Re Efrem Podgaits, we did get the high profile premiere of his Symphony No 2 in London in 2005. It was high profile in the sense that it was the LSO conducted by Rostropovich and it was programmed alongside Vengerov playing the Beethoven concerto so it got a guaranteed full house. Now, you know me, I try to see good in everything but I must say it seemed very poor stuff to me. I kept telling myself, now come on, if this is good enough for Rostropovich, it really ought to to be good enough for you. But I'm afraid that didn't work. Wasn't impressed at all, I'm afraid - and I'd no idea whether he was pro or anti Putin so that didn't come into the reckoning.     

I should add that it is the only piece of his that I have heard so I don't know how typical it was.

might i pose a question?
is becoming a composer an inevitable choice for the individual who does so? is it an irreducible personal committment?

if so, would this in itself have an effect on the aesthetic and methodology adopted, some congruence with an organismic/personological ethos being implied? i intend no simple biological reduction here, at some point in life an identity crystallizes, and this seems to me to be a quite mysterious process. it is such an act of individual courage to pursue such a 'vocation'.

"Eh?"

Some choices stem from others, can choosing to be a composer stem only from itself? Presumably, even when blowing thru bones with holes in, some bright spark was initiating repeatable ensemble pieces or defining the basis of choice in improvisation.

It is simply that so much of the above discussion address societal and political issues. I am interested in what a person brings to music from the 'inside', uninfluenced by social or cultural forces. How else do we recognise the stamp of their music within a few notes, or seconds for those who use such an approach?

if we say that a composer lets us see something new, and that is her gift, what makes it particularly hers?

Indeed so - yet the questions that arise here, it seems to me, are (a) to what extent might such an "inside" be so influenced and how in any case can one derive particular and unequivocal conclusions about this from the specifics of the composer's music? and (b) is there not a certain degree of hermetic activity built into the very act of composition, which is almost invariably something that has to be undertaken in private and away from any immediately obvious presence of any such "social and cultural forces"? I am not, of course, suggesting that no social or cultural forces can ever affect the way in which some composers might compose; once again, I merely observe that the specifics of the consequences of such influences, where they occur, are virtually impossible to pinpoint, analyse and form meaningful and incontrovertible conclusions about (said he, ending a sentence with a preposition)...

Best,

Alistair

Up to a point, that's certainly true. A couple of details are different though. It wasn't clear to me until I was about 17 that music was what I wanted to focus on; and then I don't remember actually making a decision on the matter, rather that it was clear to me one day that that was how it was (and certainly as a performer: none of the other options entered my head).

But having identified myself as a performer, yes, that allowed performance to remain the focus even when I wouldn't be doing any serious playing in concert (or even sometimes picking up a clarinet at all) for months at a time.

Oddly enough that can also bring its own difficulties now that for the time being performance is indeed my almost exclusive activity; simply because not all of my colleagues make that same identification and their attitude to our day-to-day activity is different in ways that can cause friction. But it's not always possible (or desirable! ) to bear that in mind...

(nice to see you back here, qt.  it's been awhile!)

Does it? Well, something certainly continues in those august annals, to be sure, but to quite what extent much of it can seriously be regarded in general terms as any kind of "debate" must be open to question. I do, however, genuinely appreciate your drawing this to our attention, believe me, but the spectacle of people disappearing down conceptual abysses of their own making in that place is nevertheless by no means a pretty one.

I know that you will disagree viciously with me on that, even though I have little doubt that you may have at least certain reservations about some of it yourself. I accept and understand that. The music of Gordon Downie and the ways in which he seems to think about musical creation are, quite simply, not issues that a journal like that one can address meaningfully for most of its readership, even when the composer himself is given free rein to express himself - and the efforts of various people, not least the composer himself, to construct some kind of political agenda around it that somehow seeks to justify it to such a readership might almost be comic were it not so seriously flawed and worrying.

I don't want to get into the economic arguments that inevitably get dragged into the periphery of this kind of expression, as that would not, I think, help towards any understanding of ths issues involved, but suffice it to say that all this stuff about "capitalism" needs, I believe, to be understood in its proper context which is not an artificially constructed one to suit some particular kind of music persuasion but one in which it has to be accepted that just about every régime on earth in living memory has depended on and subscribed to capitalism in some form or another; I am not even seeking to defend that stance but merely to identify that even the most devoutly "communist" of all régimes in living memory has been prey to capitalism to some degree, in that it has knowingly been dependent upon and subject to the need for imports/exports and the market forces of other régimes. I'm not even saying that this has necessarily been "a good thing" - merely that it has been the case.

So - not a "debate" to which I personally want to get anywhere near, thanks - but please neveretheless accept my genuine appreciation for putting it forward here, for it is less to be mocked than it is to be taken seriously, whatever the possible consequences of the latter.

Best,

Alistair