Some recent exchanges on the ‘Barrett at Spitalfields’ thread have raised a number of questions about what might loosely be termed “modern music”. First might be mentioned the views of one ‘SimonSagt!’ who wrote the following:

This was followed closely by a missive from The Doctor – the admirable Sydney Grew – whose renowned skill at camouflaging a mere instant verbosity by applying sophisticated syntax resulted in this outpouring:


According to the impulsive Mr Sagt!, the following constitute his thought-out ‘criteria’ for MUSIC: it must be

real
crafted
composed
decent
tuneful
creative
honest
uplifting

One must assume that these immediately split into other subcategories: since a piece of music performed is (in fact) ‘real’, and since its very presence can only have resulted from ‘creativity’ (since before its actual creation it did not exist), and furthermore since in order for it to have come into existence it must have been ‘composed’, we are left with only the following requirements:

Crafted
Decent
Tuneful
Honest
Uplifting

From these, I rule out immediately the ‘decent’ and the ‘honest’ since such terms do not describe the actual substance but only another person’s view of the impact or quality of that substance (which is therefore subjective). We are therefore left with:

Crafted
Tuneful
Uplifting

I now come to the crux of my question: has Music composed (and played!) by current contemporary musicians become entrenched in a kind of Religion or Cult (with an accompanying band of adherents and recusants)? This is intended as a serious question!

Many who might think of themselves as ‘catholic’ in taste seem to be upset by what they see as a kind of strict ‘methodism’ creeping into contemporary music. They are, it seems, understandably worried by the emphasis placed upon things like ‘composition procedure’, ‘serialism’, ‘new complexity’, ‘controlled aleatoricism’ and the like, and wonder what has happened to humanity and its natural expressiveness.  It has become so bad that whereas we all understood the old adage “Familiarity breeds contempt” we now have to understand a priori (for them) that “UNfamiliarity breeds contempt”. One poster on that thread (good old A) is quite open:


I have a more fundamental question, however, to address to our ‘resident’ composers. Those of us who know (or have managed to work out!) the identities of “ahinton”, “martle”, “aaron cassidy”, “quartertone”, and (of  course) “Richard Barrett” will know very well that we are interacting here with well-established composers whose music is widely published, performed and broadcast. It is, of course, highly unfortunate that at least the last three on the list (including, most unfortunately of all, “Richard Barrett” – the source of the thread concerned) no longer post on this thread, But that leaves at least two on the list (and there may be others whose identities I have not yet worked out – give me a bit longer!).

I should like to know from them this: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HUMAN EMOTION AND EXPRESSION IN MUSIC?

Music used to express things like ‘joy’, ‘sadness’, ‘tragedy’, ‘pathos’. It used also to evince things like ‘dance’, ‘pastime’, ‘pleasure’. It has also spent much of its time enhancing things like ‘poetry’ and ‘drama’. Often there has been what might be called ‘a tune’, and sometimes (with great effect) an absence of such.

When I attended the Barrett concert I witnessed a group of highly-skilled and dedicated performers who gave a totally professional and polished rendition of some testing and difficult music requiring improvisation skills that would have been the envy of ANY 18th-century composer or performer. BUT…

…where was the ‘joy’, the ‘emotion’, the ‘meaning’, the ‘connection’? Indeed, where was there ANYTHING AT ALL with which humans of even medium intelligence present could connect? Were we just supposed to be ‘swept along’? (This would be unlikely considering the severity and sophistication of the performance). Why were the performers expressing NOTHING at all (as shown by their faces, their lack of movements and gestures – even before tackling the supposed ‘inner meaning’ of the music)?

Perhaps it is therefore up to the COMPOSERS to convey to US why they write what they do, and what they expect from us (as paying listeners) in return. This is not a complicated or ‘big’ question to ask, and it should therefore be quite a simple question for them to answer!

It is obvious that at any time in history there has always been ‘the new’ – in music, if this were not the case, polyphony would still sound like that practised at Notre Dame in the 12th century. Composers through the ages have been extending and developing the range and ambitus of what is ‘acceptable’ – harmonically, tonally, rhythmically, improvisationally etc. etc.

What is it that today’s composers feel they are extending, and where exactly are they trying to take it (and us)?

Baz

What a question! And how many possible responses...

I'm not a composer, but I do perform (when I get the opportunity) new music in a wide variety of styles.

One possible short answer - not meant facetiously - is that contemporary music is a broad church...

I'm not so sure about the sentiments embedded in  "Music used to express things like ‘joy’, ‘sadness’, ‘tragedy’, ‘pathos’. It used also to evince things like ‘dance’, ‘pastime’, ‘pleasure’. It has also spent much of its time enhancing things like ‘poetry’ and ‘drama’. Often there has been what might be called ‘a tune’, and sometimes (with great effect) an absence of such."

I wonder how far Perotin et al thought in terms of emotion, or that they were enhancing the texts they were using? Not much, I would guess. The 'science' of composition was at least as important an aspect as any other. I think we have to take care not to impose 19th century ie Romantic notions (and incidentally those still current for many listeners - myself included) onto music from earlier times. And perhaps by thinking in that direction it might be easier to grasp some of the (equally unRomantic) aesthetics of more recent music.

Another helpful mindgame might be to remember that the listener is free to impose onto a piece any thoughts/ feelings/ emotions he/she might have, and that they will almost certainly be unconnected with any intentions of that sort that the composer may have had; their compositional concerns - surely as true for Beethoven as for - well, you fill in the blanks! -were probably more pressing than any need to "express" anything.

I'm not sure that the onus is on composers to explain themselves - rather, it is for listeners to be open-minded, and accept that one cannot expect to be moved by everything one hears (also to remember that so many other factors other than the notes themselves that come into our overall perception of a piece).

This reminds me of the old apocryphal exam question "Is this a question" to which the only correct answer seems to be "If that is a question, this is an answer". So when I ask you for your thoughts, instead of giving them, you merely question the validity of my inquiry by politely censuring me for 'possibly' not having read the 'countless other' threads on this issue (which, of course, I have been reading).

This, in a nutshell, is the problem posed to many who attend contemporary music concerts - they feel humiliated because there seems to be an assumption that they somehow 'should' be au fait with what they are to experience, and that if it turns out that they were not it is somehow their own fault.

Why, dear martle, can you not just give a simple response?

Baz

Thank you, Baz, for raising these questions in an intelligent and precise way. I don't think anyone could do justice to them in a single post, besides which I personally prefer conversation to an exchange of monologues, but my immediate responses are:

No, I don't believe it has, or at least any such appearances have been imposed on it from outside rather than created by the wishes of practitioners. My own musical tastes, as you must have seen, are rather broad, and I see what I do as fitting into a broad view of what exists and is possible in music rather than existing as some separate entity.


Such worries, I think, emerge mostly from the idea that the "emphasis" you mention is inherent to the music itself rather than what composers and others say about it. I don't think this is generally the case. As for "natural expressiveness" all I can do is to ask you to believe that this is exactly how I see what I'm doing - there is, admittedly, more to it than that, but I really don't think it's necessary at all to take all that additional apparatus on board in order to find one's way as a listener to the humanity and expression of the music. How can I make such an assertion? Because it's my own experience. As a musically untutored and pretty average teenager I found my way to the music of Stockhausen and other contemporary composers (through my local record library), and not only these, knowing nothing of the workings of this or any other music and having no guide to it. Since becoming involved in creating music myself, which back then I thought of as an impossibly exalted ambition that I had no hope of coming anywhere near, I have always thought that if that was possible for me there's no reason to think it shouldn't be possible for others, in a perfectly human and natural way.


If I haven't answered this question yet, all I can say is: just listen. There are things which are different about a lot of today's music in terms of what it's expressing and why, in comparison with 19th century music (which seems somehow to have laid down a paradigm for what music should be and do to which many people still adhere even in these very different times), but they are no greater than the differences between 19th century music and (since you mention it) 12th century music. Is the music of Pérotin concerned with "joy, sadness, tragedy and pathos" in the same way as that of Brahms? No: it was a creative human response to a whole different world. It speaks to us down the ages because of the authenticity and humanity of its response to that world.

I can only speak for one of today's composers, but my answer is: they aren't trying to "take" you anywhere, they're trying to provide a starting point for you to make your own journey. An authentic creative response to the world we live in and our relation to it admits in my opinion of no certainty, no "fundamental values", but instead a sense of possibility and discovery which one would hope is one of the things which communicates itself most clearly to a listener.

I think that will do from me for now!

I do thank you for that Richard - what you have written is something with which I can interact meaningfully. I don't know about others (and don't really care), but I feel you have responded in a positive way.

Please don't unsubscribe from this forum again - things are going to get better here (believe me!).

Best,

Baz

Thanks Baz. And sorry RM for not reading your last post before saying many of the same things myself.

I do have some sympathy with Martle's first response in so far as these are issues which some of the musicians (and especially the composers) on these boards have been busy with for some time, but I think also that many of those discussions had a tendency to become somewhat exclusive... it's a conviction of mine that the most important things to say about (any) music can be said without specialised terminology and erudite concepts.

So, composers, what is the current and future function (for you) of 'melody', 'harmony', 'structure', and 'balance'?

Are these age-old qualities now redundant, or do they still have some place?

Answers on a postcard please!

Baz