Ok, so I've just finished a big piece for symphony orchestra (SO), and will probably be starting another in pretty short order. This last one doesn't 'frighten any horses' (as Ron Dough might have it  ) in its approach to the ensemble; but the next might - and depending on how others react to this thread I could say more about that in the future.

But for now, how do we feel about the future of this 250-ish-year-old institution in terms of new music/ the 21st century? Aware as I'm sure most of us are of the innovations by the likes of Ligeti, Berio, Boulez etc, in the last, how might music for SO develop in this one? Should we bother at all? Is it hopelessly outdated now that new media, new approaches to creativity/ improvisation, new cultural priorities seem to be in the ascendant? And what of the old annual SO chestnuts - the Proms commissions/ the various competitions; or the 'whither a second performance' debate?

Composers like Richard have shown an interest in innovating from within the concept of the 'orchestral', as a way of projecting larger compositional (or indeed cultural/political) concerns. Is this a/ the way forward, amongst others?

"Composers like Richard" have the distinct and arguably unfair advantage over most of the rest of us would-be orchestral composers in that he is so aptly forenamed...

OK, sorry - back to the topic, which is indeed a serious and interesting one, all that I would add to which at this point is that I have no desire to witness the SO becoming - or even coming to be generally regarded as - a moribund institution or one increasingly pilloried for its ability only to present scores from bygone ages, for that would do neither itself nor any of us composers any good at all, methinks - and if you're eavesdropping on this, Mr Lebrecht, please do us all a favour by confining yourself to that rather than using the ensuing debate as an excuse to pitch in with your inevitable and predictable homilies on the long and painful international death of the SO...

Best,

Alistair

I've been thinking about this one for a bit since martle opened the thread. Considering that the full-size symphony orchestra as we know it is fundamentally a product of the nineteenth-century (during which period it expanded significantly in size, with composers developing various innovative new ways of treating it), I'm surprised that there has been so relatively little innovation in writing for the medium over the last half-century or so. Stockhausen's Gruppen certainly used the orchestra like it had never been so before, various composers including Xenakis and Nono experimented with other spatial distributions of the orchestra, Lachenmann managed, perhaps more radically than anyone else, to develop his notion of instrumental musique concrète over a whole symphony orchestra (with incredible refinement and subtlety), and there have been a few other attempts to rethinking the whole medium (Barrett Vanity springs to mind, and the examples mentioned by martle). However, these seem very much the exception rather than the rule. In the UK at least, and to some extent elsewhere, orchestral commissions do have a high prestige value and can lead to that rather silly mode of judgement, whereby a composer is seen to have 'come of age' when they have proved they can write an orchestral piece (with 'good orchestration' and the like). There's absolutely no intrinsic reason why an orchestra piece should, by virtue of the medium alone, be any more significant than a work for solo instrument, say. But the orchestra as a medium brings so much baggage with it, both in terms of the large degrees of inertia brought about by traditions of orchestral playing and the notorious hostility of orchestral players to most things new (an issue which most definitely applies on an international scale), but also the inevitable connotations of grandiosity that the sheer size of the medium brings about. Composers are, if they wish to be played by the major orchestras, obliged to adhere to the essentials of the instrumentation - massed strings but not massed woodwind or brass (at least not on the same level - one may be able to have eight horns, but a work with sixteen trombones is less likely to get many performances - the one place this can be compensated for is through having the huge percussion sections that adorn the back of the stage at many a new music concert). And generally they thus end up demonstrating some moderately vivid display of orchestral colour within strict limits. All fine and well, but I've heard so many such pieces and thought 'so what?'. Obviously when there are simply so many players involved, the possibilities individual spontaneous interaction on the part of each performer are considerably less than they would be with a small chamber group or even medium-size ensemble. The Wagnerian use of the orchestra, with swathes of exotic colour enacted en masse by the players in the service of an essentially manipulative vision from 'on high', to me seems hopelessly outdated at least in its original form, yet a lot of orchestral music does not seem to have significantly moved on from this (many post-war orchestral works stand closer to pre-war orchestral works than, say, Schoenberg's orchestral works did to their Wagnerian antecedents). I suppose I find that the orchestra as a medium lends itself to this quasi-propagandistic music more than anything else, and somehow seems to draw composers away from the possibilities of more fragmentary, open-ended, or self-reflexive musical ventures than other media. I do believe there is still much that could be done with the medium (including a greater incorporation of those very possibilities just mentioned), but don't really see it happening at the moment. Some more incisive thought about not just the literal properties of the medium (in terms of its size, instruments, etc.) but also all that the tradition of the orchestral piece (including the contemporary orchestral piece) entails, and what is expected of it by players, audiences, critics, alike might suggest where there is further room for manoeuvre. I'm not sure if this answers martle's original question, it's just some musings, really. I'm rather interested to know, martle, what in particular does draw you back to the medium, especially considering you're going to be starting a new orchestral piece just after finishing another?

One of the great epithets often applied to pianists is 'they made the instrument sound like a whole orchestra'. How about the other way round sometimes?

Is there a way to inhabit the basic framework bequeathed by the Wagnerian tradition, but push it in radically different directions, so a work ends up doing significantly different things to that which its models might suggest, in a manner that could be disconcerting (which is by no means necessarily a bad thing ) ?

I have never heard any sampled orchestral strings or sampled solo stringed instruments which sound remotely like the real thing. Perhaps I've been unlucky there, because there are several large sample collections which purport to provide those sounds. In fact the only satisfactory sounds I've met on a computer are piano, organ, and artificial-sounding synthesized tones.

Is there any one who has been successful with the production of really lifelike strings on a computer? Any recommendations?

I'm going to come back to this later. But for now, I don't believe what I've just read! Syd, have you finally joined the rest of us in the world of the singular? Or are those 'I's merely slips of the persona(e)?

I think my ears are painted on too, Richard.

But... I'm afraid what you seem to me to be saying here is that you like the music and that therefore it's innovative.

"Maintaining a strong sense of line amid complex textures" is hardly unique to him (indeed it's hardly unique to composers of notated music - it could be said that Evan Parker is far more innovative in being able to maintain that sense with much more complex textures which aren't even written down! - in the context of his Electroacoustic Ensemble, I mean). Nor am I at all convinced by the "jazzy" elements in his music - they might be fresh and distinctive to people who know nothing about jazz (ie. most of the people who are concerned with commissioning and promoting work by composers like him), but to my ears they pour old wine (chord-change-based jazz material) into an old bottle (conventional "classical" orchestration).

As for "frontline life experiences", not all composers necessarily feel they have to wear those on their musical sleeves in the way that Turnage does, feeling that his approach comes across as crass and sensationalist rather than necessarily courageous.

I can see you side of the picture, and your'e right Richard, there is a fault line in my argument as a philosophical
deduction. I differ because I think an extra-musical aspect matters, but certainly not in agit-prop of even a
necessarily expressionist way. The principle of maintaining a musical argument amidst difficult subject matter, of
toughing it out solto speak, is what I hear, like, seek out- I think Turnage is among those who sing the zeitgeist of my generation ,
vulgar times in many ways but if so the reaction is an attempt at addressing them.(but I'd accept there are other voices and vitalities, and your knowledge exceeds mine re: post-Berio for a start, I'd welcome listening/ score study suggewstionsif you've a mo) I'd accept that you might not get this from a purely musical view
of the music (meaning you'd have to take it in the context of its inspirations)'d also agree with you Richard that Evan Parker does amazing things with a solo
line, and your previous argument about the renewing effect of free improvisation was well-argued. I didn't intend
valorisation of 'innovation'-change or adaptation etc would have done just as well.

a p.s re; Evan Parker-a gambit that reminds me of what I think Turnage (I will stop banging oin about him now, I promise)
is trying to do is the way that (eg) Evan's free playing segues into the written element of Kenny Wheeler's compositions. Its as totally different structural situation mostly ,but as with Gil Evans the rythmic design lends itself to a certain propelled freedom in the flow of the music. This is no more than a stylistic cholice, but on both counts I think it conveys something archetypally human.