Composers before originality....

[snyprrr]

(puts helmet on)

[Luke]

I haven't got to the end of this thread yet, but I see there's some pleasant exchange going on... Never mind, I'm only here to comment on an earlier, uncontentious post:

Janacek: Lachian Dances

That's a style he worked in for quite a while, though, and he was doing so at the same time as he matured. There's definitely something of the later Janacek in there, and in the 'op 3' Suite, and other such pieces - some parts of Jenufa (the folksong parts, obviously) are not a million miles away, even if more sophisticated and much more fraught with significance. For the really pre-original Janacek you need to go to the string orchestra pieces, the Suite and the Idyll, but even here - in fact, in everything Janacek wrote early on, even his very early organ pieces (that's about as far back as you can usefully go with Janacek) - you can find the seeds of what came later.

[Luke]

I agree, I think, with much of what Toucan wrote in his first post on this thread. The idea that the great artists become who they are by getting rid of everything else is one I've talked about on my composing thread in the past (far too much, probably). In the case of someone like Janacek, this was explicitly, deliberately, almost scientifically so. Firstly, a composer absorbs, and very often, I sometimes think, absorbs almost everything - anecdotally I'd suspect that composers are particularly voracious listeners, with large appetites for as much and as varied music as they can get their hands on (with the motive, perhaps, not just of enjoying the new music, but of finding something in it, some principle or idea, that they themselves 'chime' with and which will be fruitful for them). But then once the ideas are absorbed, the worthwhile composer is able to take what they need from it and discard the rest, so that what is left is truly personal, not a mix of disparate elements but a style that is fully - and very likely only-  representative of its composer.

The only thing I disagree with in Toucan's post, at least at first reading, is this idea that I've seen him post before, and which has gone unchallenged, that Arvo Part is a regressive medievalist (in the last post he placed him with Penderecki as someone trying to 'return to the past'). Obviously there is something in Part's music which strikes the listener as reminiscent of older music...but beyond the obvious it's hard to put the finger on precisely what that is, or precisely which earlier music is being returned to, and that is for the good reason that Part's techniques are not derived from medieval or other sources, they are entirely his own. Clearly the music of the past is important to Part, but it's misleading to suggest that he is simply ressurecting the old techniques.

[Luke]

Yea, it's called 'finding your own voice' Luke, have you successfully found yours? Just curious.

I hope so James, in the last 5 or 6 years I think that is what hapened (certainly felt like it at the time). I suppose it is for others to say, though. Note, I'm not saying that the music is good (though I hope it is, of course), just that I think it has a cohesive and individual style (again, I hope)

[Luke]

Believe me, I stuggled, I agonised; and believe me, it - the process, I mean, and not just in my case but as a process which I think composers need to go through - is something I thought about pretty deeply (my own thoughts, as they happened, are on my thread, all documented, at least some of them). As I say, I'm making no great claims for the results, but that's not the subject here.

[ibanezmonster]

It's way harder to find your own voice in 2011 than it was in 1811...

[Brian]

Agreed, Greg, and for that reason I think the best advice to give Daniel is...

That is an interesting quote. What do you think composers should do now then? As a composer myself, I am always been told that my music is too romantic in style and that it needs to move forward to a more up to date style, i.e modernist (as such). Is this necissary when so many other composers have done/are doing this? Maybe now is a time to look back and revisit older styles and add little differences.... a major idea will need to be thought of in the next few ideas otherwise the arts won't be able to move forward at all!

...don't let anybody ever tell you your musical voice is wrong. Your voice is never wrong - it's just yours, is all. You have plenty of time to go from being "too romantic" to being something nobody has heard before. No rush. It took Janacek long enough.

[ibanezmonster]

 

a major idea will need to be thought of in the next few ideas decades? otherwise the arts won't be able to move forward at all!

I'm assuming a minor typo- Daniel probably meant to say "decades" or something like that, I'd imagine, but this is a thought I've had, too, recently. Where is the next major school of classical music? The most recent I can think of started from the '70s- spectral music. It's okay to not be as crazy and spawning as many new styles as the first half of the 20th century did (that'll never happen again), but 40 years is quite a while. I could be overlooking a school, but if I am, it's likely not major enough, anyways, if I've never heard of it.

As long as composer try to just be themselves, eventually there will be someone who attracts enough followers to create a new school of music...

[eyeresist]

I felt that Brahms was pretty original right out of the gates and in many of his early works.  Think of the string sextets as an example, or the early piano sonatas.

Remember of course that Brahms destroyed much of his early work in his last years, to "protect" his reputation. As with all artists, he began by imitation. Then they develop their own personality (if they have any), which only the most pedantic would insist means rejecting all outside influence (which is in fact impossible).

But then, I think it was Cary Grant who said that if you make the same mistake often enough, they call it your style!

[starrynight]

The great ones do not fuse together the inventions of others - they disengage themselves from the influence of others. Thus Beethoven disengaging himself from Haydn with the Third Symphony

And then re-engaging with his 8th for example?

The idea that a composer goes from being just an imitator to then finding a completely original voice may be too simplified.  Different influences in different periods could well be likely.

I'm assuming a minor typo- Daniel probably meant to say "decades" or something like that, I'd imagine, but this is a thought I've had, too, recently. Where is the next major school of classical music? The most recent I can think of started from the '70s- spectral music. It's okay to not be as crazy and spawning as many new styles as the first half of the 20th century did (that'll never happen again), but 40 years is quite a while. I could be overlooking a school, but if I am, it's likely not major enough, anyways, if I've never heard of it.

As long as composer try to just be themselves, eventually there will be someone who attracts enough followers to create a new school of music...

Maybe if there is still enough to explore in particular kinds of music there isn't the impetus to really create a new schools?  And a new school, a new kind of style (which is often probably a mix of older styles), isn't necessarily that great at the start anyway, it may be when it matures later that it really fulfills what it is capable of.

[madaboutmahler]

It's way harder to find your own voice in 2011 than it was in 1811...

Certainly....   

...don't let anybody ever tell you your musical voice is wrong. Your voice is never wrong - it's just yours, is all. You have plenty of time to go from being "too romantic" to being something nobody has heard before. No rush. It took Janacek long enough.

Thank you Brian.

I think I will continue this idea of "where should music go after modernism" in another topic now.

Another original opus 1!
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no.1
(until he drastically changed his style in his later life)

Daniel

[Opus106]

I haven't got to the end of this thread yet, but I see there's some pleasant exchange going on... Never mind, I'm only here to comment on an earlier, uncontentious post:

That's a style he worked in for quite a while, though, and he was doing so at the same time as he matured. There's definitely something of the later Janacek in there, and in the 'op 3' Suite, and other such pieces - some parts of Jenufa (the folksong parts, obviously) are not a million miles away, even if more sophisticated and much more fraught with significance. For the really pre-original Janacek you need to go to the string orchestra pieces, the Suite and the Idyll, but even here - in fact, in everything Janacek wrote early on, even his very early organ pieces (that's about as far back as you can usefully go with Janacek) - you can find the seeds of what came later.

Given the limited amount of J.'s music I have heard, I obviously placed him much closer to Dvorák than I perhaps ought to have.

[Grazioso]

During the XXth Century people ofter wondered where the Arts could go after modernism. The answer so far: nowhere. The West has been exhausted by that last gap effort of creativity.

One answer so far: postmodernism (see Schnittke, for example). Another answer: return to the roots of Western music (see Pärt, already discussed). Another answer: bypass modernist experimentation and write using conventional tonality and structures, as so many composers have done. I think the ruptures created by modernist music are only problematic if a composer feels compelled to respond to them. Only a gullible person would believe tonality is exhausted, the symphony is dead, etc.

It's a fool's errand to consciously try to write "original" music, in the sense of introducing some radical stylistic novelty, because over time, the possibilities for such novelty grow more and more scant. After things like 4'33" and the Helicopter Quartet, what are you going to do for attention?

http://www.youtube.com/v/8sLNOhA7C2Q

[Mirror Image]

Puh-lease.

His whole post is ignorant and is in no way, shape, or form a positive step forward to appreciating and preserving music. Music WILL die as long as people like Toucan continue to believe it's dead.

[eyeresist]

Indeed, in the twentieth century, we have witnessed a decadence of a tonal system that was as obviously aa spent a force as the Bourbon dynasty of France was a spent force by the late eighteenth century. A decadence that is obvious as early as Sibelius and Rachmaninoff - their common failure to renew tonality by means of novelties comparable to Schubert's and Schumann's and Liszt and Wagner and Mahler - a decadence that becomes catastrophic with the collapse into mere fabrication effected by Dmitri Shostakovich ...

... The kind of nonsense people end up writing when they take Adorno seriously (which the intellectual equivalent of taking singing lessons from Marcel Marceau).

[eyeresist]

.. No. It's the kind of observations people make when they have the ears to distinguish between the creative phase of a historical movement and it's senility - between youth and old age.

Can you categorise the specific technical differences between creative and decadent phases - with examples?

[eyeresist]

The issue is not a technical one. The tonal system is fundamentaly the same in Monteverdi as in Mahler - just as the twelve-tone method is the same in Schoenberg, Berg and Webern - and just like the sonata form, which (in theory) will always entail a primary and a secondary theme, development, and re-exposition, is the same whether used by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms. The issue is whether the system or the form inspires composers to great music - or not.

"Or not" has been in fashion for centuries, as you know. Mediocre music is not a recent innovation. However, you would say, the old failures were individual whereas the recent ones are the inevitable result of the "system of composition" "losing steam". This is based on your finding recent music (a whole century's worth!) weak and uninspired. But those who find good music throughout the century will disagree. There is no way to resolve this disagreement, because the ultimate arbiter is personal taste.
My own feeling is that there has been a decline, due partly to canonisation of the old concert repertoire, and partly due to Modernism's breaking of tradition's back. An organic tradition was replaced by an academic construction. Love of beauty was replaced by ideological concerns (Western tonality is bourgeois decadence!). Perhaps what music needs is not a new system, but an end to criticism.

[Grazioso]

Symphonies. Of course one can. But tonality in the twentieth century has not produced masterpieces to compare with the production of the great tonal composers from Monteverdi to Mahler.

Mahler wrote half his symphonies in the 20th century.

Personally I see no future for music, the Arts, the West.

Well, folks, music is over. You may go home now.

methods denotative only of prejudice, superficiality and ignorance.

imitative non-entities

You were saying?

[karlhenning]

. . . and just like the sonata form, which (in theory) will always entail a primary and a secondary theme, development, and re-exposition, is the same whether used by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms.

So the monothematic sonata pieces which Haydn (and no few composers since) wrote, don't count? . . .

[Grazioso]

So the monothematic sonata pieces which Haydn (and no few composers since) wrote, don't count? . . .

Charles Rosen's The Classical Style offers a detailed corrective.