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...trj...
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« on: 12:28:54, 07-03-2008 » |
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Just as a bit of light Friday posting, the Times has a point-counterpoint piece on Karl Jenkins, written by Philip Clark and Classic FM's Darren Henley. Let rip - you know you want to! |
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #1 on: 12:49:05, 07-03-2008 » |
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Would it be unreasonable to say that Jenkins speaks the vernacular? while "less accessible" composers eschew musical jargon in favour of more technical language?
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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ahinton
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« Reply #2 on: 13:00:56, 07-03-2008 » |
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In the "Have your Say" section that follows this article, i've just posted
For all that Philip Clark's viewpoint is expressed in a rather hard-nosed fashion, I fear that it is largely correct. He does at least address a series of valid issues, whereas Darren Henley seems to concentrate almost exclusively on numbers of CD sales and box office receipts which, whatever they may or may not prove in the commercial world, offer no guarantees as to the value of the purchased product.
To decry other people's genuine and personal emotions as "soap opera" may indeed sound "élitist" (as Joan Denvir suggests above), but Philip Clark's use of the term "soap opera" to decry ersatz emotions cynically manufactured by commercially motivated manipulators is quite another matter altogether and it seems to me to be very much to the point.
I have no patience with the typically British habit of sneering at anything that's successful, but let's at least ascribe Mr Jenkins' success accurately - i.e. to commercial adroitness rather than to something else.
I once had a largely unwelcome review from Mr Clark, but that makes no difference to what I think about his writing here.
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ahinton
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« Reply #3 on: 13:04:42, 07-03-2008 » |
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Would it be unreasonable to say that Jenkins speaks the vernacular? while "less accessible" composers eschew musical jargon in favour of more technical language?
Not entirely, no - but then what possible future is this vernacular likely to have if what it offers is largely bland, cynically packaged nostalgia rather than challenging substance? (and by the latter I mean the kind of thing to be found in Elgar's symphonies just as much as in the music of Carter or Ferneyhough). The accessibility of composers whose music nevertheless can stand the test of time is, for the most part, a movable feast, like Easter, as history has demonstrated. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #4 on: 13:11:04, 07-03-2008 » |
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I teach a class on Music Journalism, and we discussed these two articles this morning - almost all of them felt that Philip's piece was considerably more well-argued and made pertinent points.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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time_is_now
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« Reply #5 on: 13:21:48, 07-03-2008 » |
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Jenkins is no one-hit wonder either ... his publisher reports a growing clamour for scores to his Stabat Mater, even before its sell-out debut performance in Liverpool next week. Spot the contradiction?  (How can demand for scores of an as-yet unheard piece be based on anything other than the success of a previous work?) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #6 on: 13:23:24, 07-03-2008 » |
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His early career as a jazz musician and as a member of the 1970s rock outfit Soft Machine gave him a completely different perspective, teaching him how to create music that had the primary objective of being entertaining. There are more than a few jazz musicians (and probably former Soft Machine members as well) who would take issue with that characterisation of their activities. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #7 on: 14:30:42, 07-03-2008 » |
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(How can demand for scores of an as-yet unheard piece be based on anything other than the success of a previous work?)
I am no fan on Jenkins's work, I must say. But let us say that a new work was expected from a composer whose work I greatly admired, and I knew the score would be available before the premiere... I for one would be interested in getting a copy. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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time_is_now
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« Reply #8 on: 15:34:47, 07-03-2008 » |
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let us say that a new work was expected from a composer whose work I greatly admired, and I knew the score would be available before the premiere... I for one would be interested in getting a copy.
So would I. But I wouldn't claim that was proof of the quality of the new work! |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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...trj...
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« Reply #9 on: 15:54:46, 07-03-2008 » |
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Maybe proof of the number of critics who've been asked to review the thing and are resorting to the score in the hope of finding something to say about it?  |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #10 on: 20:53:06, 07-03-2008 » |
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Maybe proof of the number of critics who've been asked to review the thing and are resorting to the score in the hope of finding something to say about it? Oh my, trj, I wish I had a camera to capture the look of sincerity on your face when you said that |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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gradus
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« Reply #11 on: 21:15:22, 07-03-2008 » |
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I like Mr Jenkin's Armed Man and found it very powerful in performance and I expect that I would like other pieces of his. Surely there's plenty of room for different musical styles. Having heard The Armed Man performed by amateur and professional forces it seems to me to do rather better in the hands and voices of amateur performers, stretched by its demands. There again I often enjoy amateur as much as professional musical performance - just as well as I live in an area where there its Hobson's Choice.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #12 on: 21:38:14, 07-03-2008 » |
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I don't want to sound like a snob but, while agreeing that there's plenty of room for "different musical styles", with the best will in the world I can't hear Karl Jenkins' work as anything but "pretend" music.
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« Last Edit: 21:47:21, 07-03-2008 by richard barrett »
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ahinton
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« Reply #13 on: 00:04:22, 08-03-2008 » |
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I don't want to sound like a snob but, while agreeing that there's plenty of room for "different musical styles", with the best will in the world I can't hear Karl Jenkins' work as anything but "pretend" music.
"Pretend", perhaps - but "music"? Well, let me not be the first to cast any stones whatsoever but, since another composer once reviewed a work of mine and questioned whether it was music, it occurs to me that if he was correct - and also if Mr Jenkins's work is indeed music - it would appear to be one point to Mr Jenkins and null points pour moi (not that this proves anything at all, of course). Anyway, let's now leave me out of it; "pretend" music is pretty much how the relatively small amount of Mr Jenkins' work that I have heard has so far struck me - and I find it quite upsetting since, of all things, music surely ought ideally to be the very last to admit of and resort to pretence for its own sake. That said, I do on the other hand wonder if Mr Jenkins - who surely at least knows what he's doing, on its own terms - is not "pretending" at all and that it just so happens that what he writes actually sounds like a pretence simply because of its apparent lack of genuine emotional and intellectual substance. |
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #14 on: 00:51:06, 08-03-2008 » |
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My own feeling is that Karl Jenkins serves a useful purpose in opening the door to more serious music (than his own, by association) for people willing to listen. It's up to the listeners who decide to go through the door to decide how many, and which, musical rooms they choose to explore after that.
There must be people out there whose first experience of serious music is something edgy and avant-garde, and who get hooked as a result, but I think they are probably in the minority.
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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