Is A New Musical Movement Needed?

[RJR]

Ob la di, ob la da

[jochanaan]

same same. Music is now created for media, not for performance in a venue like a concert hall or palace or whatever. Classical music is primarily defined by being written down so performers can play it to a live audience. That used to be the mainstream way of creating and delivering music. No more. Now music is created in a recording studio or on a computer for playback on electronic devices. It's a totally different process of creation and delivery to the audience. And that different process has forever altered what music is. We won't see any more major movements based on writing music down for performers to play live to an audience in a room ever again...

Hmmm, I think I see what you're saying.  But I still don't think the difference is as big as you're making it.  First, "writing down" via the recording process is simply another way of transcribing; you might even say that the "written music" we have from the great composers of the past is simply a "recording" using then-current technology.  Also, recorded music very definitely takes into account listening environments and playback equipment, which are just as much performance spaces as is Carnegie Hall.  For example, Edgard Varese's legendary Poeme electronique was written specifically for a room at the 1958 Brussels Exposition, to be played on (IIRC) 435 loudspeakers positioned carefully in the space (which, as I recall reading, was shaped like the "interior" of a cow's udder!).  Thus, recordings issued of this piece are in a sense transcriptions, played in a space different from what the composer envisioned.  Finally, let me reiterate that, except for orchestral music and opera, most music until about 1850 was written for home or church performance and was freely transcribed for many different combinations; much orchestral and operatic music was transcribed for 1 or 2 pianos for home performance.  So the "decline" of the concert hall in no way signals that no new musical movement will happen, since the great movements of the past happened mostly away from concert halls.

[Cato]

Hmmm, I think I see what you're saying.  But I still don't think the difference is as big as you're making it.    For example, Edgard Varese's legendary Poeme electronique was written specifically for a room at the 1958 Brussels Exposition, to be played on (IIRC) 435 loudspeakers positioned carefully in the space (which, as I recall reading, was shaped like the "interior" of a cow's udder!).  Thus, recordings issued of this piece are in a sense transcriptions, played in a space different from what the composer envisioned. ....  So the "decline" of the concert hall in no way signals that no new musical movement will happen, since the great movements of the past happened mostly away from concert halls.

Imagine "Authentic performance/Original instrument" people in the next century insisting on a re-creation of the original 435 speakers!

And would you build speakers using 1950's technology?

[Ken B]

Imagine "Authentic performance/Original instrument" people in the next century insisting on a re-creation of the original 435 speakers!

And would you build speakers using 1950's technology?

[Cato]

  Wow!  Who knew such cartoons existed?  Almost like...cartoons made to order for any situation!   

[Fagotterdämmerung]

Imagine "Authentic performance/Original instrument" people in the next century insisting on a re-creation of the original 435 speakers!

And would you build speakers using 1950's technology?

I know there was a risk of the Ondes becoming a true antique in the sense of them no longer being made, but I believe they found a new maker recently, so Messiaen fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

[Cato]

I know there was a risk of the Ondes becoming a true antique in the sense of them no longer being made, but I believe they found a new maker recently, so Messiaen fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

The theremin has persisted for almost 100 years now: maybe the ondes martenot needs a new advocate!   0:)

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  I've heard someone at a concert label the "light" Modernist trends in music Contempo the other day. Our new era found? 

[jochanaan]

  I've heard someone at a concert label the "light" Modernist trends in music Contempo the other day. Our new era found? 

Yikes!  "Light" Modernist?  Schoenberg and the Second Viennese school are spinning in their graves like high-speed lathes! (I stole that simile from fantasy author Mercedes Lackey.  Just sayin'. )

[Cato]

Yikes!  "Light" Modernist?  Schoenberg and the Second Viennese school are spinning in their graves like high-speed lathes! (I stole that simile from fantasy author Mercedes Lackey.  Just sayin'. )

Is this the Karl Jenkins effect?  (And don't call "Britain's most successful composer" a choirmaster!) 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10932423/Karl-Jenkins-I-am-the-original-Gareth-Malone.html

The problem: is Karl Jenkins in any way a "modernist," light or otherwise ?

[jochanaan]

Is this the Karl Jenkins effect?  (And don't call "Britain's most successful composer" a choirmaster!) 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10932423/Karl-Jenkins-I-am-the-original-Gareth-Malone.html

The problem: is Karl Jenkins in any way a "modernist," light or otherwise ?

Simply being modern does not make a composer a modernist.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  To a degree, it depends on where one is coming from. I recently saw Barber's Summer Music described as challenging listening,  but I don't think the reviewer was being insincere at all. To some folks, "Modern" is anything post Bach to Brahms tonality.

  I think it's been a while since anything actually sounded Modern to my ears in the sense of an entirely new sound.

[Karl Henning]

Well, then, I suppose that Modern must have a meaning less narrow than an entirely new sound 

[Cato]

Well, then, I suppose that Modern must have a meaning less narrow than an entirely new sound 

Perhaps music from another planet would be an entirely new sound?   

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNKhju6Pryg

[Ken B]

Well, then, I suppose that Modern must have a meaning less narrow than an entirely new sound 

I think that in common parlance -- and thanks in part to Boulez and his ilk -- 'Modern music' means deliberately unappealing. Who Cares if You Listen.

[Karl Henning]

I'm not saying that the caricature comes from nowhere 

[jochanaan]

Although electronic sounds have opened up new horizons .. all the electronic sounds sound otherworldly; they evoke either a surreal inner world, or an equally mysterious outer world, somewhere out there in space. Stockhausen (for instance) consistently took advantage of this .. and he could take his first steps to showing how man could be united with the cosmos.

In the hands of composers like Varese or Stockhausen, this is true; but too often electronica gets reduced to recycled advertising jingles.  Much like the difference a hundred years ago between, say, a Mahler or a Sibelius and the cheapest Tin Pan Alley songwriter.  Not every musician who does electronica is a great master.

[starrynight]

I think popular music today is more about the folk influence than about electronica.  Though there is a minimalist tendency in some music which could be seen as a continuing trend as well  Both of these themes you could say are timeless, but reworked though the ages according to different instruments, and these days different sound production.

[Cato]

Perhaps music from another planet would be an entirely new sound?   

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNKhju6Pryg

The "Overture" from the movie and other things:

https://www.youtube.com/v/qADmHaVZ74M

[Henk]

Just stick to the classic composers and some modern. We are blessed with them.