New Music –> new classical music audiences

[Florestan]

Experience in such environments taught me that there are both students and music teachers who believe so, and who express it to some degree.

Well, students and music teachers are --- or at least they should be --- free to think / teach whatever they want, but is it the officially endorsed, actively taught position of those environments?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Did I write Darmstadt School and Auschwitz in my post? No. It's you who came up with them in the context --- and it speaks volumes in itself that you did.

It was in the context of your response to Crudblud, who was talking about the Darmstadt School. 'No poetry after Auschwitz' is a relevant Adorno reference that I make in jest. It speaks volumes that you choose to ignore chunks of my own comments and re-contextualise other people's arguments to suit your own purpose—a purpose which I can't understand to be anything besides simply contradicting anything that you don't realise exists outside of the world of music in which you prefer to immerse yourself.

[Florestan]

John Borstlap

Tom Deacon

Who the hell are they? And who the hell gives a darn fig about what they say?

[Crudblud]

Absurd or not, I make no difference between intellectual and political oppression. Whoever thinks and proclaims that only his way of thinking and understanding the world is valid, and that all others who don't share / oppose it are just relics of the past, destined to be mercilessly crushed under the glorious march of the progressive History, and acts accordingly --- is a tyrant.

Nor between the death and suffering of millions and the making of music you don't like, apparently. Nothing Boulez (to whom I assume you refer when you say "tyrant") said, and he said many things, prevented people from composing, performing, or studying diatonic music, not in the 20th century and certainly not now.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Who?

American neo-romantic composers whose music hasn't really taken off outside their own country. The latter has written some wonderful string quartets which I quite enjoy. The former has a truly astonishing series of works based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

[Florestan]

It was in the context of your response to Crudblud, who was talking about the Darmstadt School. 'No poetry after Auschwitz' is a relevant Adorno reference that I make in jest. It speaks volumes that you choose to ignore chunks of my own comments and re-contextualise other people's arguments to suit your own purpose—a purpose which I can't understand to be anything besides simply contradicting anything that you don't realise exists outside of the world of music in which you prefer to immerse yourself.

This coming from the guy who seriously claimed that Chopin is in the same league as Mertz or Regondi... oh, the irony! Karl, risum teneatis? 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Experience in such environments taught me that there are both students and music teachers who believe so, and who express it to some degree.

My experience also—everyone's experience for those who have experienced music education at a tertiary (and sometimes even secondary) level. However, if a student is convinced by misinformation I would argue that it is the duty of the teacher to allow the student to begin to critically evaluate any and all views and help them to continue questioning with an ever opening mind.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

This coming from the guy who seriously claimed that Chopin is the same as Mertz or Regondi... oh, the irony!

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. I do understand that the efforts of guitar viruosi such as Mertz, Legnani, Giuliani, Sor and Coste (to be honest, I know less of Regondi) in advancing their instrument can be easily compared to the role piano virtuosi/composers had in advancing their instrument at the same time of history. All those composers had their own influences in how solo guitar and piano music changed over the course of the 19th century, some of them were certainly innovative in some areas and less in other areas (such as Chopin taking many of his 'genres' from other composers such as Szymanowska and Field and perfected them in his own way). This is a different topic altogether though, but I am happy to discuss it with you in another thread. I do understand you have a passion for the 19th century in general and I suspect we would get along much better when talking about that instead of derailing this thread.

[Karl Henning]

Which shows that school is just a microcosm of the real world, not more or less than that.

Forsooth.

[Florestan]

Nor between the death and suffering of millions and the making of music you don't like, apparently. Nothing Boulez (to whom I assume you refer when you say "tyrant") said, and he said many things, prevented people from composing, performing, or studying diatonic music, not in the 20th century and certainly not now.

The only difference between Boulez and Stalin is that the latter had the power to practice what he preached. Had Boulez been active during, and politicaly aligned to, the Zhadnovschina I have no doubts he'd have been at least as severe and uncompromisingly as Zhdanov was. All fanatics are alike.

[Florestan]

to be honest, I know less of Regondi

And yet you wrote this:

Well, honestly I think Chopin is just as good and just as important as composers like Mertz, Regondi and other composers

So, for you, one of the most famous, celebrated, loved, influential, discussed and analyzed composers in the whole history of European music is just as good and important as an obscure one about whom you admittedly know "less" --- and then you want me to take your pronouncements about music seriously?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

And yet you wrote this:

So, for you, one of the most famous, celebrated, loved, influential, discussed and analyzed composers in the whole history of European music is just as good and important as an obscure one about whom you admittedly know "less" --- and then you want me to take your pronouncements about music seriously?

Why not? Just because I don't know as many works by Regondi as I do by Mertz shouldn't invalidate an opinion I hold about a topic that isn't based around the quantity of works I know from each composer.

[Karl Henning]

The only difference between Boulez and Stalin is that the latter had the power to practice what he preached.

There may be more differences  0:)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

The only difference between Boulez and Stalin is that the latter had the power to practice what he preached. Had Boulez been active during, and politicaly aligned to, the Zhadnovschina I have no doubts he'd have been at least as severe and uncompromisingly as Zhdanov was. All fanatics are alike.

Famous psychological experiments that examine this kind of power do show that anyone would be that severe and uncompromising when their position and what people expect of them encourages it. All humans are alike.

Boulez wasn't really much of a person to condone that level of censorship, although he did take many opportunities to speak out about what he believed in. The Damrstadt school when he was there with Nono, Stockhausen and others was particularly good at experimenting with music for its own sake of experimentation, expanding the understanding of recent compositional ideas and seeing how far they can go. The most important and most wonderful part of it was when everyone started disagreeing with one another; there was a blossoming of individuality when they all diverged to pursue the kind of music they realised they most wanted to write after their experience at Damrstadt. Boulez even admitted that looking back at Damrstadt he was able to work out exactly what he found limiting, frustrating and what things helped him find his own musical voice that one hears in his later works. He was hopeful that this would be the same for any student who participated in the summer courses. The whole point of experimentation was to find out what works and what doesn't, what they like and what they don't, what possibilities can composers find to take their music/their craft to the next level. As early as the 1960s Boulez knew that he was 'old' and no longer the 'avant-garde' as younger composers experimenting in their own way will always continue to find things that work for them and things they're interested in.

[Florestan]

Why not?

Because the topic was Chopin. How many works by Regondi and Mertz you know is completely irrelevant.

You seem to think that music began the year before you were born, yet you are as wrong as it gets.

[Crudblud]

The only difference between Boulez and Stalin is that the latter had the power to practice what he preached. Had Boulez been active during, and politicaly aligned to, the Zhadnovschina I have no doubts he'd have been at least as severe and uncompromisingly as Zhdanov was. All fanatics are alike.

Such sensationalism may be amusing but it does not make for a convincing argument. While the young Boulez was undoubtedly a firebrand, particularly against Schoenberg's late works in which he returned to more traditional forms, the mature Boulez was devoted to nothing but music itself, and he spent his life in service to it through conducting (including some traditional repertoire), composing, and teaching. Anything like the Zhdanov doctrine would have been anathema to him; but you are right insofar as anyone politically aligned to it would have had to have been fervent, mostly out of fear.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Because the topic was Chopin. How many works by Regondi and Mertz you know is completely irrelevant.

You seem to think that music began the year before you were born, yet you are as wrong as it gets.

Oh, I see, I don't think I made it clear. What I meant was: the number of works I know by any particular composer is irrelevant to the point I wanted to make about comparing the guitar virtuosi and piano virtuosi in how they influenced instrument makers, technique and repertoire. Neither piano nor guitar is more important than the other, and therefore the developments and people associated with them in the 19th century are of course all interesting and worthy of discussion.

What do you mean about music starting the year before I was born?

[Florestan]

There may be more differences  0:)

Feel free to elaborate on them, my friend.

[Florestan]

Neither piano nor guitar is more important than the other

Wrong! Dead wrong, actually! Piano music is much more important, and much more influential than, guitar music! You can twist your head as much as you want, this is a fact!

What do you mean about music starting the year before I was born?

I mean that you seem to think that music written after you were born is more interesting and beautiful than music written before you were born -- and this is certainly not true as far as I am concerned.

[amw]

Have you ever been taught at a conservatory /  music school that atonalism is just unnatural noise? Yes or no.

I've had music professors say this about "atonal music", electronic music, minimalism, and pop music. (A different professor in each case.) The argument against atonal music was that human beings are functionally incapable of understanding it because something about the harmonic series and whatever. This particular professor composed music in a cloying neo-romantic style reminiscent of Wagner or early Schoenberg and about as far from the pure harmonic series as one can get, but, whatevs, I don't judge.

Anyways it has always been obvious to me that any categorical statement about the historical validity of a particular style is just a dressed up version of "I don't like it" and one should proceed accordingly, so I never took those statements as being anything other than opinions.

(also, Stalin was actually good)

The only difference between Boulez and Stalin is that the latter had the power to practice what he preached. Had Boulez been active during, and politicaly aligned to, the Zhadnovschina I have no doubts he'd have been at least as severe and uncompromisingly as Zhdanov was. All fanatics are alike.

I'm still waiting to find out which composers, exactly, Boulez destroyed the careers of/hounded from public life/banned from writing music/whatever other charges y'all are laying against him