Where should music go now - after modernism?

[DavidW]

No, what is expected of a composer from their culture is the influence of the culture on the composer.

Nope, not at all.  What is expected of a composer is music.  Whatever influence the composer has on culture takes time, and is also understood only over time.

[eyeresist]

Mozart and Haydn wrote their music in the 18th century. They brought to their composing 18th century ideas and experiences and assumptions.

We know longer share those. We can read about them; we could even dress up in 18th century clothes and wear wigs, but it wouldn't be real. It would be pretend. Mozart and Haydn's music sounds genuinely 18th century because that's when they lived. Anything anyone would do today would be a collection of tricks. A pastiche of patterns and shapes.

Irrelevant. First question must be: Is the music any good? If the music is good, then the music is good.

I believe that ALL composers are our contemporaries. All influence is valid. Good music does not have a sell-by date.

[some guy]

Irrelevant. First question must be: Is the music any good? If the music is good, then the music is good.

I believe that ALL composers are our contemporaries. All influence is valid. Good music does not have a sell-by date.

"Good" is perhaps the least definable and most contentious term imaginable. Good to whom?

Anyway, this confuses the worlds and goals and realities of listening and composing. For listeners, sure, any music that pleases pleases, regardless of when it was written. But this thread was about composers, and all my comments were about composers and composing. And in that world, there is definitely a use-by date, though it's generally not that important as any self-respecting, honest, inventive composer is going to do something different from what's been done before almost by default. The something different, while it is unfamiliar, is bound to piss a lot of listeners off, but that's by the by.

And that, I think, is what continues to be wrong with Grazioso's scenario. It asks us to imagine a creative artist who is willing (nay even perhaps eager) to do something that's already been done long, long ago. Instead of writing the next Henning piece, say, Karl is going to write Brahms' fifth symphony and put all his creative effort into making it as authentically Brahmsian as possible.

But don't you see? The only person who could do that is Brahms himself. (And Brahms himself was a late nineteenth century German with all that implies.) Anything else is an imitation. Now imitations may indeed please listeners. We've had several here on this thread say that that's fine by them, so long as "it's good," which means, I take it, that it pleases them. OK. But for composers you're imagining an impossible task taken on by an unlikely person. (I'm taking it as given that a person likely to take this task on is not going to be a very self-respecting, honest, or inventive person.)

[karlhenning]

. . . The only person who could do that is Brahms himself. (And Brahms himself was a late nineteenth century German with all that implies.)

And one thing which has had me chuckling all through this is: When Brahms himself looked back to music of the past, he didn't just compose "like Bach done," but he was himself.

So, maybe Karl is composing "as Brahms did," only the nostalgists don't twig it . . . .

[Cato]

And one thing which has had me chuckling all through this is: When Brahms himself looked back to music of the past, he didn't just compose "like Bach done," but he was himself.

So, maybe Karl is composing "as Brahms did," only the nostalgists don't twig it . . . .

The story is old, but worth repeating here: Georg Solti, in his later years, wanted to fill in a gap in his accomplishments by conducting Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, whose score intimidated him.

Things were not going well with the early rehearsals (Chicago Symphony) until he thought to himself: "Treat the score as if Brahms composed it."  As he conveyed this idea to the orchestra, things improved quickly.  Schoenberg himself probably saw many more Brahmsian roots in his music, than Mahlerian or Brucknerian ones.

[North Star]

And one thing which has had me chuckling all through this is: When Brahms himself looked back to music of the past, he didn't just compose "like Bach done," but he was himself.

So, maybe Karl is composing "as Brahms did," only the nostalgists don't twig it . . . .

Indeed, Brahms would most certainly compose differently if he was still alive.

[some guy]

So, maybe Karl is composing "as Brahms did," only the nostalgists don't twig it . . . .

[DavidW]

Excellent post Some Guy, I think the same as you but failed it to articulate my thoughts so well.

[Grazioso]

Anyway, this confuses the worlds and goals and realities of listening and composing. For listeners, sure, any music that

Is not there some common ground between the two? Have not composers wished to be heard, communicate, make money, please a patron or critics? Do/should composing and listening inhabit distinct realms?

pleases pleases, regardless of when it was written. But this thread was about composers, and all my comments were about composers and composing. And in that world, there is definitely a use-by date, though it's generally not that important as any self-respecting, honest, inventive composer is going to do something different from what's been done before almost by default. The something different, while it is unfamiliar, is bound to piss a lot of listeners off, but that's by the by.

Something different and unfamiliar isn't bound to piss off a lot of listeners. Rather something that radically subverts or opposes expectations is likely to. You have a bunch of people thinking music is supposed to do one thing, and Cage offers 4'33", and then in some quarters, yes, the SHTF. Others nod in appreciation, and others laugh and move on.

The OP asked "What should a composer try to achieve to be original now after the extreme radical forces of modernism?!" It's originality that seems to be the sticking point of this discussion. Haydn and Mozart share much in common with each other and their contemporary composers. Are they still original? An experienced listener can certainly tell them apart. How do you define and measure compositional originality? Is originality the chief end of an artist? If your goal is chiefly to stand out from your peers, you end up defining yourself negatively. What if you want to write a grand Romantic symphony in 2011? Is that forbidden territory since others have done it, or because other styles have appeared in the interim?

[Luke]

Symphony is just a name, even if it does come loaded with baggage. I'm sure it's perfectly possible to write a Grand Romantic symphony today and to be original, becuse the originality doesn't reside in the name of the piece but in its content. And the content can be Grand Romantic and yet original, I am sure of that. But as I've said before, I don't think originality is the point*; we should be looking at individuality** (and if you have that, originality comes with it as a given).

I suppose someone could be utterly individual and yet still compose a symphony entirely in the traditions of the past without showing any awareness of more recent music. But I doubt that, because part of one's individuality comes from one's surroundings. This is the point where my view of things meets that of those who say 'it's impossible to compose like Brahms nowadays because of the influence of contmeporary life.' Well, I don't think it's impossible, but I think that it is unlikely to happen in any composer who is sensitive enough to write what is truly inside them. That's why it is so incredibly rare to find a piece which is an exact stylistic copy of another composer, in the past as well as today.

* if orginal means 'new', 'different to what went before'
** if individual means, containing qualities unique to its creator

[karlhenning]

And, individuality seems to be marginalized in the nostalgic yearning of If only composers nowadays would write like Brahms/Tchaikovsky/Debussy . . . .

[karlhenning]

That said, I have enjoyed the fact that (say) Carter, Wuorinen and Wolpe (e.g.) have perfectly distinct voices.  I don't see "modernism" as The Great Musical Satan, by any means.

[Grazioso]

This.

Except those are ultimately two ways of expressing the same thing: if it's unique to the creator, it hasn't been done before (except maybe by him ).

[Luke]

Indeed - the off-the-cuff example I gave yesterday, or maybe the day before, was Ravel, whose importance doesn't reside so much in his originality as in his individuality. Bear in mind I am an gigantic Ravelophile, he's practically my favourite composer, and I'm aware of what he did that was original, and influential too. So it isn't a negative fact for me that it is the deeply personal and uniquely individual nature of his style which makes him attractive, interesting and, in fact, to be blunt, which makes him important, not the fact that he used metronomes and trombone harmonic glissandi and sarusophone-reed solos in L'heure espagnole (for example)

[eyeresist]

Indeed, Brahms would most certainly compose differently if he was still alive.

Zombie Brahms: Symphony "Brains"


Individuality has been mentioned. I think it is the prime criterion for artistic success. The great artists don't let anything block their personality from emerging through their medium. Adherence to a musical system for non-musical reasons can block this, but so can its opposite, the rejection of a musical system for non-musical reasons.

To all the artists: Dig into your chest with a spoon and give us your whole heart. Show us your essence!

[some guy]

Well, as starrynight pointed out at the beginning of this thread, music is going to go wherever it goes, regardless of what any of us say or want.

It is interesting, though, to see how at odds GMG listeners are with the aims of composers, at least of the composers I know.

eyeresist wants composers to show him their essence, for instance. But the job of composers is to play with sounds. Now that playing can reveal things about them, of course, but that's more a side-effect than a goal, I would think. This topic came up in a recent interview with Ricardo Mandolini. Near the end of the interview Mandolini talks of how composers before Cage exemplified the story of Narcissus. Composing was a way of holding a mirror up to themselves. And Cage said that one didn't have to do it that way; one could do it another way, which Mandolini called "the aesthetic of devices."

"Cage has the same relationship with a piece of his as for example a piano maker has with the piano. She has made the piano, but she's not responsible for how it will be made to play. In the same way, Cage can be surprised at what the music of his own piece is doing. He made the instrument, he made the device. He's not controlling what's happening in the device....

You can compose in this other way and just program this device that in a way imitates nature and procedures of nature."

[eyeresist]

I'd say you are confounding the artist trying to extract their personality from their art with use of chance operations and impersonal systems. They're not necessarily the same thing. Use of chance skirts dangerously close to "conceptual art", in which basically an artist can point at any old shit and call it art. There are no useful criteria by which to assess the product of such an operation. That being so, it hardly merits discussion.
Artist who try to remove themselves from their work without resort to chance or adherence to a stringently regimented system are fooling themselves. As long as the artist must make a choice, their personality will present.

[some guy]

I'd say you are confounding the artist trying to extract their personality from their art with use of chance operations and impersonal systems. They're not necessarily the same thing.

Say what? I think they are two profoundly different things. (And I don't see anything in my previous post that would suggest otherwise.)

[Grazioso]

Not as I see it.  Individuality is being yourself - but consciously trying to be "original" is not at all the same thing and is an artistic dead end.

They're ends of the same continuum. Music is notes on paper and/or notes being sounded by instruments. Barring plagiarism or coincidence, any composer's music will automatically be new and individual by definition. It's a tautology. No two people are going to write precisely the same thing.

The extent to which the music does or does not call to mind existing music, the extent to which it habitually displays certain quirks of structure, melody, etc., is what determines whether or not we see it as employing or displaying an "original" style or procedure. Beyond that, the idea of individuality in music comes dangerously close to meaning "catches my ear" or hints at some vague notion of communicating personality or psyche through music. Of which...

eyeresist wants composers to show him their essence, for instance. But the job of composers is to play with sounds. Now that playing can reveal things about them, of course, but that's more a side-effect than a goal, I would think. This topic came up in a recent interview with Ricardo Mandolini. Near the end of the interview Mandolini talks of how composers before Cage exemplified the story of Narcissus. Composing was a way of holding a mirror up to themselves. And Cage said that one didn't have to do it that way; one could do it another way, which Mandolini called "the aesthetic of devices."

[emphasis added]

That's just the point: you can approach artistic creation from an "objective," hands-off perspective, but for some, the Romantic, poetic view of trying to express or communicate one's inner essence or personality is paramount. You imply that view is not valid or relevant. Whatever the flaws of that aesthetic philosophy, it seems pretty clear that many of the most beloved composers/works are the ones that embodied some of that approach. Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Mahler etc. get a lot more mindshare than Cage.

[Grazioso]

Originality is a quality that may be obviously evident in those works, or not.  But when originality becomes an end in itself, I think a composer has lost his way. 

That I agree with: to consciously try to write music that is somehow glaringly different from what has come before is to work from a negative perspective. Instead of writing what sounds good to you, you're trying to make sure it doesn't call to mind existing music. That seems a waste of time. Difference doesn't automatically generate quality.

I think this is where some of the (misplaced) hostility towards the avant-garde comes from: the (mis)perception that some of them were/are more interested in creating a succès de scandale, in overturning established methods for the sake of novelty or some external philosophical program, versus trying to make "honest" music that sounds "good."