Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

[DavidRoss]

Why don't you tell us the meaning of Rothko, a******, and his relevance to Sibelius, lest we construe your easy resort to personal attack, as a cover for complex of inferiority.

Oh my, you've certainly made a mighty big piss!  And all over your own trousers, too...you must be the winner!

Now, if you're even half as smart as you think you are, you should have instantly grasped the relevance of Rothko to the discussion.  As for personal attacks:  I didn't, you did.  When you get around to looking up the meaning of "radical," you might as well look up "hypocrite," too.

[uffeviking]

The esteemed and intelligent writer Alex Ross, subject of this thread, would be appalled to find his name and his work becoming the cause for personal 'unfriendliness' - I cleaned that one up! - An addition of civility to any discussion at GMG would make it a much more pleasant forum to meet in.

uffeviking 

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Or perhaps you're one of those who simply doesn't get Rothko? 

A pilgrimage to the Rothko Chapel should be high on the list of every aspiring Sibelian...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ross explains the divergence in acceptance of modern art and modern music by how the audience experiences them.  As we walk through a museum, we can move from painting to painting at will.  If there is something we find repulsive, we can look away and move on immediately.  With music, though, because the 4th dimension is in some way a part of the composition, we must sit and listen to even repulsive music if we hope to appreciate it.  And if we are at a concert, usually getting up and leaving is rude.  So in a way, bad music strangles the audience, and they have no recourse.

I don't recall Ross making this argument per se, though it's a point one hears fairly often when comparing the relatively popularity of modern art vs. modern music. But the argument holds for virtually all visual arts vs. all classical music; it's not accidental that no place in NYC draws more visitors than the Metropolitan Museum - where in addition to being able to move from work to work at will, there are none of the uncomfortable rituals associated with attending a concert at Carnegie or an opera at the (other) Met.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The esteemed and intelligent writer Alex Ross, subject of this thread, would be appalled to find his name and his work becoming the cause for personal 'unfriendliness' - I cleaned that one up! - An addition of civility to any discussion at GMG would make it a much more pleasant forum to meet in.

uffeviking 

If the esteemed and intelligent, etc., cares to join in on our discussion, I have no doubt he knows how to Google for music forums. I would hope that, esteemed and intelligent as he undoubtedly is, he would not expect his book, valuable as it is, to be received uncritically or to be considered the last word on the subject.

[DavidRoss]

Once again, David Ross is covering up with crass vulgarites and mockworthy immaturities, his incapacity to explain to us in what ways Rothko is the Sibelius of painting, and what innovations Sibelius has conceived, to surpass the Darmstadt crowd...

Hi, "Michel."  It took a moment to recognize you, but the uncalled-for venomous personal attacks make the identification nearly certain.  I am glad that you've recovered from your accident, but sad that otherwise you seem unchanged.  How can one pour clear, refreshing water into a cup when it's already full of piss and vinegar?

Thanks for the clean-up, Lis.  If this is the scrubbed version, I'm glad to have missed the unedited one.

[Catison]

Can I answer?

Rothko -> Feldman -> Sibelius

10 points!

[Mark G. Simon]

No, what I did was use the word "if" to suggest another possible difficulty with your assertion. My original question still stands, would you please name some names?

Mr. McCarthy, I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the communist party...

You obviously haven't spent any time in an academic music department, or else you would know exactly what I'm talking about.

After WWII, universities became the principal home of new music, and the principal employer of composers. In the post-war years, with the emphasis on scientific research for cold war applications, there entered an mentality of composition-as-scientific-research, with journals such as Perspectives of New Music filling their pages with articles brimming with quai-scientific jargon ("Twelve-tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants", etc.). Milton Babbitt was a master of this style of writing and his famous article The Composer as Specialist (published as Who Cares if You Listen) stated the case for composition as advanced research with the attitude that "no one expects non-scientists to understand nuclear physics, so why should non-musicians have to understand new music?". Obviously no one wants to duplicate old research, so it was important for composers to come up with new areas of research.

Outside of the academic community, of course, people would react to this music, if it ever reached their ears, with things like "it's all so shocking and distressing and ugly". So unless you've been in an academic environment, it's natural that  that's all you would have heard about it. But music of this period was not interested in reaching the outside world. Its tastemakers were professors in the universities, as they still are today (though they, to their credit, are much more catholic in their tastes now than during the period William Bolcom has termed the "Stalinist era of academic music", the 1960s and 70s).

By the 1970s the quasi-scientific mindset was on its way out, and the watchword was "new sounds". This was the age when extended playing techniques were being developed and used in earnest. Many of them are still used -- and I've heard young players that do incredible things with multiphonics and the like -- though the 70s was the era when they were at their height. My teacher Karel Husa was very much of the "new sounds" persuasion and his constant theme was "conventional sounds have been used up. We have to develop new ways of playing". His teaching definitely assumed a view of history as a succession of innovations, with non-innovators being assigned a secondary role, even non-role. No one mentioned Sibelius in connection with 20th century music, or even took him seriously. Husa did once refer to Tapiola because it contains a passage where part of the orchestra has a crescendo and the other part a diminuendo, and he thought that was a noteworthy technical device. One of my fellow grad students wanted to write a dissertation about Nielsen but the proposal was rejected on account of insufficient modernity of the music. He was allowed to write about Britten, but only with grave misgivings, again because Britten was modern, but not modern enough. I wrote my dissertation on "The Modular Technique of Michael Tippett", which was found to be suitable subject, though it was felt I could have chosen better.

During my years as a critic for the Ithaca Times I recall interviewing the choral director at Cornell, who was preparing his choruses for a performance of Britten's War Requiem. Aware that he was speaking to the press, he extolled the great humanitarian virtues of this monumental work, what a rich work of imagination, etc., very quotable stuff to put in the paper. In the midst of my questioning I suddenly adopted a more personal tone and asked him "so what do you think of Britten's place in music history", and he looked taken aback and said in a quieter, non-official tone, "oh, Britten, he's nothing, he's derivative, he's...." and he sounded a little confused. I couldn't tell which one of the two conflicting opinions reflected his real view, and he seemed a little afraid, as if the wrong message would get back to the department.

So you have to understand, my point of view reflects my experience as a grad composition student in the late 1970s and early 80s. The situation has changed quite a bit in the years since then. Now that composers have come along with some semblance of an audience outside of the academic world, the academy as had to soften its stance quite a bit. And that is how a book like The Rest is Noise came about. But the chief avenues for the dissemination of new music are still located in the university music departments. They are the tastemakers.

Here are a few books that might give you a flavor of how 20th century music has been treated in the past

Adorno -- The Philosophy of New Music
David Cope -- New Directions in Music
Hermann Danuser -- Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts
Paul Griffiths -- Modern Music : a Consise History
Nicolas Slonimsky -- Music Since 1900
Roger Sutherland -- New Perspectives in Music
Elliott Schwarz -- Music Since 1945
Richard Kostolanetz -- On Innovative Music(ians)
John Schaefer -- New Sounds
Reginald Smith-Brindle -- The New Music
Laurence Davies -- Paths to Modern Music
Jacques Barzun -- The New Music
H.H.Stuckenschmidt -- Twentieth century Music.

plus texts by many of the important composers such as Wuorinen, Babbitt, Carter, Boulez, Ferneyhough, etc.

[lukeottevanger]

Haven't had time to read that whole post, Mark, and I don't have it right now. But I think I got the gist - pardon me if not - and I would just point out that the picture you paint of musical academia may very well be (or have been) true of US universities, but isn't (wasn't) necessarily true the world over. Not disagreeing with you, just FWIW. My university days were after yours, but we certainly studied Sibelius aplenty - and the serialists barely at all! Though I did quite a lot on the Second Viennese School, I must say.

Edit - also, with respect tot the current discussion your very interesting post boils down to that last statement about how things are now:

But the chief avenues for the dissemination of new music are still located in the university music departments. They are the tastemakers.

which in context is at least unsubstantiated.

[Mark G. Simon]

Edit - also, with respect tot the current discussion your very interesting post boils down to that last statement about how things are now:
"But the chief avenues for the dissemination of new music are still located in the university music departments. They are the tastemakers."
which in context is at least unsubstantiated.

OK, so in the UK, who is playing new music? To which ensembles do you send scores?

In the US, except for some of the larger cities like New York, new music is played by new music ensembles associated with universities. Their directors get to decide what gets played and what doesn't. Therefore, they are the tastemakers. Clear enough?

Shall I look up the names and affiliations of the Pulitzer Prize judges?

[Mark G. Simon]

Before I get too far waylaid from the topic at hand (Ross' book), I'd like to add a couple of criticisms of it that I have.

Too much time spent on Peter Grimes. No other work gets a thorough blow-by-blow description as this does.

Too much talk about consonance and dissonance. Granted this may be how his readers hear music, but Ross had the opportunity to introduce his readers to the concept that the music creates its own harmonic context, and that counting dissonances is not something the listener needs to be doing. In fact the listener may get more out of it if he tries to get at it on its own terms.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Before I get too far waylaid from the topic at hand (Ross' book), I'd like to add a couple of criticisms of it that I have.

Too much time spent on Peter Grimes. No other work gets a thorough blow-by-blow description as this does.

That is similar to one of the reservations I had. I think Wozzeck gets almost as many pages as Grimes, but he could have handled both in at most a page apiece, given the vast scope of the territory he aims to cover.

[lukeottevanger]

OK, so in the UK, who is playing new music? To which ensembles do you send scores?

In the US, except for some of the larger cities like New York, new music is played by new music ensembles associated with universities. Their directors get to decide what gets played and what doesn't. Therefore, they are the tastemakers. Clear enough?

Shall I look up the names and affiliations of the Pulitzer Prize judges?

Don't get touchy Mark. I wanted substantiation of your last brief statement which, as I said, is the key to your argument, because I'm British and am only semi-familiar with the US system from a distance. Also, because the idea that there are 'tastemakers' determining that said tastes are of the more hardcore variety (conjures up interesting Sean-ian visions of a secret cabal of lizard-composers.... ) seems little linked with the world of real music as real listeners appreciate it, if only in that such music is to comparatively few peoples' taste. At the very least, these tastemakers are not doing their job properly. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that there isn't the set-up you suggest, in the US at any rate. Perhaps it is the term 'tastemaker' which I find troublesome.

To answer your question, in the UK one would send scores to groups such as the SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music) or perhaps ensembles like the BCMG. University music ensembles are of decidedly lesser importance, and in general I don't see evidence of a modernist hierarchy such as that you describe in the US. The finest thing about British new music is its diversity and (relative!) lack of cliquey-ness, I would suggest.

[Mark G. Simon]

Rubbish!!!  The only music that gets promoted by Academia is school-produced music, i.e., music that is imitative of the composers that are analysed by the professors in the class-room.  There is a word that defines that sort of concoction:  Academism

The primary means of dissemination of new music are musicians, conductors.  Rostropovitch premiering the Cello Concertos of Lutoslawski and of Dutilleux, Furtwangler premiering Schoenbergs Variations op 31, etc...

Now when was this, tell me?

And then there is the role of Cultivated high society, the small number, the happy few -- the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles financing the premiere of The Rite of Spring, or Suzanne Pezenas, financing the Domaine Musical.

And when was this??

See who attended the opining of the Domaine Musical (Alex Ross, pp 370-371):  the Painters Mathieu and Nicholas de Stael, the authors and poets, Pierre-Jean Jouve, Henri Michaux, Rene Char, Mandiargues - the usual array of society ladies - and Jean Cocteau, who had patronized Satie and Les Six.  They are the taste-makers and they do not habitually pay much attention to scholastic analyses of music they have heard first, and best.

And when and where did these things happen? Are we really talking about contemporary music?

[some guy]

Mark,

Thanks very much for the response. I was pretty sure you were not making an empty assertion but could, if you had the time and wanted to, back your assertion up.

I was not asking for information myself, just for corroboration. It's tiresome to read assertion after assertion on these threads (not that I'm being forced to read them!!) with nary a fact to back them up. And I was surprised that you of all people had done so (but that was only at first, so whew).

I know most of the books you mention, and I have been around many music departments in the U.S. for many years. I don't see the picture quite like you do. Take your notion of a "triumphant parade," for instance. I have seen a few things, both inside and outside the academy--mean-spirited, belligerent attacks of music I know to be delightful and interesting, various defensive stances from the few who shared my interests, and, at the very best, a real sense of adventure and excitement at being as it were at the very beginning of things.

The century as I see it was a century of beginnings, with everything that implies.

I have three editions of the David Cope book and recommend it highly for its neutral tone, for its even-handed treatment of the various trends.

Anyway, thanks for the list of books. Some of those that I don't know, I'll be looking out for now.

Michael

[not edward]

Now when was this, tell me?

Also relevant is that these were all compositions by established names.

It matters terribly that non-name composers get actual performances that might help them get noticed--not to mention give them the experience of hearing their work in performance which may improve their own compositional judgement. People will play composers who've already made a name for themselves but so much of new music activity is of lesser known names--many of whom will never make it, but a few of whom will be destined for greater success. And this will probably mean collaborating with performers at the same stage in their career as you are (quite probably students or faculty at your university/conservatory).

For what it's worth, when I lived in Edinburgh I was often near the university at times when free concerts (often including works by student composers) were on, so I would try to hear as much as possible. I found it very encouraging that there was a huge mix of styles being produced: probably more tonal than atonal but certainly including everything from minimalism to Lachenmannesque musique concrete instrumentale. I found that a very positive thing to see, even if much of the music did not impress me.

[Mark G. Simon]

I know most of the books you mention, and I have been around many music departments in the U.S. for many years. I don't see the picture quite like you do. Take your notion of a "triumphant parade," for instance.

my choice of words may be fanciful. A parade of innovations is not necessarily a bad narrative for a book to follow, it's just not the one that Ross follows and I sensed that maybe those who complain about the book were expecting that. The thing is, whatever narrative path the author chooses (and he has to choose one in order to give the book some coherence), it will shape the way he presents the fact, and even which facts he presents, which will in turn lead the reader to form certain conclusions. The "parade of innovations" narrative emphasizes compositional technique -- who did what first. The person who reads this narrative will conclude that doing things first is what counts. By this logic Hauer, being the also-ran who almost beat Schoenberg to the 12-tone system, would be considered more  important than Britten, who as far as I know didn't do anything first or almost first. I don't know anyone who thinks Hauer wrote better music than Britten, but he was an innovator.

Ross' narrative will lead the reader to other false conclusions. Part of the trouble is that he just couldn't include everything. It needs to be longer. He uses Bartok and Janacek as representatives of national music, and doesn't really devote enough space to either, leaving out Vaughan Williams and Kodaly. Really, Bartok needs as much space as Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

And as much as I love Copland, Ross singles him out as representative of all the American composers of his generation, and so the book is crowded with his doings. Copland just happened to fit his theme of the marriage of leftist politics and art in the New Deal era, and how that suddenly became a liability in the cold war era. I think a lot of the imbalance in the book is because he was intent on developing themes rather than being fair to all composers.

That random list of books I gave was not meant to imply they're bad books, but I figured at least a few of them would illustrate my point. If I had just taken a look again at Ross I would have seen that he cites two books, Joan Peyser's The new music and Glenn Watkins' Soundings which don't mention Sibelius at all.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Now when was this, tell me?

1928.

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Furtw%E4ngler,+(Gustav+Heinrich+Ernst+Martin)+Wilhelm

[Renfield]

Doing my best to avoid getting caught in any of the crossfire, let me just say I'm tempted more and more to give this book a go; even though I'll be honest in saying its author vaguely strikes me as a bit too keen on making a point of how good he is at his job.

Or at least from what I've read of his articles in Gramophone, as the New Yorker isn't exactly something I find in my local kiosk.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ross' narrative will lead the reader to other false conclusions. Part of the trouble is that he just couldn't include everything. It needs to be longer. He uses Bartok and Janacek as representatives of national music, and doesn't really devote enough space to either, leaving out Vaughan Williams and Kodaly. Really, Bartok needs as much space as Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

These are some of the very complaints I had, and a far cry from your:

I'm about half way through it now, and am enjoying it greatly. It is a very fine book

from two days ago.