Is the composer obsolete?

[Mark]

Greg, you'd do well to quit digging while you can still see some sky, my friend.

For a start, it's not always listeners who are lazy. A charge of laziness might well be laid at the door of concert promoters - rarely programming anything that would challenge what they think audiences want. But go to concerts of works not by the composers you've selected, and you'll find the halls are quite often as full (sometimes fuller) as they are for the more popular repertoire.

[greg]

Greg, you'd do well to quit digging while you can still see some sky, my friend.

For a start, it's not always listeners who are lazy. A charge of laziness might well be laid at the door of concert promoters - rarely programming anything that would challenge what they think audiences want. But go to concerts of works not by the composers you've selected, and you'll find the halls are quite often as full (sometimes fuller) as they are for the more popular repertoire.

Makes sense..... i do hear of concerts of just well-known modern composers selling out.

[Joe Barron]

Makes sense..... i do hear of concerts of just well-known modern composers selling out.

The Tanglewood festival devoted to Carter was well and enthusiastically attended.

[greg]

The Tanglewood festival devoted to Carter was well and enthusiastically attended.

Where's that? NY?
Imagine Carter in Florida...... he'd probably get a tenth of the popularity he does in NY. You know, i think that really has a lot to do with it....

[ChamberNut]

Most concerts do have a "more modern" work accompanying "more standard repertoire" works.

[Joe Barron]

Where's that? NY?
Imagine Carter in Florida...... he'd probably get a tenth of the popularity he does in NY. You know, i think that really has a lot to do with it....

Tanglewood is in Massachusetts. It's the summer home of the Boston Symphony. I'm not about to get into a discussion of regional differences in audience tastes.

The problem with populist arguments, I have determined, is that they require that I let someone else make up my mind for me. If some undefined "audience" or "public," whether in New York or Florida, is said not to like a piece of music, somehow I'm supposed to let that dictate my own reaction. "Oh, the audience doesn't like it. Silly me, I must be mistaken." To a populist critic, the public is the final arbiter of quality --- until, of course, the populist comes across a popular piece he thinks is bad. We find comfort and safety numbers until we conclude the numbers are wrong. Then the public becomes lazy and hidebound. I prefer to talk about what I like.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think you may be the only person in Europe or the Americas who has not!

But he may be the only person who has heard Andy Pape.

[Mark G. Simon]

Ack, another antimodernist thread.

For all this talk about concerts and programming, nobody is mentioning the obvious: tastes aren't being formed in the concert hall. They're being formed on the internet, at Amazon.com, and anywhere else one can buy or download recorded music. People go to concerts to affirm the listening choices they've already made through their record purchases. I would suggest using record sales as a measuring stick rather than concert attendance.

While it is a safe bet to say that Chopin sells more discs than Carter, the record companies keep putting out recordings of Carter's music, so someone must be buying them. Naxos, for instance, relies heavily on modern music in its catalogue. Naxos has figured out that with 1000s of Beethoven sympony sets already on the market they can't hope to release another set and expect it to make money. Instead, they release music for which there are no other recordings. If you want to hear Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience or Stephen Hartke's The Greater Good you're just going to have to buy the Naxos recordings of them.

Through wide distribution of sound recordings allows modern music to get the repeated listenings it requires. It also allows for the creation of micro-audiences, related by interest rather than geography, who will support this music. For instance, the appreciative crowds who went to the Carter festival at Tanglewood (that's in Massachusetts, Greg) already knew what they were getting into. Those who chose to come have already gotten to know his music by way of recordings. They came from wherever they happened to live. The "only Mozart and Schubert please" crowd stayed away.

[Josquin des Prez]

No, you didn't, you proposed they aren't as good as Bach and Beethoven. If you meant 'the classics', then only using the names Bach and Beethoven was disingenuous, because we'd all agree that few composers have ever risen that high. Perhaps that's why you phrased your challenge in the way you did - so that you could then 'claim victory' when no one disagreed with you, as you did a few minutes later.

I'm not sure i follow your argument. When we talk about the classics, it's implied we are talking about the usual suspects, I.E., Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and so forth. Nobody is shunning modern composers only to line up in the concert hall to listen to Moscheles. 

Of course, let's not forget the original argument. Are modern audiences shy of contemporary composers because they can't accept the new and only like the music of the past, which is simpler and more tuneful? Maybe, maybe not, but the only way for Wuorinen or anybody else to even make such a claim is that their work be every bit as great as that of the composers those audiences prefer. If they can't prove that the entire argument is bust.

But there are certainly composers as gifted and with as much to say as many of the old masters.

Such as?

[karlhenning]

But he may be the only person who has heard Andy Pape.

I thought it was a misspelling of anti-Pope . . . .

[Mark]

Ack, another antimodernist thread.

For all this talk about concerts and programming, nobody is mentioning the obvious: tastes aren't being formed in the concert hall. They're being formed on the internet, at Amazon.com, and anywhere else one can buy or download recorded music. People go to concerts to affirm the listening choices they've already made through their record purchases. I would suggest using record sales as a measuring stick rather than concert attendance.

While it is a safe bet to say that Chopin sells more discs than Carter, the record companies keep putting out recordings of Carter's music, so someone must be buying them. Naxos, for instance, relies heavily on modern music in its catalogue. Naxos has figured out that with 1000s of Beethoven sympony sets already on the market they can't hope to release another set and expect it to make money. Instead, they release music for which there are no other recordings. If you want to hear Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience or Stephen Hartke's The Greater Good you're just going to have to buy the Naxos recordings of them.

Through wide distribution of sound recordings allows modern music to get the repeated listenings it requires. It also allows for the creation of micro-audiences, related by interest rather than geography, who will support this music. For instance, the appreciative crowds who went to the Carter festival at Tanglewood (that's in Massachusetts, Greg) already knew what they were getting into. Those who chose to come have already gotten to know his music by way of recordings. They came from wherever they happened to live. The "only Mozart and Schubert please" crowd stayed away.

Dammit! Once again I'm irked by this forum's lack of an applause smiley.

An excellent post, and very true.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Obvious stuff, that you'd figure doesnt need to be pointed out. To think that Bach had that kind of stature at the very beginning, during his time, to what it is now is absurd.

The dissemination of music in Bach's time was minimal compared to ours. Nonetheless, the WTC circulated relatively widely in manuscript, to the point where it was the young Beethoven's primary study in 1780 when he was 10.

But to talk about a "canon" during Bach's time is anachronistic. The idea of a fixed canon of music to be preserved for all time did not take hold until the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Music during Bach's and Mozart's time was primarily new music.

And only Mark Simon so far has made the most crucial point about audiences and canons: that music is primarily experienced today via recordings. Recordings have considerable drawbacks - the sound quality is artificial at best compared to a good concert hall, the reliance on recording is taking over the older tradition of amateur music-making for one's self, the rapport of the listener to a live performer is eliminated, and more. But thanks to recordings, an enormous range of music is now made available, often in multiple interpretations, at relatively inexpensive prices. As a result, each person can create in his/her own living room a personal canon of music. I don't entirely like the implications of this, but all the complaints about what music is programmed or not by what orchestra have to be counterbalanced by the enormous availability of music on CD.

[karlhenning]

Excellent, Mark & sforz.

[lukeottevanger]

I'm not sure i follow your argument. When we talk about the classics, it's implied we are talking about the usual suspects, I.E., Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and so forth.

Yes, but when you talk about 'Bach and Beethoven', as you did, it is only implied that you are talking about Bach and Beethoven. This is the post I mean:

i'd like to present a proposition: name one single contemporary composer that is as great as Beethoven, or Bach. No second runners allowed.

That's what is disingenuous, if by this you only mean 'as great as the "classics" '

[ChamberNut]

Should we change the way music students are educated about composers of the past?  Ie.By naming them and their works in the literature in only objective terms (ie.Bach was a late 17th Century to 18th Century Baroque composer).

[karlhenning]

So far as I can tell, ChN, no one here argues with the fact that Bach is among the graetest of composers, and that educational attention to his work is rightly overweighted.

[zamyrabyrd]

... But thanks to recordings, an enormous range of music is now made available, often in multiple interpretations, at relatively inexpensive prices. As a result, each person can create in his/her own living room a personal canon of music. I don't entirely like the implications of this, but all the complaints about what music is programmed or not by what orchestra have to be counterbalanced by the enormous availability of music on CD.

I like the implications completely and entirely. Recorded music is my lifeline and often the only way to get to know modern music.

ZB

[rappy]

I must say that I can't really understand the "We can't yet judge"-argument. Of course, in the past there were works which the audience dismissed. But we have to be fair: they listened to it only one time and the artists weren't too good either. I mean, the Grosse Fuge is hard to get when listening to it for the first time and not being familiar with fugues (I don't think the audience at the time listened to fugues regularly as we do). However, as far as I know two movements of the quartet (the 4th and 5th?) were a great success immediately and had to be repeated at the premiere concert.
And the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikzeitung wrote over the Schumann piano concerto after the premiere which quite enthusiastic:

weil sie die gewöhnliche Monotonie der Gattung glücklich vermeidet und der vollständig obligaten, mit großer Liebe und Sorgfalt gearbeiteten Orchesterpartie, ohne den Eindruck der Pianoleistung zu beeinträchtigen, ihr volles Recht widerfahren läßt und beiden Theilen ihre Selbstständigkeit in schöner Verbindung zu wahren weiss.

For those who don't understand German: The writer praises the daedal orchestral part as a good innovation.

If there were only a few musicians who listened to Bach's music in the 18th century, this does not surprise me at all. I would say that almost all of us here have a greater insight into music than those musicians in the past, due to the fact that we have an immense source of information, we do listen to music in recordings every day, know and understand the thoughts over music people have made over hundreds of years.
You can't compare the audience of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue premiere (and those pieces which seemed incomprehensible were exceptions! Most of Beethoven's music was a great success, e.g. the 7th symphony, the 1st symphony praised for its delicate instrumentation, other quartets, etc.) with the gigantic amount of experienced listeners who get access to a contemporary composition and should be aware of its greatness.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I like the implications completely and entirely. Recorded music is my lifeline and often the only way to get to know modern music.

ZB

Since I phrased that particular statement vaguely on purpose, how do you know what implications I was referring to?

[lisa needs braces]

The dissemination of music in Bach's time was minimal compared to ours. Nonetheless, the WTC circulated relatively widely in manuscript, to the point where it was the young Beethoven's primary study in 1780 when he was 10.

But to talk about a "canon" during Bach's time is anachronistic. The idea of a fixed canon of music to be preserved for all time did not take hold until the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Music during Bach's and Mozart's time was primarily new music.

Precisely.

Which raises the question: regardless of what's available on cd or not, most of what is performed on classical stations and by the most eminent orchestras is dominated by music from the baroque, classical and romantic eras. Modern music seems incapable of competing against this music from the past for audiences.

The way people respond to this point is to split hairs and say that of course modern music has some audiences and is performed in some corners while largely side stepping the central issue: so called "new music" seems no closer to drawing audiences like the music from previous eras can...even after a century of this nonsense. The classical music infrastructure relies on centuries old music and is essentially nothing but a museum.