners here lol).  I hear power and richness in other contemporary composers like Stockhausen, Varese, Berio, and some others, but it seems to me that they lack the ravishing, glistening sounds of Boulez.

Franco Donatoni wasn´t mentioned, and thinking of his experiments with style, and the shimmering, restless, vibrant and yet transparent, chamber-music-like qualities of many of his works, he´d be one of those that come to mind.

He composed a lot, some of the you-tube material has bad sound, but here´s Arpege for ensemble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ykCVOnkgLA

Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ComposerOfAvantGarde on December 20, 2016, 08:04:49 PM
Some other French composers worth checking out for those who find they like Boulez:

Barraqué
Dusapin
Dutilleux
Jean-Claude Risset
Manoury
Mantovani
Dufourt
Christophe Bertrand
And perhaps Murail
and perhaps Grisey

But I also find that there are a number of British composers who follow a similar aesthetic, especially when it comes to the orchestral works. Particularly Helen Grime and Oliver Knussen.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on December 21, 2016, 02:54:48 AM
On the whole, I think I am unlike Boulez.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on December 21, 2016, 02:59:21 AM
Quote from: ritter on July 02, 2015, 01:27:29 PM
[...] Surely we all agree that music that we call "classical" will, most of the time, trascend pure enjoyment and have a deeper (if very elusive) meaning [....]

What if pure enjoyment is itself transcendent?  8)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on December 21, 2016, 03:00:53 AM
Quote from: Ken B on July 02, 2015, 06:36:54 PM
FTFY oh Mennin 8 fan.

Hah!  I gladly own that some subset of my likes are likely somewhere other than rational  0:)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: ComposerOfAvantGarde on December 21, 2016, 03:02:02 AM
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on December 21, 2016, 02:57:33 AM
I find it almost ironic that Dutilleux is on there, didn't Pierre and Henri like hate eachother, almost like arch enemies?! :laugh:
Perhaps they did, but they both do have a similar musical heritage as being post-Debussy post-Ravel French composers. Boulez had no interest in conducting any of Dutilleux's music and they often had quite different creative aims as well, but I think for anyone who already likes Boulez and wants to explore more composers based on the fact that they like Boulez, Dutilleux would seem a fairly obvious composer due to him being from the same time and place in classical music history.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: PotashPie on December 22, 2016, 11:06:47 AM
I agree with jessop in post #104, as far as similar syntax, especially Barraqué.

With sanantonio, what he said above is a main reason I like Boulez. He seems to use categories of sound, as in plucked strings (harp, pizz strings, guitar), struck mallet instruments (vibraphone, glockenspiel, marimba, xylophone), sustained sounds (strings, woodwinds), and it seems to be based on timbre, which was derived from electronic sounds and later IRCAM spectrographic studies of instruments.

I associate this "exotic" instrumentation with Boulez, and I think it can be heard in Messiaen (Et Exspecto, 7 Haiku) and Takemitsu (A Flock Descends, Quatrain).

There is a "jazz" Boulez ensemble recording, using a plucked stand-up bass and electric guitar, a la "jazz." It's here, for a penny:

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/317BZDEBW1L.jpg)
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Mandryka on December 23, 2016, 10:13:41 AM
Quote from: millionrainbows on December 22, 2016, 11:06:47 AM

There is a "jazz" Boulez ensemble recording, using a plucked stand-up bass and electric guitar, a la "jazz." It's here, for a penny:

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/317BZDEBW1L.jpg)

It's fun and full of life, well worth hearing.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Karl Henning on December 24, 2016, 05:45:37 AM
Was he borrowing a page from the Babbitt book?—

http://www.youtube.com/v/G6o8ZnKN_H8
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: PotashPie on December 27, 2016, 08:13:36 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 24, 2016, 05:45:37 AM
Was he borrowing a page from the Babbitt book?—

That's a connection. Babbitt played jazz & popular music on a clarinet or something; Allan Forte was a jazz pianist.

Also, whenever I think of jazz and modern music together, I think of that jazz guitar in the Twilight Zone Main Theme, composed by Marius Constant. I don't think the identity of the guitarist has ever been known.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Abuelo Igor on December 27, 2016, 10:29:04 AM
Apparently (http://www.guitarplayer.com/lessons/1014/play-it-right-the-theme-from-the-twilight-zone/48417 (http://www.guitarplayer.com/lessons/1014/play-it-right-the-theme-from-the-twilight-zone/48417)), it was Tommy Tedesco, or Howard Roberts, or both.
Title: Re: Like Boulez?
Post by: Niko240 on January 01, 2017, 08:51:17 PM
Thank you all for the helpful recommendations and excellent information, I appreciate your time.  Much to explore