Where have the Great Composers gone?

[Karl Henning]

Yesterday I was on the phone with Paul, and I was telling him the story about a conductor, active today, who pretty much refuses to consider any music more modern than Vaughan Williams.  Now, consider the source if you like — Paul has conducted and performed quite a bit of my music over the years, of course — but his immediate response was, "And how is this at all professionally acceptable?"

[North Star]

Yesterday I was on the phone with Paul, and I was telling him the story about a conductor, active today, who pretty much refuses to consider any music more modern than Vaughan Williams.  Now, consider the source if you like — Paul has conducted and performed quite a bit of my music over the years, of course — but his immediate response was, "And how is this at all professionally acceptable?"

Perhaps allowances could be made if the conductor worked with a period instrument group. Then again, there must be new music written for them, too.

[lisa needs braces]

Yes, it would appear that this nonsense...


...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cfahDk3YqY

...lives up more to the "classical tradition" than this splendid album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0epS8qh9aJg

[Mahlerian]

Yes, it would appear that this nonsense...


...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cfahDk3YqY

What makes Babbitt's music nonsense?  I find it witty and clever if a bit verbose at times.

[Karl Henning]

Yes, it would appear that this nonsense...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cfahDk3YqY

...lives up more to the "classical tradition" than this splendid album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0epS8qh9aJg

In the first place . . .

http://www.youtube.com/v/9cfahDk3YqY

Mahlerian has already pointed out that you are in serious error to call it nonsense.

And, by me, this is even better:

http://www.youtube.com/v/G6o8ZnKN_H8

In the second place, except in your personal bubble where you make a bracketology game of it, the two videos you linked to, do not make a horse race.

We have only your assertion that one is "nonsense" and the other "splendid."

And you have wit enough to know that an assertion is not any argument.

[nathanb]

-abe-, you're wrong. You're really really really wrong.

That is all.

[Crudblud]

Babbitt can be tough going at times (Sextets, for example, is a piece I can make head nor tail of) but the guitar piece posted above has a great sense of gesture and flow, and there are even quite easy-to-spot melodic lines throughout. "Nonsense" is not the word I would use for it.

[Mirror Image]

The fact is this: the true heirs of the Western classical music tradition are not Schoenberg and his acolytes but rather the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Radiohead etc. These sort are the equivalent of the great or good "composers" of the previous eras.

But the thing you're forgetting is there was no true heir to anything in the 20th Century. Composers pretty much went their own way and this makes it a bit more difficult to get a full handle on what happened in this century. I think the early part of century is starting to become something more concrete as many composers during that time are highly regarded now, but after WWII, I'd say there's still so much to learn, absorb, and take note of as so many newer forms were created and the classical tradition, in general, was turned on its' back like a turtle. So, in summary, I disagree with your statement above.

[Jo498]

The point is not that avantgarde music can sometimes be rather different from Brahms (although Schoenberg is actually VERY similar to Brahms), so "true heir" might be misleading as well but that there is a obvious historical connection. Abomination or not, 20th/21st century avantgarde somehow grew out of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy etc. Whereas there is no such connection between Brahms and Bob Dylan. Splendid or not doesn't really matter here.
It's a little more complicated because there was more and more explicit interaction between these genres but I'd say almost the same about Jazz. I think that the reason why e.g. Ravel, Stravinsky, Milhaud were fascinated by some early 20th century Jazz was that it was fresh and different, precisely not another "outgrowth" of the classical tradition.

[Karl Henning]

"The true heirs of" canard in Music is as passé as primogeniture in Government.

[Ken B]

I think it is time to return to the question that is the title of this thread, and which none of the sea of words here has directly addressed. Not merely return to, but answer.

Poughkeepsie.

[Mahlerian]

I think it is time to return to the question that is the title of this thread, and which none of the sea of words here has directly addressed. Not merely return to, but answer.

Poughkeepsie.

It probably can't be answered to the satisfaction of any party.  Someone could say "give examples" and it wouldn't matter because the person asking the question could simply deny that the examples are great.  As we've just seen, someone can claim that their perception of a piece of music as "nonsense" trumps everyone else's and it brings the conversation to a standstill.  They can make disparaging and irrelevant comparisons and absolve themselves of the need for argument.

It's much more interesting to me to get at the heart of the irrationality and ignorance that underlies anti-modernism in general than to list "here are the Great Composers of today."

[Karl Henning]

If going to Poughkeepsie would make me great . . . well, I'd seriously consider it, is all.

[Florestan]

They´ve gone and will go the way of all flesh. 

[Karl Henning]

They´ve gone and will go the way of all flesh. 

It really is Poughkeepsie, then.

[Monsieur Croche]

Yes, it would appear that this nonsense...
...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cfahDk3YqY
...lives up more to the "classical tradition" than this splendid album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0epS8qh9aJg

Well, tit for tat...

If you can throw down the gauntlet about modern-contemporary classical from your opinion as based on your listening experience and personal taste, I can throw down the gauntlet based upon my listening experience and personal taste.

What your attempted slams against the modern-contemporary rep make me think:
pop music as the current classical (laughable, but...)
~~~~~~~~~~~"Simple minds are simply entertained."
Blanket condemnation of a mass of repertoire from the modern-contemporary eras?
~~~~~~~~~~"I don't know art, but I know what I like."

Together or apart, those really about cover your cumulative commentary -- so far --against modern-contemporary classical. 

Apart or together, they get no one on the bus.

Blithely made comments on one hundred and twenty-six years of the repertoire in the contiguous tradition of classical music is one helluva thwack at a large chunk of the entire body of classical music.

The more you post as you have, in the negative, indiscriminate and blanket statements at that, the more it seems to me that you are not at all up to that challenge.  When one's opinions seem to reflect an inability to listen to a piece for what it is, vs. what it isn't, what and how you hear when listening in general comes under scrutiny.  Then, please, where and which is 'the nonsense?'

[lisa needs braces]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years. History is on my side. The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants. Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it. Yes, it's special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties. This theory has explanatory power in why the music is appealing to a minority but still found unacceptable by the public at large after a hundred years.

[Turner]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years. History is on my side. The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants. Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it. Yes, it's special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties. This theory has explanatory power in why the music is appealing to a minority but still found unacceptable by the public at large after a hundred years.

A I correct in assuming that you´ve not heard a lot of music produced by the 2nd Viennese School, and likewise not later composers it has influenced to a varying degree?

[Ken B]

A I correct in assuming that you´ve not heard a lot of music produced by the 2nd Viennese School, and likewise not later composers it has influenced to a varying degree?

Am I correct in assuming you've not eaten a lot of sandwiches produced by the crushed dung as seasoning school, and likewise not later chefs influenced by it?
Abe is arguing this is just an artificial culture, propped up by non-musical resources. He doesn't need familiarity with the "later composers" to make that argument.

[Turner]

Am I correct in assuming you've not eaten a lot of sandwiches produced by the crushed dung as seasoning school, and likewise not later chefs influenced by it?
Abe is arguing this is just an artificial culture, propped up by non-musical resources. He doesn't need familiarity with the "later composers" to make that argument.

Somewhat interesting, but if he hasn´t heard the music or followed the associated performance and recording activities, he might not know the extent of its popularity, and if he hasn´t heard much by the composers influenced by it, he might not know how different the influence has been, and how different the results have been.

Alternatively, he might unwittingly like composers influenced by them, not knowing their influence on that music.

And of course, hypothetically, he might even like the 2nd Viennese School, if he heard more of it, than just a little.