Communication: a vital essence of music

[Madiel]

I did a google of "pierre boulez stravinsky" and the first hit was http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3702982/Pierre-Boulez-I-was-a-bully-Im-not-ashamed.html.

The content is not quite as provocative as the title, but it seemed worth sharing in context!

[Ken B]

9/11 was an inside job by the Bush administration

I see this discussion is beyond pointless.

[amw]

As a conductor, though, your preferences translate into opportunities for those whom you grace with opportunities

At first I found it a bit off-putting that the only non-Darmstadt School works on Boulez's first NY Phil season were a complete cycle of the music of Webern, but it was nice not to have yet more Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler etc, and I quite liked having the balcony all to myself.

Um, Boulez staged cabals razzing performances of Stravinsky.  (He was ever a publicity whore  )

Then he released about ~30 CDs of himself conducting Stravinsky. Some suppression.

He's deffo a hypocrite but he's no Zhdanov.

[Madiel]

Given the many phases of Stravinsky's career, I think it would be more interesting to know which Stravinsky pieces Boulez conducted.

[Karl Henning]

Then he released about ~30 CDs of himself conducting Stravinsky. Some suppression.

He's deffo a hypocrite but he's no Zhdanov.

I'm not claiming either that he "suppressed" Stravinsky, nor that he is any "Zhdanov."  The point is a bit more nuanced, so perhaps I shall leave it for another time?

[amw]

I'm not claiming either that he "suppressed" Stravinsky, nor that he is any "Zhdanov."

The poster I was quoting did make such claims however.

Given the many phases of Stravinsky's career, I think it would be more interesting to know which Stravinsky pieces Boulez conducted.

He seems to have focused on the works up to about 1924, which fits with his claims of not liking Stravinsky's neoclassical music much (though he has recorded Pulcinella it appears).

[Karl Henning]

Given the many phases of Stravinsky's career, I think it would be more interesting to know which Stravinsky pieces Boulez conducted.

That's part of the point.  Boulez treated Stravinsky as history, not as a contemporary.  In this lovely Domaine Musical box, there is a performance of Agon — conducted by Rosbaud.

[Mirror Image]

I say why make such a big stink over one man's opinions? They are his own just like ours. This doesn't mean we have to agree with Boulez nor does it mean that every young serialist should bow down to him. He has opinions just like everyone else.

[amw]

I did a google of "pierre boulez stravinsky" and the first hit was http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3702982/Pierre-Boulez-I-was-a-bully-Im-not-ashamed.html.

The content is not quite as provocative as the title, but it seemed worth sharing in context!

That was a rather uninformative article.

It would have been nice to have some expansion on this for instance:

A comment someone made about the music of the Fifties, when Boulez established his enduring influence, was that after the war "it was necessary to be ugly". Boulez agrees that his generation hated the stirring, transcendent music encouraged by the totalitarian societies in Germany and Russia during the war and were reacting strongly against it.

and less about Boulez's rather uninteresting opinions on Satie and Duchamp and Messiaen and so forth.

[Madiel]

You can read Taruskin for the expansion. 

EDIT: I agree that the article isn't very informative. A fairly jumbled collection of snippets.

[amw]

You can read Taruskin for the expansion. 

Basically.

I think there's a potentially interesting discussion that can be spun off from that about narrative [in music] being used as propaganda, and the difference between music being accessible to a broad audience and music being used to control a broad audience, which could go in this thread now that Ken B has realised the pointlessness of his Boulez hijack, but I'll have to come back to do that a bit later.

[Ken B]

Basically.

I think there's a potentially interesting discussion that can be spun off from that about narrative [in music] being used as propaganda, and the difference between music being accessible to a broad audience and music being used to control a broad audience, which could go in this thread now that Ken B has realised the pointlessness of his Boulez hijack, but I'll have to come back to do that a bit later.

What I learned is pointless is debating with someone who denies Boulez was part of a group disrupting Stravinsky performances, when Boulez has even admitted it, and likening the claim to trutherism. 

Am I the only one to note the irony of a discussion of music controlling the masses from someone denying that anyone holds even the tiniest bit of contempt for listeners?

[San Antone]

The discussion as to Boulez or Babbitt being "elitists" or "suppressors of other music" is a red herring, IMO.  Boulez certainly conducted a wide variety of music and was no elitist in that regard.  And if any of you had actually sat down for a beer with Milton Babbitt you would come away with a very different impression of him than the one you have based on that one article.

In fact, it was beyond their control to actually suppress any composer from writing whatever he or she wished to write.  And also, in fact, there were myriads of styles alive and kicking during the 1950s, '60s, '70s, etc. 

I also find it somewhat poignant that a style of music, i.e. serialist or atonal, for which there is arguably the smallest audience is being accused of being dominant and attempting to suppress other music.

Historians such as Richard Taruskin protest a bit too much, methinks.

Thread duty - music does express or communicate something.  What it communicates, I choose not to describe in words.  If this kind of communication could be captured in words, there would be no need for music.  Listen.

[mc ukrneal]

I appreciate your patience and participation.

As a composer, I am trying to work out how the art which I make is communication, when I have only a limited power (much more limited than communicating via words) over what the listener may take as my work's meaning.

This is not an abstact question for me.  I am going to say a few words about a piece of mine at a performance, day after tomorrow.  I may just break the ice by joking, "Relax!  Music is communication, so just sit back and tune in."

I agree with you. I imagine composers of the past (and present) must have been mystified, angry, amused, aghast, etc. at how some people were responding to their music. Music is a difficult task master!

[Madiel]

Thread duty - music does express or communicate something.  What it communicates, I choose not to describe in words.  If this kind of communication could be captured in words, there would be no need for music.  Listen.

...you do realise you are participating in a classical music discussion forum, don't you? You seem to have spent quite a bit of time here using words to describe music and your reactions to it.

[some guy]

Alright, I think we can safely ignore the side issues that orfeo and ken b have brought up. These are things that are deeply believed in, without much reason, but support for these beliefs is unfortunately not hard to find.

Taruskin is only the most well-known, influential, of these.

I wonder if anyone has heard of the cabals of the early nineteenth century. These were well-organized groups of people who would attend concerts for the sole purpose of either promoting or of destroying whatever was being played. These people were, at first anyway, quite influential, and their input (as it were) could be devastating.

The twentieth century had nothing like that. Boulez and a few friends disrupting a Stravinsky concert or two long after Stravinsky's reputation was firmly in place? Small beans.

Simple fact is that there are people who dislike modern music so much that everything about has to be demonized. And since, apparently, demonizing all the good folk who enjoy it has not worked all that well, well, the composers themselves have to be demonized. They all wrote purposely to piss people off.

Bollocks.

[EigenUser]

I think that there are innumerably many "vital essences" of music, communication being one of them. Speaking for myself, I place music in two categories -- emotional/intellectual and just plain fun to listen to. As far as communication goes, I'd say that this relates more to the emotional/intellectual side. I've noticed that my favorite works usually fall in both categories. After reading what I've typed this doesn't make much sense, but it's hard to explain. 

[San Antone]

...you do realise you are participating in a classical music discussion forum, don't you? You seem to have spent quite a bit of time here using words to describe music and your reactions to it.

I think if you were to go back and review my posts you would discover that I don't really do that very often.  I usually post a music clip and snip some background information on the composer from somewhere and hope that people just listen to the music.  It my opinion that music should stand on its own.

[Madiel]

Simple fact is that there are people who dislike modern music so much that everything about has to be demonized. And since, apparently, demonizing all the good folk who enjoy it has not worked all that well, well, the composers themselves have to be demonized. They all wrote purposely to piss people off.

Bollocks.

Why do you think it's demonizing, though? Why do you assume that if I say someone wrote music in a style that they knew wouldn't be liked or appreciated, it's automatically a bad thing?

Do you not realise that the history of rock'n'roll has also had people that were looking to shock the audience and get a reaction? And so have the visual arts?

[some guy]

I would say that "communication" describes an exchange of ideas between people who understand each other.

And if not "exchange" then "transference."

Communication in that sense implies a large body of shared knowledge. Otherwise, there's not so much communication.

In the arts, this gets a little complicated. But only a little. It's all about time. A work is premiered. A lot of people don't "understand" it. Time passes. Most everyone understands it. So with older work, it seems like what's going on is communication. And since communication is taken to be the point, then when newer works do not communicate (not enough time having passed), the that's taken as a criticism of said works.

But a new work of art is not trying to communicate. A new work is trying to make something new and fresh that's never existed before. That means, of course, that those older works that do indeed (seem to) communicate were also not written for that purpose. We all just got used to them and how they sounded is all. And we describe that as "communication."

That's grossly simplified, of course, but it's 13:36 and I have to get ready to go to three concerts of new music. Sadly, for me, they will likely all be understandable. I long for the day when I can hear something that baffles me. Those days seem to be past. But I always hope. People who can still be baffled (even by the likes of Maxwell Davies, as per a recent thread on another board) should cherish their bafflement. It's a precious and delightful thing to be able to be baffled.