|
|
|
thompson1780
|
 |
« Reply #16 on: 21:58:13, 24-04-2007 » |
|
As a non-composer, I can only throw in a few ideas.....
It feels to me as if it mus be determined by the creative process the composer adopts. I keep thinking of this analogy with an artist. Perhaps he dabs a bit of red oil paint on a canvas and let's his emotional reaction to that blob dictate where else he goes with the work. Perhaps he looks around his studio for inspiration. Perhaps he gets out of bed and wants to make a statement about all the people he has slept with in it, so does some sort of Tracy Emin thing.
Maybe a composer like smittins, thinking in the sounds of a SO, is an oil painter - coming up with some wonderful new canvasses, but using a medium that has been around for ages.
And I wonder about purpose - the SO is just a medium for getting the composer's message across. Who is anyone to say that it is worse at getting across particular messages that any other medium - we'll all react differently to SOs and to other ensembles. And composers have many different things to say - perhaps something one wants to say would work out well for SO?
So I don't believe anyone can say it is really outdated - there just may be many other ways of expressing a message. The SO seems to give a whole load of flexibility though - you can have the whole lot going, or just a section, or just a few solo players, or......
In the end, if we decide it is outdated, maybe it has only been limited by our own imaginations.
Tommo
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
|
|
|
|
marbleflugel
|
|
« Reply #17 on: 04:12:18, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Reacting to your fine description is Smittins' call,Tommo, but on your last point there is the issue, previously
highlighted byRichard and Ian,of who gets commissioned. If I understand their argument correctly,there's a
danger of 'safe' unchallenging methods withering the progressive because orchestral forces are so financially risky.
This is a crisis across the stylistic spectrum (in the sense of stimulus for change).
Pace also RT's thread about ye arts and toeing the Blairite line, looking motheaten these days.
So this is going to require new ways of working to avoid that failure of imagination. Or from a composers' point
of view what jazz pianist Stan Tracey describes as 'animal cunning'.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'...A celebrity is someone who didn't get the attention they needed as an adult'
Arnold Brown
|
|
|
|
Sydney Grew
Guest
|
|
« Reply #18 on: 08:49:06, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Syd, some film composers use something called Garritan . . . Following Mr. Flugel's advice, I have looked up about the Garritan business, and have in particular listened to their samples here: http://www.garritan.com/audition_hr/and elsewhere (e.g. on the Sibelius site). It is much more impressive than anything I've heard before; and indeed I intend to take further steps . . . Valuable advice Mr. Flugel, many thanks! (Sorry to have diverted this thread from its natural thrust for a while.) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #19 on: 09:08:53, 25-04-2007 » |
|
there's a
danger of 'safe' unchallenging methods withering the progressive because orchestral forces are so financially risky.
Yes, so long as orchestras go on principally commissioning those composers who are known to write "the right stuff", which isn't going to disturb stage plans, rehearsal schedules, standard instrumentation, players or audiences, the repertoire will go on stagnating. The BBC SSO is showing the way in terms of more imaginative commissioning policy, even if it doesn't always produce the most enlightening results (but why should it be expected to?). Most composers never (or very seldom) have the opportunity to work with orchestras, so it's no wonder that many aren't particularly interested in it any more. I think it would be wrong to call the SO "outdated", but these days it's certainly more a repository of music from the past than it is a living medium for that of the present or future. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #20 on: 11:05:45, 25-04-2007 » |
|
For Mr Grew, and anybody else interested; two brief examples of how the Garritan software sounds in real life, virtually straight out of the box. (Apologies that the music is rather out of place for this particular thread; since it's loaded via yousendit, it will be available only for seven days and for a limited number of downloads.) http://www.yousendit.com/download/TEhYTmZZYXkzS28wTVE9PQ |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Reiner Torheit
|
|
« Reply #21 on: 11:24:57, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Another discussion that has gone on at various "high-end" artistic bodies in Britain in recent years is the "right to fail" argument. In terms of classical music, this can be expressed by illustrations of works which we now consider "mainstream standards" that were poorly received at the time of their composition. One of the most famous is CARMEN, of course, but there are a stack of others.
Is it reasonable or realistic to expect that contemporary composers will be able to produce "instantly successful works" without some envelope-pushing and risk-taking? Wouldn't a funding system that rewarded "instantly successful works" naturally err on the side of overly-cautious, unadventurous, crowd-pleasing compositions?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"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"
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #22 on: 12:38:49, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Is it reasonable or realistic to expect that contemporary composers will be able to produce "instantly successful works" without some envelope-pushing and risk-taking? Wouldn't a funding system that rewarded "instantly successful works" naturally err on the side of overly-cautious, unadventurous, crowd-pleasing compositions?
That is exactly the situation we have, Reiner, as I'm sure you're aware. Being an opera expert you'll know how many operas Verdi wrote which weren't immediate (or, in some cases, even delayed) successes. Verdi is accepted as one of the handful of greatest opera composers while at the same time it's recognised that he wasn't cooking on the front ring with every work. Nowadays Verdi wouldn't have had the chance to go back to the opera house for many years, if ever, after the failure of Il giorno di regno (only his second opera I think). |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #23 on: 12:40:48, 25-04-2007 » |
|
there's a
danger of 'safe' unchallenging methods withering the progressive because orchestral forces are so financially risky.
Yes, so long as orchestras go on principally commissioning those composers who are known to write "the right stuff", which isn't going to disturb stage plans, rehearsal schedules, standard instrumentation, players or audiences, the repertoire will go on stagnating. The BBC SSO is showing the way in terms of more imaginative commissioning policy, even if it doesn't always produce the most enlightening results (but why should it be expected to?). Most composers never (or very seldom) have the opportunity to work with orchestras, so it's no wonder that many aren't particularly interested in it any more. I think it would be wrong to call the SO "outdated", but these days it's certainly more a repository of music from the past than it is a living medium for that of the present or future. Agreed. I wish that you were - or could be - wrong about that last bit; sadly, however, that is most emphatically not the case. Personally, I would in any case be horrified if orchestral life were indeed to stagnate in this way and for these kinds of reason; apart from anything else, what a grave and gross posthumously inflicted insult that would be to the likes of Mahler, Strauss, Schönberg, Szymanowski and many other composers of the past who have so greatly enriched the orchestral repertoire. Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #24 on: 12:45:32, 25-04-2007 » |
|
I would in any case be horrified if orchestral life were indeed to stagnate in this way and for these kinds of reason; apart from anything else, what a grave and gross posthumously inflicted insult that would be to the likes of Mahler, Strauss, Schönberg, Szymanowski and many other composers of the past who have so greatly enriched the orchestral repertoire. It's already an insult to them that orchestra programmers don't respect their unique imaginations, and ability to renew the repertoire, sufficiently to want to continue the process with today's music. If there were a work from the last fifty years in every orchestral programme, imagine what an informed audience and a fertile situation for new compositions that would create. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #25 on: 13:07:26, 25-04-2007 » |
|
I would in any case be horrified if orchestral life were indeed to stagnate in this way and for these kinds of reason; apart from anything else, what a grave and gross posthumously inflicted insult that would be to the likes of Mahler, Strauss, Schönberg, Szymanowski and many other composers of the past who have so greatly enriched the orchestral repertoire. It's already an insult to them that orchestra programmers don't respect their unique imaginations, and ability to renew the repertoire, sufficiently to want to continue the process with today's music. If there were a work from the last fifty years in every orchestral programme, imagine what an informed audience and a fertile situation for new compositions that would create. That's just the point I was making. I don't actually think you'd need to include such a work in literally "every" orchestral programme to make that point successfully, but it's a point that needs making and persistently driving home nevertheless. One genuine and understandable problem facing orchestral programmers is that there will always be more and more orchestral music from which to choose when building programmes, but to me that's all the more reason to advocate the kind of thing you're writing about here. Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #26 on: 13:15:15, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Sadly, that's rather opening the stable door once the horse has petrified: the practice should have been instituted long ago. Now, tragically, there is a danger that a fair number of established concert goers will tend to avoid programmes with even one contemporary piece....
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #27 on: 14:15:04, 25-04-2007 » |
|
Sadly, that's rather opening the stable door once the horse has petrified: the practice should have been instituted long ago. Now, tragically, there is a danger that a fair number of established concert goers will tend to avoid programmes with even one contemporary piece....
Whilst I agree that "the practice should have been instituted long ago", a literal acceptance of your premise would require prior establishment of the horse's petrification date - and who can say what that would have been? Ever since there has been an entity remotely resembling what we now recognise as the symphony orchestra - and as long as there has been a concert-going tradition - there have been concert goers who have tended "to avoid programmes with even one contemporary piece" or least least complain bitterly about the inclusion of such pieces on programmes after attending them. In view of that, it would seem that the horse has never been in the stable in anything remotely resembling a live condition... Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #28 on: 14:28:39, 25-04-2007 » |
|
That's a very fair point, and I apologise for my second 'horse' quotation, but the historical point at around which many listeners seem to start having problems with music being too modern for them hardly seems to be moving forward at all as the years advance. Perhaps there should be an obligatory piece from the last hundred years as well....
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #29 on: 14:38:26, 25-04-2007 » |
|
That's a very fair point, and I apologise for my second 'horse' quotation, but the historical point at around which many listeners seem to start having problems with music being too modern for them hardly seems to be moving forward at all as the years advance. Perhaps there should be an obligatory piece from the last hundred years as well....
No need to apologise. I take your point, in principle, at least, but unless and until you are more specific in identifying when it is that you believe, in general terms, "many listeners seem(ed) to start having problems with music being too modern for them" - 1995? - 1965? - 1930? - 1908? - or are you simply accepting Richard's "50 years" as being that threshold? Apart from any other considerations, it would surely be impossible to set a particular date, or even decade, for this, since not only one could never reliably identify a view communally held by "many listeners" but it is also the case that pieces that may initially have seemed impenetrable or otherwise unacceptable to some listeners on first hearing may not remain that way indefinitely. Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
