That was the original question, but not the point you were making - you were talking about how your music is perceived in the academic/non-academic worlds. I'm suggesting that perceptions of yours and all sorts of other music differs quite significantly between those two arenas.


I never said that such a faculty consists of 'a bunch of anti-intellectual airheads', just that it is a faculty with a much greater focus upon composition and performance rather than musicology (whether or not one thinks that is a good thing is another question), and as such is relatively unusual amongst music departments.

It could equally well have meant what I read it to mean. Obviously if it doesn't, the question is different. But perceptions of composers and modern composition within and without an academic arena (obviously a small sub-sector of society that some might deem irrelevant, but the same charges could equally be made against the new music world itself, also small and rather closed-off) might indirectly affect such things because of perceptions (which may or may not be accurate) about the type of composer who succeeds in academia? In the US, this does seem to be the case, where the term 'university composer' certainly brought a lot of baggage with it in past decades, and probably still does.

But we are looking at perceptions of composers almost entirely within the realms of the small world of new-music aficionados (a large percentage of which consists of other musicians and academics) - should we not broaden this to consider perceptions of composers and modern composition more widely in society, if that's possible to do?


The title of the thread is about composition, absolutely. A certain amount of information and perceptions about composers and composition derive from dissemination of information about them, quite a bit of which is written by academics and journalists. I'm wondering what drives people to want to listen to some contemporary music: other than chance encounters, maybe suggestions from friends, reading things about it in the press, knowing a little bit then reading up a bit more to find out what else one might find interesting? In terms of the latter, I would have thought that books like those by Griffiths and Whittall might serve as useful reference points for some of those relatively new to the field - that to me seems one of the best aspects of musicological writing. In that sense, I do think such things can have an effect upon perceptions of composers and inclinations to investigate them.

No, because I could imagine you saying such a thing.

So, Ian, I take it you have no interest in dragging this thread back to its original topic?

I suppose the same could be said about Lorin Maazel and his ability to have his opera 1984 staged at Covent Garden. But to be devil's advocate, and follow up on Ollie's point, what might be happening with Maazel or Hough might not be essentially different to what happened with numerous composers of yesteryear. Of course many did not create work that seems of lasting significance other than for the occasional lollipop (for example, stuff for piano by Pixis, Herz, Kalkbrenner, say), but maybe that wasn't so entirely obvious at the time? If performers should compose or try their hand at composing, as Hough suggests (I've heard Brendel, who apparently has tried some composition in private, say similar things), should composers perform (counting conducting as a type of performance), as well? Before the 20th century, in which I think we might all agree that the division of labour between composition and performance has become starker than in earlier centuries, who might be the most prominent examples of performers who didn't compose, or composers who didn't perform, and could anyone perceive how this might have impacted their work? When performers would more frequently embellish what they did (I'm thinking in particular of singers here, as I'm imagining (though I'm no expert on 19th century singers) that not so many of them composed) might that be said to bring them a little closer to the world of composition than is true for many performers nowadays?

Can't say I share your enthusiasm for Earl Wild's Gershwin transcriptions, but then most other people's disappoint as well (Heifetz' are an honourable exception).

Schnabel's music is exploratory and unusual (at least what I've heard) but I wouldn't go so far to describe it as thorny and atonal. Geoffrey Tozer has recorded the Dance Suite and Piano Sonata. He was not averse to playing the new music of the time - he took part in an early performance of Pierrot Lunaire, for example.

I can't think of any examples at all, let alone prominent ones.