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time_is_now
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« Reply #60 on: 10:49:16, 16-03-2007 » |
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do bear in mind how little art from any era actually survives through time once its creator is dead and has no leverage through publishers, broadcasters, pocket critics etc. What's a pocket critic? A very small one that you can fold up neatly?  |
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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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trained-pianist
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« Reply #61 on: 11:36:14, 16-03-2007 » |
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Actually I think very few people are totally forgotten. If they were something in music they are mention. Many composers are discovered again. I think most people are never totally forgotten. Forexample, even piano teacher if he didnot achieve much in his life time can be great grandfather of some future pianist. We all were taught by somebody and we teach some others.
For composers it is even better. As long as one put some notes on music paper one is in cathegory of people who left something to the world. If they don't like it now they might like it later. Or it can influence someone or something else. It is a product.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #62 on: 15:53:25, 16-03-2007 » |
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am a composer, and studied composition professionally for 3 years at a major music institution in London with a composer now dead but reasonably well-regarded. So I think that I should not simply be dismissed as a crank with no ear for post-romantic music. I'm not trying to be nasty, but I don't see any logic at all in that syllogism. I find that I need only listen to a few seconds of something contemporary to know whether it is any good (for me) or not. How many pieces of music from any period yield themselves up so completely in the first few seconds? Here are some that don't, I mean where listening to the beginning isn't going to give you much of a useful idea of what's going to follow: Brahms 1 Das Rheingold Tchaikovsky 1st piano concerto Schoenberg 2nd quartet ... I hope you weren't taught your "5-seconds test" at the aforementioned institution. Then again, if you were, that would explain quite a lot of the prejudice and intolerance we see in the musical world. |
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« Last Edit: 15:55:37, 16-03-2007 by richard barrett »
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time_is_now
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« Reply #63 on: 15:59:36, 16-03-2007 » |
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studied composition professionally for 3 years at a major music institution in London with a composer now dead but reasonably well-regarded Was he less well regarded when he was still alive? |
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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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lovedaydewfall
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« Reply #64 on: 13:59:34, 18-03-2007 » |
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But I don't think his recent music stands up well in comparison.
You're certainly not alone on that one, as previous discussions have demonstrated. I have to say that, for me, recent Birtwistle doesn't have the umph that his music from the late 70s and early 80s seems to have. I also don't fancy a lot of Turnage's output. Payne is a great musician as his reconstruction of Elgar's 3rd Symphony shows. And Matthews' "Pluto" is a fine expressive and appropriate piece.
That's very clear. Thank you. Have you heard anything else by either of these composers? I would suggest that it would make an interesting listening exercise. Anthony Payne has got a new CD out and this site: http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/?page=home/news.html&id=101 gives you the option of 'trying before you buy'. There are details of a recent Colin Matthews disk here: http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/?page=catalogue/item.html&id=93 with similar listening options. I think that we may have differing definitions over how to define a 'musician'. At present, if you'll forgive me for putting words in your mouth, your definition seems primarily to be as follows: that a composer who is also a musician, must complete or complement an existing work in a manner that is stylistically unobtrusive and congruent with the original style of said work. Is that accurate? If not, please can you furnish us with a better definition. Thanks No, it's not quite that to be a real "musician" a composer has to complete someone else's work, a la Payne/Elgar: what I was trying to say was that out of the list of contemporary composers given I was able to identify Payne and C. Matthews as "real" musicians by virtue of the work they had done respectively on Elgar's 3rd Sym., and "Pluto" (but we cannot think of "Pluto" as a completion of Holst's "Planets" Suite: in Holst's time it was complete as a work, unlike Elgar's 3rd. Then the planet (if it is thought by astronomers to be a planet - and there seems to be some doubt -) Pluto was discovered. Much later (in the 1990s) C. Matthews composed his "Pluto" as a self-standing work, which may be played after Holst's Suite, or on its own. That particular work of Matthews shows me that he is a musician, whereas that fact is not always apparent from other works of his. However, with the general run of contemporary composers, including those names hereinaforementioned, it is not obvious to me from any of their works that they would fulfil Robert Simpson's definition of a "composer who is also a musician". loveday, message edited in an attempt to properly attribute the quotes and separate your response. Does it look right now?
John W |
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« Last Edit: 14:52:06, 18-03-2007 by John W »
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tonybob
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« Reply #65 on: 14:48:21, 20-03-2007 » |
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Anyone heard 'Tevot' yet?
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sososo s & i.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #66 on: 17:34:21, 20-03-2007 » |
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Anyone heard 'Tevot' yet? There's a bit of discusson about it, tonybob, in a thread (started by yours truly  ) in the 21st Century bit of 'Music Appreciation'. |
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lovedaydewfall
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« Reply #67 on: 20:33:08, 22-03-2007 » |
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am a composer, and studied composition professionally for 3 years at a major music institution in London with a composer now dead but reasonably well-regarded. So I think that I should not simply be dismissed as a crank with no ear for post-romantic music. I'm not trying to be nasty, but I don't see any logic at all in that syllogism. I find that I need only listen to a few seconds of something contemporary to know whether it is any good (for me) or not. How many pieces of music from any period yield themselves up so completely in the first few seconds? Here are some that don't, I mean where listening to the beginning isn't going to give you much of a useful idea of what's going to follow: Brahms 1 Das Rheingold Tchaikovsky 1st piano concerto Schoenberg 2nd quartet The "few seconds" don't have to be at the beginning! I learnt the procedure as the result of experience: i.e. switching on BBC Radio 3 in the expectation of hearing music, and finding idiotic sonic experimentation (perhaps the nicest way of describing it!) instead. A few seconds of that is enough to tell anyone with a reasonable ear for music to switch off again. And the works you have quoted are not helpful in illuminating the experience since it is obvious that all of them are great music (except that I cannot recall the Schonberg well enough to know what it is like - he's not a great favourite of mine, and i certainly don't have much regard for the out-and-out 12-tone pieces, but he did write some tonal works - the 1st Quartet, and Transfigured Night which are OK). But I rather think that the point is being missed here. We are into "Emperor's New Clothes" territory: the "5 second test" is only really meant to be applied to contemporary music that is unfamiliar, but is being promoted as something wonderful when it really is not. Surely you could turn on Radio 3 randomly and find some god-awful racket masquerading as music, and need only about 5 seconds to convince yourself that it's not worth going on? I mean the test could be applied to any old run-of-the-mill classical or baroque piece - perfectly respectable and well-constructed etc., but not very interesting or moving or exciting, or whatever else you are wanting to get from music at the time. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #68 on: 21:01:43, 22-03-2007 » |
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Richard
DFTT (and the last 'T' has 6 letters in it, not 5)
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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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tonybob
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« Reply #69 on: 21:20:39, 22-03-2007 » |
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The point is that the less familiar the musical idiom is, the more time one needs in order to acclimatise oneself to it. and I find that I need only listen to a few seconds of something contemporary to know whether it is any good (for me) or not. hmmm.... |
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sososo s & i.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #70 on: 21:29:27, 22-03-2007 » |
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switching on BBC Radio 3 in the expectation of hearing music, and finding idiotic sonic experimentation (perhaps the nicest way of describing it!) No, that's really quite a nasty and stupid way of describing it. The point is that the less familiar the musical idiom is, the more time one needs in order to acclimatise oneself to it. Beethoven and many other composers you would presumable regard as "proper music" were accused of purveying a "god-awful racket masquerading as music" or the like in their own time, and it's a good thing there were some open-minded listeners around then. What would be "nice" would be if you'd refrain from such mindless dismissal of music which doesn't interest or excite you. Thanks. I have to play devil's advocate here: Beethoven's music may have been described that way when it was very new, but it did not take long before it became accepted in a wide sense that he was a deeply important figure. That process has not occurred to any comparable degree even with quite a bit of early 20th-century music, which remains a minority interest even amongst classical music-lovers. |
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« Last Edit: 21:38:58, 22-03-2007 by Ian Pace »
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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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quartertone
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« Reply #71 on: 23:27:13, 22-03-2007 » |
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Well, I think the incredible stylistic and technical diversification in the 20th century makes it hard to compare it to Beethoven's day. And in combination with that, there are more composers and hence slimmer chances of making it to posterity.
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quartertone
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« Reply #72 on: 23:41:20, 22-03-2007 » |
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Though I think one should add, Richard, that some pieces by Beethoven were subjected more to derision than others. The Grand Fugue certainly didn't go down as smoothly as the Moonlight Sonata, and the musical reasons for that are obvious enough. The point is to what extent music deviates from recognised patterns and standards, not simply that famous "real" composers also went through that.
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quartertone
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« Reply #73 on: 23:53:47, 22-03-2007 » |
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No, we're hopefully agreed that modern music can't be justified in 5 seconds either...and that there are a few shades in between black and white.
EDIT: this post looks totally random now that Richard has removed the one of his own to which I was responding, but it wasn't at the time. I must remember to use the quote function next time...
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« Last Edit: 08:15:01, 23-03-2007 by quartertone »
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quartertone
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« Reply #74 on: 00:06:41, 23-03-2007 » |
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And the works you have quoted are not helpful in illuminating the experience since it is obvious that all of them are great music Your positive criteria seem as vague as your negative ones. Why is it "obvious" that they are "great"? I certainly don't consider Tchaikovsky on a par with any of the other composers in general, and you yourself profess not to know most of Schoenberg's music - so how can the 2nd quartet be obviously "great music"? Is it simply a matter of which composers have entered the canon? Either way, you seem to reflect as little on what you find great as on what you find awful, which is the epitome of the reactionary mentality. |
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