OK - and interesting points, without doubt - but Skryabin's proposed Mysterium dated from the years immediately preceding WWI and faltered just as (and perhaps even to some extent because) WWI "progressed", so it hardly qualifies under the "contemporary music" part of the thread topic, even though its "cult" aspect may arguably still be perceived as somehow pertinent. I've not heard the Nemtin realisations of those surviving and fleshed-out parts of it that have been presented in more recent times, but I suspect that, notwithstanding these, we still know relatively little as to how Skryabin's vision in this project might eventually have manifested itself had he survived a few more years, although the very fact of WWI may well have derailed that vision almost entirely in any case, so any speculation about it seems inevitably multi-layered and arguably dubious.

Best,

Alistair

I realised that, although it did seem to be made (as have several other recent comments in this thread) under the misapprehension that it was Mr Grew who had proposed the question 'Has contemporary music now become merely a Religious Cult?'

Agreed to all the pleas for sensible continuation of this thread, in among the jokes. I meant to say various things myself when the thread was started but never quite found the time, I'm afraid. I think most of them have been said by others, in one form or another, although I will return to them when it seems appropriate. In the meantime, I'm reading Richard's, Ena's, CD's and others' contributions with much interest. May I also recommend Mr Jonathan Powell's unexpected but welcome contribution as having made some valuable clarifications as a possible basis for further discussion?

Personally, no. Because I have any contempt for that work? No. Because I am not Shostakovich? Yes.

No, indeed - if you are a composer worthy of the name, you'd do your own thing, not Shostakovich's. Shostakovich did, after all -and he was one of the great figures in the music of the last century.

Er - let's take that one apart and have a look at it. Here we have (or rather you present) a mythical person who is lacking in musical ideas, has scant interest in harmony and is apparently possessed of some kind of bizarre desire to "fit" five "consecutive notes" into a tired Australian ditty, yet you claim for him/her that he/she will nevertheless "write the sort of random and unmemorable stuff referred to earlier, dress it up in complex-looking notation and give it a trendy and meaningless title"; I shudder to imagine with what areas of humanity you consort...

And if you're really unlucky, you can read the effusive and infantile prattlings of one SimonSagt!

And there I was, along with millions of others,thinkg that "those who can't, teach"; clearly, I and those others were/are unprepared for your remarkable originality of thought. But to be serious; those who, as you most patronisingly claim, "can't compose great music", do not, for the most part, pretend to anything at all outside your perverse imagination; for example, I'm sure that I can't "write great music", but I do not pretend to do anything, thanks...

I hate to disappoint or undermine you for what might seem to be the sake of it, but I really cannot  hold back from reminding you - as clearly you need to be reminded - that you didn't, as it happens, invent the art of patronising composers, for all that you may thnk otherwise. In the meantime, I shall continue to try to "write good music" "by means of extensive and conscientious effort and solid hard work" in the hope that I can somehow manage to earn just a few scraps of your so generously dispensed "credit".

Quite how you contrive to live with yourself when you hold to such ill-considered and indiscriminately damning views about present-day music is so far beyond me as to be outside any hope of comprehension, but that's almost certainly no bad thing...

Best,

Alistair

Fair point, although I'm sure it was entirely "contemporary" at the time it was written   It depends if we are discussing merely one alleged "crisis" in music-writing (the one which we happen to live alongside) or a more general trend in which music is perceived (or misperceived) by the audiences who first hear it?

The term "contemporary music" seems to be extremely elastic - the period it covers might begin with Debussy, or with Britten, or Stockhausen, or the year 2000,  or indeed only what's been produced since 01/01/2007, depending on what kind of "point" you are trying to make.  It's a term which seems heavily loaded, often with highly pejorative accretions of meaning, and the amorphous form of this "discussion" (which has rarely aimed higher than Aladdin's meeting with the Grand Vizier - "Ooooh no it isn't!" vs "Ooooh yes it is!") is probably due to this very open-ended interpretation

Aren't the chances that such a work would be a mere pastiche? Part of the impact of a masterpiece is that it is totally fresh: a new departure. As it happens, there was very much a vogue for this sort of thing in the middle part of the last century, but using Rachmaninov rather than Shostakovich as a model; out poured The Legend of the Glass Mountain, The Dream of Olwen, and countless other paler imitations of his concerto style. They were popular and loved by millions, but they weren't masterpieces.

Who exactly decides that a work is great, anyway? Popular acclaim is not necessarily a sign of greatness: it can just as likely be a case of lowest common denominator appeal. Any work which sets out with the sole intent of being a crowd-pleaser is likely to have to make artistic compromises. The works that Shostakovich considered his finest weren't the ones written to order for public adulation, but the ones which were banned or quietly withdrawn when it became obvious that the powers in control were going to condemn them out of hand.

 In the long run, the artist who does what he feels he must do regardless will be the one who produces works of integrity. Often only time will tell whether the risk paid off: over and again composers have had the last laugh from beyond the grave, as works derided in their own time have taken their place in the canon of established masterpieces, whilst conversely other works have had brief glory and fizzled out of favour even within their creators' lifetimes.

 In the end, what decides a work's greatness is its immortality. None of us can tell which of these works will have earned their place of glory in a hundred years time, not least because the whole landscape of music is mutating before our eyes. Orchestras may all but have vanished: the whole way in which people experience music may have evolved in ways we can't as yet imagine. Given how rapidly the world and music have developed over the last century, it's a pretty safe bet that by the end of this one, new norms will have been established, and that it's not unlikely that at least some of the myriad styles of contemporary music will be the forerunners of major new movements, regardless of what any singular contemporary individual may think of them.

Upon reading this fine contribution from Mr. Sagt we get that rare feeling of absolute natural and seemingly effortless rightness which comes for example from listening to a superlative performance of a Brandenburg Concerto or of one of Mozart's later Piano Concertos. Whereas of most of the other messages in this thread we struggle to make anything much at all. They do indeed worry at a fetiche.

There's no need to be sarcastic, Alistair. As I haven't knowingly heard any of your music, I couldn't comment on any of it. For all I know, you might write tremendous stuff that I would really enjoy. And, whether you agree with most of my views as expressed on here or not, surely if I - or anyone else - genuinely enjoyed and was moved by something you'd written, you'd be pleased, wouldn't you? I know I would, if I were a composer.

But as to the general point, I'm confident that, with a combination of natural talent and conscientious hard work most people can be successful. Those two things are all that are needed - along with the wisdom to decide which talent you have in the first place so that you can work at it. I wish every honest composer well - the more good music in the world, the better!

bws S-S!