Is the composer obsolete?

[jochanaan]

I think I meant when composers made a large part of their living from composing, rather than selling insurance or running a government agency. I believe that was the substance of abe's point after all.

Composers have almost never made a large part of their living from composing.  The great masters of the past made most of their living from playing music.

[jochanaan]

...experimental fields that have no appeal whatsoever to the listener....

There are listeners who actually like those "experimental fields." The trick is in informing them about one's concerts.

[Karl Henning]

As with all the arts, composers today have to compete with an ever increasing body of music from the past. To create something that is at least distinguishable therefore becomes ever more difficult [...]

I'm not certain this follows. The competition with the great sea of lit of the past, makes itself felt most in trying to get "air time."

Creating music of one's own voice, distinguishable from other voices, I think is at once only as difficult as Beethoven or Berlioz found it, and in a sense easier because our environment is richer still, richer than ever.

It has always been a question depending on the perception of the listener. To anyone who gives the music fair ear, I think my own voice (for instance) will not be lazily conflated with any composer other.

[Monsieur Croche]

There are listeners who actually like those "experimental fields." The trick is in informing them about one's concerts.

...but, once you're there, you know you're in the right place. The composers and performers are all wearing lab coats, a dead giveaway.

[jochanaan]

...but, once you're there, you know you're in the right place. The composers and performers are all wearing lab coats, a dead giveaway.

Lab coats?  No, the wave of the future is jeans around one's hips and caps worn backwards.  Or less.

[Ten thumbs]

There are listeners who actually like those "experimental fields." The trick is in informing them about one's concerts.

This is true but I must say I didn't mean all experimental fields. Some are valuable, others are not.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Well, as long as people aren't trying to go against Mother Nature and human wellbeing, I'm all for any experimentation. I'd gladly plunge myself into the unknown.

[Karl Henning]

Well, as long as people aren't trying to go against Mother Nature and human wellbeing, I'm all for any experimentation.

I have actually had grown adults try to argue that syncopation was physically detrimental to one's heart rate.  They really just meant that they disliked pop music;  explain to them how much syncopation is in Mozart, and their brain explodes.

[Monsieur Croche]

I have actually had grown adults try to argue that syncopation was physically detrimental to one's heart rate.  They really just meant that they disliked pop music;  explain to them how much syncopation is in Mozart, and their brain explodes.

... whatever you do, don't tell them that Bach was more than a little big on starting many a piece out on the anacrusis, because that would melt the minds of those for whom Bach's music is a near visitation/embodiment of 'the deity.' Imagining the deity swingin' 'n' stompin' the universe to a boogie beat, as it were, might be more than a little traumatic for some.

[Cato]

I have actually had grown adults try to argue that syncopation was physically detrimental to one's heart rate.  They really just meant that they disliked pop music;  explain to them how much syncopation is in Mozart, and their brain explodes.

That reminds me of the very silly book Dionysus Rising by a supposed Roman Catholic intellectual named E. Michael Jones, who claimed in this book that the adultery of Schoenberg's wife in the free-love atmosphere of fin de siecle Vienna led Schoenberg to "free tonality" and therefore to chaos and immorality.   

He also basically claimed that Wagner's chromaticism in league with Schoenberg's "emancipation of the dissonance" led directly to the immoralities of the 1960's and 1970's, and that Catholics would be committing serious sins by listening to their music.     All of this would be news to several popes and many bishops throughout the years known to love Wagnerian opera!   0:)

[ritter]

That reminds me of the very silly book Dionysus Rising by a supposed Roman Catholic intellectual named E. Michael Jones, ...

I had never encountered that name...read the précis of some of his books (including the one you mentioned) and the word "wacky" instantly comes to mind! 

[Karl Henning]

One of those books (whether the author realizes it or not) which is written for entertainment purposes only . . . .

[ritter]

One of those books (whether the author realizes it or not) which is written for entertainment purposes only . . . .

The Florence Foster Jenkins of cultural critique? 

[Monsieur Croche]

One of those books (whether the author realizes it or not) which is written for entertainment purposes only . . . .

It would be a most dubious distinction, but you had me just envisioning a bricks n mortar bookstore, with in each section, sociology, musicology, lit crit, etc. a sub-category of, "Inadvertently Funny."

[Cato]

I had never encountered that name...read the précis of some of his books (including the one you mentioned) and the word "wacky" instantly comes to mind!

From the vast Cato archives - under a topic called "Morality in Music?" - we have this:

Quote from: Cato on October 26, 2006, 04:40:52 AM

The astonishing tome to read on this is one by the "I must've inhaled some wacky tobacky" culture warrior E. Michael Jones...

Some years ago he was banned by a Catholic publication: the wackiness just got out of hand.   

[Karl Henning]

Hah!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

That reminds me of the very silly book Dionysus Rising by a supposed Roman Catholic intellectual named E. Michael Jones, who claimed in this book that the adultery of Schoenberg's wife in the free-love atmosphere of fin de siecle Vienna led Schoenberg to "free tonality" and therefore to chaos and immorality.   

He also basically claimed that Wagner's chromaticism in league with Schoenberg's "emancipation of the dissonance" led directly to the immoralities of the 1960's and 1970's, and that Catholics would be committing serious sins by listening to their music.     All of this would be news to several popes and many bishops throughout the years known to love Wagnerian opera!   0:)

Like parachutes, a mind doesn't work if it isn't open.

Are these immoralitis in reference to Vietnam? I don't think Schoenberg would have advocated for that at all...........

[North Star]

Like parachutes, a mind doesn't work if it isn't open.

Are these immoralitis in reference to Vietnam? I don't think Schoenberg would have advocated for that at all...........

I'd guess it's more in reference to free love and drugs. There was plenty of war before and after Vietnam.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I'd guess it's more in reference to free love and drugs. There was plenty of war before and after Vietnam.

Well, these things that existed in the 60s and 70s have always existed all over the world..........perhaps they became more famous in the 60s and 70s? I don't know because I wasn't born yet and I know little about history, politics and even less about religion.

[Sergeant Rock]

Well, these things that existed in the 60s and 70s have always existed all over the world..........perhaps they became more famous in the 60s and 70s? I don't know because I wasn't born yet and I know little about history, politics and even less about religion.

I was there (the 60s) and I think North Star is correct. The rallying cry (that was derided by the conservative establishment) was, Make love, not war.

Sarge