I have mentioned throughout the years here that I used to compose music, usually with exotic scales, sometimes utilizing a quarter-tone system, but gave it up decades ago, and not without a little regret. Somebody asked me why, and I said I would eventually respond, and today, while writing about Glazunov, I decided to clarify.
"Something in him holds him back" was Tchaikovsky's famous comment about Glazunov.
I could tell you that the hours needed alone for composition were not conducive to endearing me to my girlfriend and later my wife: she knew about my composing talent, but did not always comprehend it.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
I could tell you that the frustration involved in dealing with musicians/professors/directors etc. was immense: promises of performances, promises and flattery, all leading nowhere. (I could write a novel about the trials and terror of working with a certain famous and duplicitous tubist on a quarter-tone tuba concerto! But I digress!)
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
The realization that what interested me the most - microtonalism - was still going to be a tiny niche market, was always balanced by the hope of a breakthrough. But that breakthrough never came, especially when I witnessed the rebirth of the neo-conservative movements of Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
My best friend at the time remarked, after hearing one of the quarter-tone works: "Okay, that will be evidence at your commitment hearing!"
He was only half joking!
"Something in him holds him back."
In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!
Probably the feeling is mutual in many cases! 8)
So I wonder if Glazunov and other second-rank composers were perhaps held back not by a lack of talent, but by an emotional reticence, which compelled them to compose only "surface pieces" and prevented them from creating e.g. a Schumann Second Symphony , or a Mahler or Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony.
Thank you for this illuminative post, Cato. All most excellent insights.
I protest calling Glazunov second rank. :)
;D
Now, now, Harry, not all composers can be first rank! If all composers are great, no composer is great.
Quote from: karlhenning on October 30, 2007, 03:59:09 AM
;D
Now, now, Harry, not all composers can be first rank! If all composers are great, no composer is great.
Okay, no ranks then, everyone is equal, capital idea..........
All composers equal, what a nonsensical idea, Harry.
Quote from: karlhenning on October 30, 2007, 04:12:34 AM
All composers equal, what a nonsensical idea, Harry.
Yes maybe to you, and all others, but I have a different philosophy Karl.
Quote from: Harry on October 30, 2007, 04:14:06 AM
Yes maybe to you, and all others, but I have a different philosophy Karl.
When someone like
Haydn states that
Mozart is the greatest composer he knows, the idea that 'all composers are equal' makes
Haydn a gibbering idiot, doesn't it,
Harry?
Well, Karl, as I said, I have a different view on it, and if that makes me a gibbering idiot, so be it......
At the same time I will be wise, and not start a discussion about this, which is afterall my opinion, and therefore I think it better, not to go into details why I said what I think, if you agree with that....
So forget I have written what I think... :)
Quote from: Harry on October 30, 2007, 04:24:00 AM
Well, Karl, as I said, I have a different view on it, and if that makes me a gibbering idiot, so be it......
At the same time I will be wise, and not start a discussion about this, which is afterall my opinion, and therefore I think it better, not to go into details why I said what I think, if you agree with that....
So forget I have written what I think... :)
Now,
Harry, my pointing out that
Haydn was no gibbering idiot, does not imply that you, having a different opinion, are such an idiot. I know you for no idiot. But the idea that 'all composers are equal' is not tenable; and as the example of
Haydn reveals, no composer can pursue his craft if he honestly believed that such an 'equality' applied.
Saying that a listener is free to listen to whatever music he likes, is one thing; taking that as a driver for "all composers are equal" is an insupportable leap.
Quote from: karlhenning on October 30, 2007, 04:29:02 AM
Now, Harry, my pointing out that Haydn was no gibbering idiot, does not imply that you, having a different opinion, are such an idiot. I know you for no idiot. But the idea that 'all composers are equal' is not tenable; and as the example of Haydn reveals, no composer can pursue his craft if he honestly believed that such an 'equality' applied.
Saying that a listener is free to listen to whatever music he likes, is one thing; taking that as a driver for "all composers are equal" is an insupportable leap.
If time allows, I will build up my argument in your language. I have since long a interesting discussion with my musical friends about this......
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AMI could tell you that the hours needed alone for composition were not conducive to endearing me to my girlfriend and later my wife: she knew about my composing talent, but did not always comprehend it.
That's fairly typical of spouses/partners (like mine) who do not understand how an artist works.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AMI could tell you that the frustration involved in dealing with musicians/professors/directors etc. was immense: promises of performances, promises and flattery, all leading nowhere.
All composers have their horror stories. Mine could fill a novellette atleast.
The trick in the end is don't give up. Even if it means few performances and of them rarely good ones.
The good news is that you can resume your composing any time you really want to; so let the urge to write (that should always be lurking inside you) take over, even if the effort is brief and fleeting. You'll feel better for doing it.
to return from discussion of Glazunov to the subject of Cato's post ;D .... I have no time to write a detailed reply now, but I can relate to so much of what he is saying, especially that seemingly-paradoxical line which states:
'In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!'
On its own that line looks like an open goal for those amongst us (especially, those who used to be amongst us) who want to believe that contemporary music doesn't care about the listener. But it's not as simple as it sounds, of course. I think what Cato is saying here is that music, when written with love and care, comes from a very deep place indeed, is dwelt on, pondered over with all the composer's attention and ability. In a very real sense it becomes an extension of the composer himself, and also in many cases a reflection of his own traits and tendencies. Releasing it to the world - to listeners who with one moment's listen (or less) can dismiss it, who are under no obligation to pay the attention to it that the composer's own efforts perhaps deserve - can be like putting the most vulnerable areas of yourself, as a person, up for criticism. Even listening to your own works esp. as sight-read through sketchily by others (which I suppose, on the above analogy roughly = the first impression you make on someone) can sometimes be as disconcerting and uncomfortable as listening to a recording of your own voice.
Personally I have concentrated very much on this aspect of composing, as I have discussed on my own thread - the music as true to the composer, as an extension of him. I've come to the conclusion that if somebody dislikes my music, music which I have spent a long time and much thought making as true to me as I can (or letting it be as true to me as it can be, free of external irrelevancies), then though it may well be equivalent to them saying they dislike an aspect of me myself, it is only so to the degree that I can't change my own personality even if I want to. IOW, if the music rings true, no one can really argue with it!
(Thankfully, though, I haven't had to put that to the test, as, by and large, my music has gone down fairly well so far :) )
Quote from: Harry on October 30, 2007, 03:53:30 AM
I protest calling Glazunov second rank. :)
I do as well. The statement is an insult to second-rank composers.
:-)
Of course something is holding Glazunoz back, that something is call talent. Tchaikovsky most likely didn't want to state the obvious that anyone with a shred of intelligence can see or hear.
couldn't you just write and not have your music performed? If the only fear is having other people listen, you could just listen yourself, right?
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on October 30, 2007, 05:32:27 AM
I do as well. The statement is an insult to second-rank composers.
Thank you, for this very kind remark......
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on October 30, 2007, 05:53:10 AM
Of course something is holding Glazunoz back, that something is call talent. Tchaikovsky most likely didn't want to state the obvious that anyone with a shred of intelligence can see or hear.
What Tchaikovsky likely didn't want to state or not, is a mystery for you and me........
So all people that like Glazunov are without shreds of intelligence?
My that is a intelligent conclusion.....
Quote from: Harry on October 30, 2007, 04:33:17 AM
If time allows, I will build up my argument in your language. I have since long a interesting discussion with my musical friends about this......
I look forward to it. It is a robustly dynamic topic. One of the obvious (I think) problems is the nature of comparing two great composers of different eras (how do we 'weigh'
Bach and
Brahms 'against' one another, when
Brahms's music is partly informed by that of
Bach?) The problem of the nature of the 'equality' of all composers, while it may seem an attractive way to obviate the problems of comparison, is no less difficult. But, as ever,
Harry, you will have our interest.
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on October 30, 2007, 05:56:19 AM
couldn't you just write and not have your music performed? If the only fear is having other people listen, you could just listen yourself, right?
Yes, I still entertain myself at times with mental music, and can - in a compressed moment of time - sense the evolution of an entire work, the way one might sense an oak tree in an acorn.
Taking the time to write it out is therefore not really necessary.
In any case my artistic impulse has gone in another direction, so I am not essentially frustrated by the decision to say good-bye to composition.
As to the Glazunov catalyst: I was tempted to write "3rd-rate composer" but did not want to start a fight! 0:)
Lukeottevanger's comments in the large, middle paragraph are quite in line as an expansion of my thoughts, and
JohnQPublic's as well.
It is daunting for a composer, or any artist, when one sees the mountains of "stuff" produced in all areas of our planetary civilization, to realize the odds against finding a spot where your Opus 1 might be heard. Like I said, that was not the prime consideration: I enjoy a quixotic quest as much as the next Donnie, and as a foreign-language teacher that is about as quixotic as you can get these days!
Certainly a forum like this does help a budding or even blooming composer to find a little spot among all the blathering and blithering, the slathering and slithering of modern life.
One must admire
Bach on this aspect: balancing the details of having a huge family, running the musical operations of a church in the 1700's, and tossing off a thousand or so compositions of genius!
Composing today, however, has become devilishly hard precisely because one must still compete against
Bach and other geniuses from the past.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 06:13:39 AM
Yes, I still entertain myself at times with mental music, and can - in a compressed moment of time - sense the evolution of an entire work, the way one might sense an oak tree in an acorn.
Taking the time to write it out is therefore not really necessary.
In any case my artistic impulse has gone in another direction, so I am not essentially frustrated by the decision to say good-bye to composition.
ok, that's fine, as long as you're not completely denying yourself...
what language do you teach? German? (seems like i should know this)
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc.....................
Greatest, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc...............
Obviously people have a in build need to make such lists...
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on October 30, 2007, 06:20:02 AM
ok, that's fine, as long as you're not completely denying yourself...
what language do you teach? German? (seems like i should know this)
German, Latin, Ancient Greek, as well as History (specializing in ancient, medieval, and modern European).
Research into ancient Greek scales decades ago is what brought me into the area of
xenharmonic music. :o
Harry Partch's music was being recorded for the first time back then, along with a few Czech records with things by
Alois Haba. So that was how I switched from using unusual half-tone scales to
xenharmonic music, although I still created things with the normal 12-tones.
Quote from: Harry on October 30, 2007, 06:23:47 AM
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc.....................
Greatest, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc...............
Obviously people have a in build need to make such lists...
No,
Harry; rejecting the idea that greatness in music implies a neatly mathematical transitive property (
Bach is greater than
Elgar,
Elgar is greater than Dittersdorf, therefore
Bach is greater than Dittersdorf — though, wait a minute, that sounds pretty good!) does not therefore 'annihilate' the idea of musical greatness.
Nice try, though! 8)
So, yes, a short list of fallacies which we readily agree are fallacies, and yet whose rejection does not negate the idea of musical greatness:
1. It is possible neatly to compare composers of different eras/styles.
2. It is possible to arrange composers in a neat ranking of comparative greatness.
2a. It is possible to determine a single, greatest composer of all time.
3. There is only room for
x great composers, everyone else is a mediocrity.
And anyway, even if Cato has for his own reasons set aside the regular pursuit of composition, this does not prevent him from frequent creative work which he executes (and I do mean executes ;D ) at a high level.
Quote from: karlhenning on October 30, 2007, 07:04:41 AM
And anyway, even if Cato has for his own reasons set aside the regular pursuit of composition, this does not prevent him from frequent creative work which he executes (and I do mean executes ;D ) at a high level.
;D Little inside joke!
One thing about composition is that you have to be really driven to do it, in spite of all the frustrations, setbacks, inconveniences, performances that fall through, the whole hassle. It's a big pain, but also a great joy. It also takes some amount of exhibitionism. You have to enjoy putting your soul in front of people. You've got to figure this is why people listen to music in the first place, for this kind of sonic voyeurism of hearing someone's soul. And you have to believe that your soul has something to offer that can be expressed as music. Composers tend to have big egos.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 06:30:41 AM
German, Latin, Ancient Greek, as well as History (specializing in ancient, medieval, and modern European).
Research into ancient Greek scales decades ago is what brought me into the area of xenharmonic music. :o
Harry Partch's music was being recorded for the first time back then, along with a few Czech records with things by Alois Haba. So that was how I switched from using unusual half-tone scales to xenharmonic music, although I still created things with the normal 12-tones.
wow, three! That's impressive
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on October 30, 2007, 07:14:29 AM
One thing about composition is that you have to be really driven to do it, in spite of all the frustrations, setbacks, inconveniences, performances that fall through, the whole hassle. It's a big pain, but also a great joy. It also takes some amount of exhibitionism. You have to enjoy putting your soul in front of people. You've got to figure this is why people listen to music in the first place, for this kind of sonic voyeurism of hearing someone's soul. And you have to believe that your soul has something to offer that can be expressed as music. Composers tend to have big egos.
(My emphasis)
Yes, not that I lack a kind of "big ego", but there are degrees: and ultimately I was not willing to practice "sonic exhibitionism" for an audience.
My soul will be expressed in different ways therefore! 0:)
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on October 30, 2007, 07:33:18 AM
wow, three! That's impressive
Well, thank you: I am probably the only teacher in the state of Ohio certified $:) (I will avoid the joke!) in all 4 areas!
I heard rumor of your multiple certification . . . .
Quote from: johnQpublic on October 30, 2007, 05:04:25 AM
That's fairly typical of spouses/partners (like mine) who do not understand how an artist works.
Some of the wives of composers who were not typical spring to mind,Mrs.Wagner for instance,and Mrs.Dvorak,Mrs Mozart had the decency to spend weeks on end at the spa so Wolfie could write.Mrs Schumann,Mrs.Bruch,Mrs.Ives,Mrs Prokoviev,The two Mrs.Bach.Etc,etc.
Quote from: Muriel on October 30, 2007, 08:47:53 AM
The two Mrs.Bach.
Hah! I
knew it! He
was a bigamist! 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on October 30, 2007, 08:49:26 AM
Hah! I knew it! He was a bigamist! 8)
Oh Karl,not a bigamist,an ORGANIST!
Here's a BIG-A-MIST:
(http://www.capetownskies.com/6331/11_mist_treesb.jpg)
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on October 30, 2007, 07:14:29 AM
Composers tend to have big egos.
I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on October 30, 2007, 09:06:27 AM
I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.
I don't necessarily mean this negatively. It's just the way it is. If you don't have that confidence that what you have in you is worth people's attention, you're never going to go through all the hassle of writing this stuff down and struggling to get it performed and all the business that goes with it.
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on October 30, 2007, 09:06:27 AM
I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.
You should have been in my Seventh Grade Latin class today! $:)
Muriel's litany of wives needs to include
Alma Mahler, whose "big ego-ed" husband
forbade her to compose anything...for a while!
And
Prokofiev's first wife at least, like
Schoenberg's, had some "issues."
I would not have married either of those two! :o
Mark G. Simon wrote:
QuoteIf you don't have that confidence that what you have in you is worth people's attention, you're never going to go through all the hassle of writing this stuff down and struggling to get it performed and all the business that goes with it.
True: I believe I could have done all that, which is what I found highly dis
concerting!
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 09:15:23 AM
You should have been in my Seventh Grade Latin class today! $:)
Muriel's litany of wives needs to include Alma Mahler, whose "big ego-ed" husband forbade her to compose anything...for a while!
And Prokofiev's first wife at least, like Schoenberg's, had some "issues."
Oh yes,how could I forget Alma, I suppose the list of uncooperative wives could be headed by Papa's "Beast"
I should mention a little story in connection to my not continuing as a composer.
In the early 1980's I once had 2 students in Toledo who were devotees of Apple computers, and also were interested in experimental music. I showed them one of my quarter-tone works, and they were so enthusiastic about it, that they spent several hours programming a Macintosh to play quarter-tone music, and then programmed my work into it.
I have described the result as music being played by Martian vacuum cleaners.
In any case, the work impressed a few musicians, including a tubist at a local university, who expressed interest in having a quarter-tone Tuba Concerto written for him. By chance I had already composed one in the 1970's for another Midwestern tubist, who shall remain nameless. But given the mercurial and semi-dishonest personalities involved, nothing ever happened, despite various claims and promises.
One of my teenaged programmers, however, did go on to work for Apple.
Eventually he was the one who invented the JPeg program for pictures!!! Originally entitled JPEG-View, it impressed Apple, and so he was hired. Today I believe he works at Cornell.
Quote from: Cato on November 01, 2007, 07:16:30 AM
I have described the result as music being played by Martian vacuum cleaners.
well, at least it has a unique sound ;D
it'd sound a lot better if you could rewrite it with synth or something, and actually have dynamics programmed into the sound.
Quote from: Cato on November 01, 2007, 07:16:30 AM
One of my teenaged programmers, however, did go on to work for Apple.
Eventually he was the one who invented the JPeg program for pictures!!! Originally entitled JPEG-View, it impressed Apple, and so he was hired. Today I believe he works at Cornell.
:o
wow, you knew somebody would (should be) famous!
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on November 01, 2007, 07:21:35 AM
well, at least it has a unique sound ;D
it'd sound a lot better if you could rewrite it with synth or something, and actually have dynamics programmed into the sound.
:o
wow, you knew somebody would (should be) famous!
I conceived it as something for a string orchestra, and had to rethink some parts for the limitations of the computer back then.
Motorola in fact, as early as the 1970's, had a microtonal synthesizer on the market called a Scalatron, and had hired a character named
George Secor to compose and perform works on it.
See this page: it offers a 1976 microtonal work "after Telemann" by Secor.
http://users.bigpond.net.au/d.keenan/sagittal/gift/GiftOfTheGods.htm
Even better than knowing someone who became fairly famous in his field: I was his teacher for 4 years! 8)
Quote from: Cato on November 01, 2007, 08:29:03 AM
http://users.bigpond.net.au/d.keenan/sagittal/gift/GiftOfTheGods.htm
ah... microtonality can be put to much better use than that.
i don't know what he thinking, modeling it after Telemann...... sounds more like an old recording that's out of tune.
Some people go for that.
(Just sayin')
I don't have anything of import to add, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your thoughts, Cato.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 09:15:23 AM
Muriel's litany of wives needs to include Alma Mahler, whose "big ego-ed" husband forbade her to compose anything...for a while!
He probably didn't want her to taint his good name.
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on November 01, 2007, 10:51:35 AM
ah... microtonality can be put to much better use than that.
i don't know what he thinking, modeling it after Telemann...... sounds more like an old recording that's out of tune.
(My emphasis above.) Precisely, which is why I always wondered why Secor had any influence at Motorola. When you hear all the other things that have been done in the genre, especially by pioneers
Julian Carrillo and
Ivan Wyschnegradsky, not to mention
Harry Partch, this example is fairly weak tea.
And thank you,
Corey!
Cato, it seems to my admittedly green ears that microtonality could be used to portray a sort of emotional ambiguity in music with a recognizable "tune" (though not necessarily easily singable!). Do you think any composers have used this effect in their music? I have heard some works by Claude Vivier that seemed to achieve something like what I'm talking about.
Cato, i cannot see where you are coming from but i do respect your opinion. But too me composition is relief. It is almost a way of letting go of a feeling that is too intense. Also one moment of satisfaction for hard work is always worth the years of waiting for it. I have been the only musical person in my family and i get a huge amount of "non-understanding", it is a blow to everything inside of me. The horrible moment when you ask someone what they think about a passage that you have put your while soul into and your are glimmering with pride, for them to mildly say, it's alright, or the worst, "it's cute." But then i remember that i am doing it for myself, my own therapy and i continue.
I am not going to lie, i get much satisfaction out of peoples enjoyment of a piece. That moment is compensation for all the times a have fallen before.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AM
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
Furtwängler once remarked that conducting his own music made him feel like a seven-year-old girl stripping in front of a group of dirty old men.
Quote from: James on November 02, 2007, 01:32:31 PM
re: microtones, tuning to different intervals etc...
A great example is Bartok's Concerto for Violin & Orchestra... ..
a wonderful masterpiece which happens to utilize a number of quarter tones,
especially in the solo violin part...
Is this right? The solo violin sonata uses microtones but I am not aware of any in the violin concerto
Quote from: bwv 1080 on November 02, 2007, 01:45:57 PM
Is this right? The solo violin sonata uses microtones but I am not aware of any in the violin concerto
Only a few of them, and they're purely ornamental. Upper and lower neighbor tones.
Quote from: Corey on November 02, 2007, 11:16:11 AM
Cato, it seems to my admittedly green ears that microtonality could be used to portray a sort of emotional ambiguity in music with a recognizable "tune" (though not necessarily easily singable!). Do you think any composers have used this effect in their music? I have heard some works by Claude Vivier that seemed to achieve something like what I'm talking about.
Yes! There are several marvelous examples: one is a CD using a microtonal synthesizer with works by
Easley Blackwood, containing fanfares and other small works in various xenharmonic scales with recognizable melodies.
Another is
Julian Carrillo's Christopher Columbus Prelude a haunting work, available at website "CD Baby" on a CD with microtonal works by Johnny Reinhard and others.
If you can find the quarter-tone piano works of
Ivan Wyschnegradsky, you could hear perhaps one ofthe best examples of what is capable: his works sound at times Scriabinian.
c#minor: Welcome to the world of creativity! I also am the only musical type in the family, and nobody really understood my talent. Of course, nobody understood my decision to major in ancient languages, German, and history! "When will you take some business courses?" Only after my students won some national awards did my parents finally accept me as a teacher. But certainly, if you enjoy having other people listen to your music, keep on working!
Beware of musicians, however! I once had an organist claim that he had practiced a sonata I had written, and he waxed effulgently over it. When I arrived to hear it, he immediately packed up and broke our appointment, smiling and saying that I really should orchestrate the piece! He avoided me thereafter!
Concerning
Bartok and microtones: I believe the
6th Quartet has a section where quarter-tones are used sparingly for a certain exotic effect.
Quote from: Cato on November 02, 2007, 03:21:20 PM
Yes! There are several marvelous examples: one is a CD using a microtonal synthesizer with works by Easley Blackwood, containing fanfares and other small works in various xenharmonic scales with recognizable melodies.
Another is Julian Carrillo's Christopher Columbus Prelude a haunting work, available at website "CD Baby" on a CD with microtonal works by Johnny Reinhard and others.
If you can find the quarter-tone piano works of Ivan Wyschnegradsky, you could hear perhaps one ofthe best examples of what is capable: his works sound at times Scriabinian.
Thank you. I had an architect acquaintance (who I haven't spoken to in a long while) who held Carrillo in high regard and influenced his own dabblings in electronic music. Wyschnegradsky sounds especially interesting.
Another composer who has done well with microtones - John Eaton.
I once visited his studio where he had two pianos side-by-side. One tuned normally; the other a quarter-off from the normal one.
Quote from: johnQpublic on November 03, 2007, 05:09:24 AM
Another composer who has done well with microtones - John Eaton.
I once visited his studio where he had two pianos side-by-side. One tuned normally; the other a quarter-off from the normal one.
I will have to investigate him: the name is unknown to me.
One of my works contained a little trick, where I accustomed the listeners to good old C major for a few minutes: or so they thought. In fact everything was played by the quarter-tone sharp piano: when the normally tuned piano finally chimed in,
it was the one which sounded weird.
The comment by Furtwängler is precisely my experience! But he did continue as an at least erstwhile composer. The only thing I have done recently was adapt the March from the scherzo of the
Joachim Raff Fifth Symphony ("Lenore") as an organ wedding march for my brother's sister-in-law: I had to compose about 10 bars myself for transitions and the grand finale: the latter I did more in the style of
R. Strauss and Mahler, rather than Raff! :o
Raff with microtones would have to be more interestng.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AM
"Something in him holds him back" was Tchaikovsky's famous comment about Glazunov.
I was just thinking -- and this may contradict my earlier posts in this thread -- that there are some composers who have made a virtue out of holding back. I am thinking principally of Fauré, whose music is often elusive and extremely introverted.
I was once talking to a pianist I know in Ithaca, a very wonderful pianist and leader of a fine chamber music group. After hearing him perform Fauré's 1st Piano Quartet for the second time I asked him once when he would get around to the 2nd Quartet, a work which I admire beyond all bounds. He said "later Fauré is cold. It does nothing for me". I just wished I could let him listen to this music as it passes through my ears. Somehow the sense that Fauré is holding something in reserve, not telling you everything, only alluding to personal secrets, adds depth to the music. It makes you work to fill in the blanks. I don't know how he did it. Other composers just give you the feeling that "what you hear is what you get" and "that's all there is; there ain't no more".
Is 1885 considered late for Faure? I have also long adored the late works - the first movement of the piano trio has to be the single most gorgeous movement in all the non-duo chamber reprtoire that I have heard. Also the late piano quintets, and string quartets. I find the cello Sonatas quite tough going, and have never really got into them. Maybe they deserve another listen.
QuoteSomehow the sense that Fauré is holding something in reserve, not telling you everything, only alluding to personal secrets, adds depth to the music. It makes you work to fill in the blanks. I don't know how he did it.
That is exactly the same feeling I get now that I think about it, but I wouldn't have been able to articulate it.
Presumably not all composers feel so reticent about presenting their music to the public... I wonder what Brahms and Bach and Stravinsky felt like hearing their own music?
Quote from: Guido on November 04, 2007, 05:37:40 AM
Is 1885 considered late for Faure?
I wouldn't think so. But the Fauré chamber music that gets performed all the time consists only of the First Violin Sonata and First Piano Quartet. Anything written after that is somehow "too cold".
Yeah, that Piano Trio is incredible. In his late works he has this way of stretching tonality in an unusual and completely personal way, kind of like an image pressed into Silly Putty.
[/quote]
I do not know Faure's chamber works, mainly because the genre does not appeal to my ears...but I will explore the ones you mentioned. It is interesting that he possibly found a balance which I could not see for myself.
His music for Pelleas et Melisande, however, does exhibit some of that at least. In my classes I used to contrast his music for the play with that of Sibelius, and then contrast their stage music with Schoenberg's massive explication.
Students usually selected Faure's music over Sibelius, although the latter's music is also not overheated much, especially compared to the atomically emotional explosions in Schoenberg's tone-poem.
I have been asked how many works I composed during my activity: I have lost count! :o
In a non-quarter-tone style, there were several piano works and symphonies for organ, along with a kind of tone-poem/overture called The Trumpeter of Krakow. Toward the end, i.e, before I had made a decision to cease forever, I had become interested in revitalizing tonality through a 9-tone scale, and treating the 3 "outside" tones as a kind of antithetical, contrapuntal scale, which would then invade and replace 3 tones of the scale as a kind of modulation to change the nature of the scale, rotating by 3's and so on. Also, I had the idea of dividing the 9-tone scale into two contrapuntal groups of 4- and 5-tone scales, which one could handle almost dodecaphonically (actually nonecaphonically). Several fun chamber works came out in this style, one for violin and piano, which was performed dreadfully by an amateur group in Germany.
(Only one rehearsal and more broken promises and phony excuses than I hear on an average day from my 7th Graders.)
Quarter-tone works included the first two acts of an opera based on Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus, where the composer Adrian Leverkuehn was not a pseudo-Schoenberg, but a microtonalist.
There were also two Tuba Concerti, a Trombone Concerto, a religious cantata for forest animals called in German Baumdom which used the highly theological languages of Latin and German for texts chanted by chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and assorted carnivores.
The vocal style was therefore quite unusual, and not just because of the 19-tone scales! 8)
Carnivores would quite naturally speak German 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on November 05, 2007, 09:20:58 AM
Carnivores would quite naturally speak German 8)
The Prozac seems to be working these days, however, so not to worry! 0:)
As far as quarter tones go, Ferneyhough writes the most successful music with them IMO
Dust off those scores Cato & send them to:
http://bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/Pages/OpeningFrameset.html
Quote from: johnQpublic on November 05, 2007, 11:16:35 AM
Dust off those scores Cato & send them to:
http://bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/Pages/OpeningFrameset.html
Karl, note the meeting in 10 days at St. Paul's/Tremont!
Thanks for the invitation, but I am not tempted to reconsider my decision to remain a non-composer!
Quote from: Cato on November 06, 2007, 03:32:19 AM
Karl, note the meeting in 10 days at St. Paul's/Tremont!
!!!
Another fine insight from
Luke's backlog which I think of undimmed interest.
Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 30, 2007, 05:19:20 AM
to return from discussion of Glazunov to the subject of Cato's post ;D .... I have no time to write a detailed reply now, but I can relate to so much of what he is saying, especially that seemingly-paradoxical line which states:
'In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!'
On its own that line looks like an open goal for those amongst us (especially, those who used to be amongst us) who want to believe that contemporary music doesn't care about the listener. But it's not as simple as it sounds, of course. I think what Cato is saying here is that music, when written with love and care, comes from a very deep place indeed, is dwelt on, pondered over with all the composer's attention and ability. In a very real sense it becomes an extension of the composer himself, and also in many cases a reflection of his own traits and tendencies. Releasing it to the world - to listeners who with one moment's listen (or less) can dismiss it, who are under no obligation to pay the attention to it that the composer's own efforts perhaps deserve - can be like putting the most vulnerable areas of yourself, as a person, up for criticism. Even listening to your own works esp. as sight-read through sketchily by others (which I suppose, on the above analogy roughly = the first impression you make on someone) can sometimes be as disconcerting and uncomfortable as listening to a recording of your own voice.
Personally I have concentrated very much on this aspect of composing, as I have discussed on my own thread - the music as true to the composer, as an extension of him. I've come to the conclusion that if somebody dislikes my music, music which I have spent a long time and much thought making as true to me as I can (or letting it be as true to me as it can be, free of external irrelevancies), then though it may well be equivalent to them saying they dislike an aspect of me myself, it is only so to the degree that I can't change my own personality even if I want to. IOW, if the music rings true, no one can really argue with it!
(Thankfully, though, I haven't had to put that to the test, as, by and large, my music has gone down fairly well so far :) )
I would have made a swell composer. Too late now...
Quote from: MN Dave on June 12, 2009, 06:13:09 AM
I would have made a swell composer. Too late now...
Me, too. Guess the world will just have to suffer the loss. Blame the "Sexual Revolution" of the sixties (even though that was tame compared to what's normal these days), for we might have been composers if it hadn't be so easy to get girls without going to all that trouble.
Quote from: DavidRoss on June 12, 2009, 06:26:29 AM
Me, too. Guess the world will just have to suffer the loss. Blame the "Sexual Revolution" of the sixties (even though that was tame compared to what's normal these days), for we might have been composers if it hadn't be so easy to get girls without going to all that trouble.
My stuff would have creamed Elgar's...
I've always had the utmost confidence in your vibrational fields, Dave.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 12, 2009, 07:06:34 AM
I've always had the utmost confidence in your vibrational fields, Dave.
My vibrations are to be reckoned with.
Shattered
The more I hang around here, the more I want to write an epic CD length SQ, naturally for the Kronos on Nonesuch, that becomes the next crossover hit. I've already sold out. :-\
...but it would be a meaningful work of...(sounds of something crashing down a flight of stairs)
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 12, 2009, 06:03:58 AM
Another fine insight from Luke's backlog which I think of undimmed interest.
Luke Ottevanger wrote:
"...but I can relate to so much of what (Cato) is saying, especially that seemingly-paradoxical line which states:
'In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!'
On its own that line looks like an open goal for those amongst us (especially, those who used to be amongst us) who want to believe that contemporary music doesn't care about the listener. But it's not as simple as it sounds, of course. I think what Cato is saying here is that music, when written with love and care, comes from a very deep place indeed, is dwelt on, pondered over with all the composer's attention and ability. In a very real sense it becomes an extension of the composer himself, and also in many cases a reflection of his own traits and tendencies. Releasing it to the world - to listeners who with one moment's listen (or less) can dismiss it, who are under no obligation to pay the attention to it that the composer's own efforts perhaps deserve -
can be like putting the most vulnerable areas of yourself, as a person, up for criticism. Even listening to your own works esp. as sight-read through sketchily by others (which I suppose, on the above analogy roughly = the first impression you make on someone) can sometimes be as disconcerting and uncomfortable as listening to a recording of your own voice."
Music as psychology is an old game, and not an invalid one. It is seen as an underground tunnel not only to the more mysterious areas of the human mind and soul, but as a key to Soul itself: it may seem odd, but there is case to be made that when the composer presents his music, he is in a similar position of standing exposed before Divinity:
"Quidquid latet apparebit
Nil inultum remanebit."
Every creation of art, no matter how tiny, from the weaving of a potholder to the weaving of polyphony, can be seen as an echo of the original spark which created the Universe, for whatever reason the Universe may exist. Even the atheists, I would think, would see art at least as a parallel to the creative forces of the physical world.
How psychologically naked did
Tchaikovsky and
Mahler feel after their Sixth Symphonies were performed? Alma Mahler reports that her husband was in a highly agitated state after conducting the premiere.
For my own case, the mask of the composer turned out not to be thick enough: I needed more layers to hide behind. It is not a matter of using another name to publish works behind. It was the contradiction that I was creating artworks which I myself did not really hear comfortably in reality: what then was the purpose? 8)
Well, I sure am glad that both Mahler and Tchaikovsky did write their 6ths... talk about one of the greatest gifts you can give to the world!
Quote from: DavidRoss on June 12, 2009, 06:26:29 AM
Me, too. Guess the world will just have to suffer the loss. Blame the "Sexual Revolution" of the sixties (even though that was tame compared to what's normal these days), for we might have been composers if it hadn't be so easy to get girls without going to all that trouble.
Quote from: MN Dave on June 12, 2009, 07:11:34 AM
My vibrations are to be reckoned with.
Hey, it's never too late. :) I'm still trying to learn how to use all that computer score writing software to see if I can write some sheet music down. I currently come up with ideas in my head and repeat them ad infinitum to commit them into memory, and then if I don't forget them, I start coming up with everything else to go around them until a rough mental draft emerges. This system really does not work very well and it takes years to get anything done on a piece. If it's too rough trying to use Finale/Sibelius/Super Mario Paint Composer ;D and nobody can teach me, I will go the way of Dave and David, and the world will lose, by my count, a full violin concerto, a slow movement for cello and orchestra, five caprices for solo violin, two waltzes for the piano, a very fragmentary symphony, and a string quartet in the jazz idiom (slow movement: tango/blues variations on Schubert's "Ave Maria" :P ).
I think the world could use some more of those (fragmentary symphonies, especially) 8)
Karl's too busy burying that thread to compose anything this week! ;D
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 14, 2009, 07:21:09 AM
I think the world could use some more of those (fragmentary symphonies, especially) 8)
I presume you have ordered the new Naxos disc containing seven minutes of the original Shostakovich Ninth! Or as my friend calls it, the "Symphony Number Eight and a Half."
Quote from: snyprrr on June 14, 2009, 09:13:22 AM
Karl's too busy burying that thread to compose anything this week! ;D
Practicing, practicing! (http://henningmusick.blogspot.com/2009/06/coming-soon.html)
Quote from: Brian on June 14, 2009, 09:31:59 AM
I presume you have ordered the new Naxos disc containing seven minutes of the original Shostakovich Ninth! Or as my friend calls it, the "Symphony Number Eight and a Half."
Not yet, but it's certainly in my ears' future.
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AM
I have mentioned throughout the years here that I used to compose music, usually with exotic scales, sometimes utilizing a quarter-tone system, but gave it up decades ago, and not without a little regret. Somebody asked me why, and I said I would eventually respond, and today, while writing about Glazunov, I decided to clarify.
"Something in him holds him back" was Tchaikovsky's famous comment about Glazunov.
I could tell you that the hours needed alone for composition were not conducive to endearing me to my girlfriend and later my wife: she knew about my composing talent, but did not always comprehend it.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
I could tell you that the frustration involved in dealing with musicians/professors/directors etc. was immense: promises of performances, promises and flattery, all leading nowhere. (I could write a novel about the trials and terror of working with a certain famous and duplicitous tubist on a quarter-tone tuba concerto! But I digress!)
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
The realization that what interested me the most - microtonalism - was still going to be a tiny niche market, but that was always balanced by the hope of a breakthrough. But that breakthrough never came, especially when I witnessed the rebirth of the neo-conservative movements of Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
My best friend at the time remarked, after hearing one of the quarter-tone works: "Okay, that will be evidence at your commitment hearing!"
He was only half joking!
"Something in him holds him back."
In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!
Probably the feeling is mutual in many cases! 8)
So I wonder if Glazunov and other second-rank composers were perhaps held back not by a lack of talent, but by an emotional reticence, which compelled them to compose only "surface pieces" and prevented them from creating e.g. a Schumann Second Symphony , or a Mahler or Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony.
I came across this by chance today, and thought I would "bump" it for the many new people who most probably have not seen it.
My artistic bent has always been twofold, since I also began writing stories in the First Grade and have never really stopped, although there were periods when I did not bother to write anything down for several years, and kept everything in my head.
As a writer I find it easier to hide behind the characters and even a pseudonym if necessary! And as a writer who can also compose, my writing style (both in prose and poetry) is especially sensitive to musical considerations. There have been a good number of times when I had the rhythm of a sentence in mind, before I had the words.
Quote from: Cato on November 04, 2013, 02:34:05 PM
As a writer I find it easier to hide behind the characters and even a pseudonym if necessary! And as a writer who can also compose, my writing style (both in prose and poetry) is especially sensitive to musical considerations. There have been a good number of times when I had the rhythm of a sentence in mind, before I had the words.
Oh, absolutely! Many, many people have commented to me on the strength of the endings in my writing, and it is true: like a fugue, perhaps, ideas slip into my essays or stories slowly, and then build up to a dramatic finish. (
Too slowly; my problem is keeping readers around for the fireworks.) The reason, usually, is that with endings I am especially sensitive to the rhythms necessary to really "drive" the point. The #1 piece of advice I find myself giving other writers is, "This sentence ends with a weak word. End the sentence with a word of emphasis." Words can be good endings if they fit rhythmically, from the stress of the syllables, or if the idea of the word represents the climax of your sentence's thought. Even better if the word represents the climax of the paragraph or even the piece.
Consider, from Alex Ross's
The Rest is Noise, p. 332:
"Copland conjures a perfect American Sunday, like the one at the end of Ives's
Three Places in New England, when the music of all peoples streams from the open doors of a white-steepled church that does not yet exist."
That sentence would not work, would not succeed, if you reversed the order of the last two words. Try it. Say it to yourself. It sounds overwritten, purple. But as written, it sounds majestic.
Quote from: Brian on November 04, 2013, 07:00:00 PM
..., "This sentence ends with a weak word. End the sentence with a word of emphasis." Words can be good endings if they fit rhythmically, from the stress of the syllables, or if the idea of the word represents the climax of your sentence's thought. Even better if the word represents the climax of the paragraph or even the piece.
Consider, from Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, p. 332:
"Copland conjures a perfect American Sunday, like the one at the end of Ives's Three Places in New England, when the music of all peoples streams from the open doors of a white-steepled church that does not yet exist."
That sentence would not work, would not succeed, if you reversed the order of the last two words. Try it. Say it to yourself. It sounds overwritten, purple. But as written, it sounds majestic.
Yes, a nice and subtle example! In my most recent novel, the title chapters are the last words which end the chapter, e.g. "If the Sun Rose in the North," "Yearning Wrens in a Winter Window," and "To Pierce a Spirit Immaterial, Fragile, and Doomed."
(In the last one, yes, a spirit is by definition "immaterial," but in the context of the entire sentence the redundancy works as an emphatic point. (Or so I believe! My hardy band of readers had no complaints about it at least!)
Quote from: Cato on October 30, 2007, 03:50:18 AM
I have mentioned throughout the years here that I used to compose music, usually with exotic scales, sometimes utilizing a quarter-tone system, but gave it up decades ago, and not without a little regret. Somebody asked me why, and I said I would eventually respond, and today, while writing about Glazunov, I decided to clarify.
(...)
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
I was reading something today that reminded me of this thread:
The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.- Neil Gaiman
I suppose, Cato, that nothing in the intervening time since you wrote your OP has changed your mind. Or have you perhaps begun to emulate Ives: insurance salesman/college professor by day, composer by night?
You're right that music, if done well, involves stripping our souls. Physical nakedness is nothing by comparison! (This is probably also why many people's greatest fear is public speech.) But I think the world would be a better place if more of us were willing to strip our souls: others would see that they're not alone, and perhaps find the boldness to strip their own, bonds would be created, and just maybe a "critical mass" of mutual understanding would bring world peace... Yeah, it's a pipe dream. But one that keeps me playing and hoping.
Bump! :o ???
I thought this topic might again be of interest, as I mentioned it under another topic (...SHOCK!) from Scots John.
And again, as I wrote yesterday under John's topic, the only composing I have done since then is the recent completion of a sketch for a work called Exaudi me, Domine for 9 voices, and about 15 years ago or so I adapted a section of the Joachim Raff Fifth Symphony for a Wedding March for organ: I composed a few bars (sort of Richard Strauss meets Raff) for a conclusion.
Nobody has seen the former except Karl Henning. 0:) The latter was recorded by my brother for the bride (his sister-in-law), but since it is mainly Raff and not my work I have no trouble with it.
The Exaudi has landed, but I've yet to focus attention upon it :(
Quote from: karlhenning on March 18, 2016, 04:03:17 AM
The Exaudi has landed, but I've yet to focus attention upon it :(
All in good time! ;D Many thanks for offering to examine it!
If anyone else wants to see it, I would need to send it by regular mail. I just composed it on music paper, no computers or MIDI versions or anything.
No, I am not thinking of composing anything else. In fact, with the
Exaudi about 2/3 finished, I almost decided to stop, and in fact did stop for about two weeks, in the belief that it simply did not warrant my time.
But then I glanced through it one more time, and became rather enthused about the idea again, so I finished it.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on December 05, 2016, 01:06:18 AM
I'm very sorry to hear about it Cato, as I've been going through a lot of second-guessing lately as a composer.
I don't know if it's the right place to say or not, but I'm struggling to find another solution to my circular reasoning as a composer.
I've been planning the past two years, that I'll be going to university to further my status as a composer to the professional realm. (which I'm still finishing applications for)
But I have come to the dilemma that I may be just a big egotistical, delusional pipe-dreamer.
I don't know what other composers views/perspectives are on themselves as composers but feel like I've hit a brick wall.
Music has always been the only truly important thing to me in life, composing music foremost than studying music, is a part of my identity. What do I often do when I'm not composing? (Or working at my job), that's right; listening to music.
In fact, I'll probably be listening to music after typing this.
I don't know how this post will cone across to people, but I feel like I've hit a big existential and creative block.
Trying to analyse myself in the bigger picture too and I don't know if I can rationalise pursuing being a composer. Are we all just kookoo crazy? :'(
No, not even cuckoo crazy either! 8)
If you are not happy unless you are creating music, then by all means, get that music paper and smear it with ink! 8)
To be sure, making a living from it will be more than difficult. This is why
studying one's art and expanding one's experience - and analyzing that experience - will be most important for you. If you consider yourself an autodidact and have the talent to be one, then you could teach yourself. Study scores, scores, and more scores of the great composers! Read books on music by
Schoenberg, Berlioz, Rimsky-Korsakov, Walter Piston, and other composers. Books by obscure composers like
Tibor Serly and
Avenir de Monfred may interest you as well.
Composing without a true background in the basics - and beyond - will keep you an amateur forever.
Bump! Several years have gone past since the last entry...and 12 years have gone past (!) since I started this!
What has happened to Mark G. Simon, Scots John, Luke Ottevanger et al. ?
Anyway, after writing to our GMG member and blossoming composer Mark McD and discussing some things, I thought I would "bump" this topic again.
Three works in the past years I have resurrected.
Here is the score for the Piano Trio (piano and 2 violins) New Year's Resolution:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wnh1zexs3k2e9qv/New_Year%2527s_Resolution.pdf/file][url]http://www.mediafire.com/file/wnh1zexs3k2e9qv/New_Year%2527s_Resolution.pdf/file (http://[url)[/url]
And a MIDI "performance"!
http://www.mediafire.com/file/y53ua1yug5by5cy/New_Year%2527s_Resolution_%25282%2529.mp3/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/y53ua1yug5by5cy/New_Year%2527s_Resolution_%25282%2529.mp3/file)
My cantata Exaudi me for 9 voices, i.e. double SATB plus a solo soprano:
MIDI:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/db79ny3b2wqd4re/Exaudi_Me_%25283%2529.mp3/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/db79ny3b2wqd4re/Exaudi_Me_%25283%2529.mp3/file)
Score:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/bgm446csffvy8hy/Schulte_Exaudi_Me_with_keybd_-_2016-07-16_%25282%2529_%25281%2529_%25281%2529.pdf/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/bgm446csffvy8hy/Schulte_Exaudi_Me_with_keybd_-_2016-07-16_%25282%2529_%25281%2529_%25281%2529.pdf/file)
And in a more traditional vein, an Organ Prelude (originally - in a bowdlerized form - used at our wedding over 40 years ago):
Score:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/oj2e2oj0yxfxs1j/Organ_Prelude_%25281978%2529.mp3/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/oj2e2oj0yxfxs1j/Organ_Prelude_%25281978%2529.mp3/file)
MIDI:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/oj2e2oj0yxfxs1j/Organ_Prelude_%25281978%2529.mp3/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/oj2e2oj0yxfxs1j/Organ_Prelude_%25281978%2529.mp3/file)
Many thanks for your time!
I recently pm'd Mr Cato with these thoughts, but I thought I might also post it here as it might be interesting to see what others feel about them.
I think that being a composer, whether professional, amateur, successful or not, is a state of ones being, and not something that one might choose to be or not to be, that is the question. Like being an alcoholic or a drug addict, one might decide one day to no longer drink or to take the substances to which one is addicted and thereafter to never touch then again. However, to say that one is now no longer an addict, is untrue, one will always be an addict, only now, one who has found a way to simply not feed the addiction. Aye, there's the rub. And, having listened to some of the work you sent me, you certainly are an addict! Lol. That you indulge in mental composition from time to time, is both a great blessing and proof of my earlier statement. Actually I'm quite jealous of that ability. I can hear the next few bars and have a nebulous idea of where they might lead, but my process is much more chaotic I'm afraid.
On the subject of public disrobing, I think that having ones "soul" exposed to the general public, is perhaps a misconception on the part of the composer himself. That moment of extreme privacy when listening to a performance of ones own work, in public, I can only imagine. However, the public are not nor will ever be privy to the actual "soul" of the composer, only to what they imagine it to be, and each individuals perception will be unique. They will no doubt feel emotional and suppose that they have seen the innermost intimacies of it's creator. Some, who may have proclaimed themselves "critics", might actually go on to explain in great detail, for the benefit of those who they presume are less informed than they are, what the composer was trying to say and what his/her motivations and intentions were for the piece. This of course is all just self important supposition and ultimately, rubbish. I would even go so far as to say that the composer himself would probably not be truly capable of expressing in words, exactly what the piece means to him. If he could do that, then what was the point in writing it? I'm reminded of something I read once, about an exhibition for a very promising new artist, at which many critics were in attendance. A day later, all had written reviews with varying degrees of praise, analysis and conjecture. It was revealed some time later that the artist was in fact a 2 year old elephant. Alli lo dejo.
For me, the point of writing music, or to express oneself in any art form, is to excise something that cannot be expressed in any other way. So to feel exposed in such a manner as a composer, whilst quite possibly being inevitable, and therefore "real" as far as he is concerned, is actually a false imagining that the public has seen your true face, when in fact, they have only seen whatever they wanted to see, and will never see what is truly ones "soul". That vista is reserved only for you and God, (and I'm not even convinced he exists)!
I am really glad though, that you have found other avenues to let your obvious creativity out, after all, to not let the public in is one thing, but to deny yourself the pleasure of creation when one has an undeniable talent for it, is unforgivable.
Quote from: MarkMcD on September 22, 2019, 09:13:04 AM
I recently pm'd Mr Cato with these thoughts, but I thought I might also post it here as it might be interesting to see what others feel about them.
I think that being a composer, whether professional, amateur, successful or not, is a state of ones being, and not something that one might choose to be or not to be, that is the question. Like being an alcoholic or a drug addict, one might decide one day to no longer drink or to take the substances to which one is addicted and thereafter to never touch then again. However, to say that one is now no longer an addict, is untrue, one will always be an addict, only now, one who has found a way to simply not feed the addiction. Aye, there's the rub. And, having listened to some of the work you sent me, you certainly are an addict! Lol. That you indulge in mental composition from time to time, is both a great blessing and proof of my earlier statement. Actually I'm quite jealous of that ability. I can hear the next few bars and have a nebulous idea of where they might lead, but my process is much more chaotic I'm afraid.
On the subject of public disrobing, I think that having ones "soul" exposed to the general public, is perhaps a misconception on the part of the composer himself. That moment of extreme privacy when listening to a performance of ones own work, in public, I can only imagine. However, the public are not nor will ever be privy to the actual "soul" of the composer, only to what they imagine it to be, and each individuals perception will be unique. They will no doubt feel emotional and suppose that they have seen the innermost intimacies of it's creator. Some, who may have proclaimed themselves "critics", might actually go on to explain in great detail, for the benefit of those who they presume are less informed than they are, what the composer was trying to say and what his/her motivations and intentions were for the piece. This of course is all just self important supposition and ultimately, rubbish. I would even go so far as to say that the composer himself would probably not be truly capable of expressing in words, exactly what the piece means to him. If he could do that, then what was the point in writing it? I'm reminded of something I read once, about an exhibition for a very promising new artist, at which many critics were in attendance. A day later, all had written reviews with varying degrees of praise, analysis and conjecture. It was revealed some time later that the artist was in fact a 2 year old elephant. Alli lo dejo.
For me, the point of writing music, or to express oneself in any art form, is to excise something that cannot be expressed in any other way. So to feel exposed in such a manner as a composer, whilst quite possibly being inevitable, and therefore "real" as far as he is concerned, is actually a false imagining that the public has seen your true face, when in fact, they have only seen whatever they wanted to see, and will never see what is truly ones "soul". That vista is reserved only for you and God, (and I'm not even convinced he exists)!
I am really glad though, that you have found other avenues to let your obvious creativity out, after all, to not let the public in is one thing, but to deny yourself the pleasure of creation when one has an undeniable talent for it, is unforgivable.
Many thanks to
Mark McD. for taking the time to write such a nice commentary here.
To be sure, I agree with the first highlighted section more today than I did in the early 1980's, when the very idea of having people infer things about the composer's psyche seemed ever more unpleasant, especially when the composer has a family, and when the composer himself finds his own work spiritually upsetting (e.g. the cantata
Exaudi me).
Age, however, allows one to disregard many things! 0:)
40 years ago composing alone in a room - or writing stories - with a young family needing attention seemed to be the ultimate selfishness. And I am positive that it would have been a very selfish and deleterious choice. I am not the least upset about it.
(Yes, I know about family-man and double-wived
J.S. Bach. Somehow he managed it, so good for him!)