You hit the nail on the head there Richard. But there are counter-cultural shifts in surprising places, eg those
seeking to reintroduce lateral thinking and creativity to organisations (these could theoretically include musical
organisations that found themseleves going through the motions as well as any other). Decision-taking even in
(or especially in) large organisations has devolved down to small teams who are either unused to it or find
its not so much counter-intuitive so much as requiring the recovery of intuitive sense ground out of them by the
artificial conformity you describe. A couple of friends/ associates of mine are doing this, and Tom Peters is among
the most prominent people in this diverse general development.
When I arrived in Germany a couple of decades ago and went to open a bank account at the sparkasse, describing my occupation as 'musician' they smiled warmly and brought me a cup of coffee. I wonder if they'd still do this
(not necessarily just for me of course). I'm implying here that something in the extra-musical culture there may
be receptive already to a looser kind of population of large collective music-making, or 'orchestra' . What do you think Richard?

Of course it depends on the composer whether what she wishes to say and what she actually says, if indeed she wishes to say anything at all, are related. (e.g., as I've mentioned elsewhere, Bentzon (in the sleeve to his tempered clavier recordings) seems to admit as much of his own work).

If a piece of music cannot be seen or felt to be in any way innovative, then if someone appreciates it, they presumably whatever gratification a listener might derive from it would be better directed to the originator of the music (that is to say, some other composer), of whom they are, in this scenario, ignorant, than the purported composer herself, surely?

I'd love to know who these wailing women are: Trio Bulgarka or Atomic Kitten?

Tommo

Oh, you misunderstand me completely! Clearly, what I was saying only applies to female composers. 


Yeah; it seems a lot rests upon that rather foggy notion if one is appreciating works of music as a whole.  But if one likes a particular effect or sound, then things are a little more manageable.  But still not too much.  I guess that I think that anything that's not directly, wholesale plagiarised may well count as innovatory, so long as there's some sense of integration between whatever influences there may be as a whole(there are lots of exceptions to this statement, of course).


Of course not.  I personally very much like listening to other people's takes on works I'm familiar with (I can sometimes get a bit resentful when they start laying down heaps of esoteric references I amn't familiar with ).  I would consider such pieces to have some claim to "innovation" in many instances, I think : )  Of course, one, in heaping praise upon Richard afterwards, one really aught be careful that one does not attribute Themes due to J.S.B. to Mr. Barrett (though maybe one could compliment him on his tasteful choice of source material).  Which is, I guess, the main thing.

Well, it's not really a problem unless you judge works in this rather schematic way: 'oh, there's a good theme, that's a 9 out of 10 in the "themes" box', etc.

I'm sorry if that sounds a little flippant. It actually relates to a more serious point that I was going to raise in response to your earlier message: I think there's a good deal of confusion about the term 'innovation' here, not so much just what it means as why we're bringing it up. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the main point was to say that innovation is a criterion for judging the quality of a piece. It was maybe more a question of how long an institution like the symphony orchestra can survive if it's no longer regularly visited by innovation.

That's not to say that only innovative works are good, nor is it to say that innovation is the main quality that might lead one to judge a new orchestral work as good. Just that there may not be many more orchestral works, good or bad, if composers rest too heavily on their predecessors' orchestral laurels, as it were.

A very good distinction - thank you, time.

Tommo

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