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quartertone
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« Reply #45 on: 09:42:26, 23-03-2007 » |
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Also, Richard, do you still subscribe to the view expressed in the "interview" there that nothing has changed since 9/11? Rather an outlandish claim considering how conveniently it allowed the new world order to be imposed.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #46 on: 10:43:26, 23-03-2007 » |
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I think it was less of an outlandish claim and more of an (over)reaction to the opinion frequently expressed at the time that this event "changed everything". It certainly gave the US administration an excuse to go about spreading chaos and violence in the Middle East in a manner it wouldn't previously have thought it could get away with, but it shouldn't be forgotten that plans for offensive action against Afghanistan and Iraq were already in place before the terrorist attack, and that the US (through the UN) had been waging war on Iraq through brutal sanctions (and indeed bombing) for the previous ten years. In that sense what the US administration has been doing since September 2001 is principally an extension of what it was doing before and an execution of preexistent plans.
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quartertone
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« Reply #47 on: 10:45:43, 23-03-2007 » |
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Of course; the highly sinister Project for a New American Century manifesto makes that clear enough. That's why once they new about Al Qaida's plans, they did their best to help them.
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #48 on: 11:32:37, 23-03-2007 » |
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I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'representative sample' of composers being selected to represent the current 'scene' (that is what we're talking about isn't it?).
I'd much rather have four or five different (and contrasted) interviewers selecting 'targets'.
They would meet and make sure that there was no overlap and then the interviews could be released in four volumes (perhaps in CMR?).
You wouldn't necessarily have a 'representative sample', but, if the interviewers are selected carefully, you would end up with perhaps a variety that is representative of the variety currently out there.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #49 on: 11:33:22, 23-03-2007 » |
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9/11 did change public opinion, especially in the US, enabling the Bush administration to garner public support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which might have been much more difficult beforehand without a suitable pretext. And it's served to radically stoke Islamophobia in much of the Western world, upon which the far right have been capitalising. Those are pretty significant changes, I would say.
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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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Ian Pace
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« Reply #50 on: 11:41:23, 23-03-2007 » |
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I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'representative sample' of composers being selected to represent the current 'scene' (that is what we're talking about isn't it?).
I'd much rather have four or five different (and contrasted) interviewers selecting 'targets'.
They would meet and make sure that there was no overlap and then the interviews could be released in four volumes (perhaps in CMR?).
You wouldn't necessarily have a 'representative sample', but, if the interviewers are selected carefully, you would end up with perhaps a variety that is representative of the variety currently out there.
Wouldn't that just be a 'representative sample' of interviewers instead? |
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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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time_is_now
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« Reply #51 on: 11:46:53, 23-03-2007 » |
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I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'representative sample' of composers being selected to represent the current 'scene' (that is what we're talking about isn't it?).
I'd much rather have four or five different (and contrasted) interviewers selecting 'targets'.
They would meet and make sure that there was no overlap and then the interviews could be released in four volumes (perhaps in CMR?).
You wouldn't necessarily have a 'representative sample', but, if the interviewers are selected carefully, you would end up with perhaps a variety that is representative of the variety currently out there.
So you don't like the idea of a 'representative sample' of composers but a representative sample of interviewers is fine?  Not sure how this would work, hh. I do accept that many critics currently writing on new music like to guard their little corner carefully, and thus could probably without too much difficulty be assigned their appropriate 'targets', but to someone like me who's not only taken it as a professional duty to look around a bit more widely but whose own listening inclinations lead me that way, I certainly wouldn't be able or willing to align myself with 4 or 5 composers from (as you seem to imply) one part of the 'scene'. In the past 12 months alone I've written at some length on the music of Julian Anderson, Martin Butler, Steve Reich, William Sweeney and others, and have similar projects in mind or coming up relating to Messiaen, Elliott Carter, David del Tredici, Richard Barrett, Judith Weir, James Dillon ... Some of these have been put my way by other people's suggestions, but a lot of them are my own initiatives, and almost everyone in that list is of real interest to me at some level. Even if I were to choose from among those I've already worked on, which 4/5 should I choose? |
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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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time_is_now
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« Reply #52 on: 11:48:00, 23-03-2007 » |
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Wouldn't that just be a 'representative sample' of interviewers instead?
Small minds think alike, or something  Ian and I seem to have crossed in the post. |
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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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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #53 on: 11:54:31, 23-03-2007 » |
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Well that wasn't what I was trying to say, even if I did actually say it!
I'd much rather see interviewers talking to composers in whom they really believed rather than talking to composers that they felt should be included on representative grounds.
And far from each interviewer selecting 4/5 composers, why not select the number originally posited by this thread (was it 25 or something?) for each of four interviewers (who should probably be selected from 'different stables' e.g. performer, composer, critic) to result in 100 interviews, to be spread out over four different volumes...
This does completely evade the original point of the thread, so I should probably pipe down at this point...
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #54 on: 11:56:24, 23-03-2007 » |
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Errr.... Those who can, compose. Those who can't, select composers to interview. Those who can't select composers, select interviewers to select composers?  (no slur on hh, by the way!) |
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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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time_is_now
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« Reply #55 on: 12:02:52, 23-03-2007 » |
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I'd much rather see interviewers talking to composers in whom they really believed rather than talking to composers that they felt should be included on representative grounds. I agree. I believe in every composer I listed, bar maybe one or two in whom belief seems to be so universal (apart from me!) that I feel the mistake must be mine and would intend to do some more listening and thinking before embarking upon such a book. Don't make the mistake of thinking that it's not possible to believe in a pretty diverse selection of composers. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that any more 'mainstream' names in such a list must have been included as some sort of concession to the marketing machine. As it happens, I'm much more convinced personally by a lot of recent Ades than by a lot of recent Ferneyhough. Whatever that means. |
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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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aaron cassidy
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« Reply #56 on: 16:21:18, 23-03-2007 » |
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I'm not sure I like the idea of a 'representative sample' of composers being selected to represent the current 'scene' (that is what we're talking about isn't it?).
I'd much rather have four or five different (and contrasted) interviewers selecting 'targets'.
I like this idea very much. There's a very good series of art books along these same lines (published by Phaidon), in which 10 curators are chosen, and those 10 each choose 10 young artists. Each curator writes an essay about their view of the state of the field, why/how they chose their 10, the aesthetic interests of the 10, etc., etc. Though now of course we have to squabble over the 4 or 5 (or 10) interviewers .... |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #57 on: 18:10:14, 23-03-2007 » |
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I was trying to draw a distinction between a list of composers that attempts to represent the current British scene, and one that is chosen by the interviewer to express his/her own particular choice of composers that they believe are important. The latter is more open to aspirational ideas (what the British scene should be, in the opinion of the interviewer) and potentially transforming forces (having read the interview, composers have their profile raised). It also happens to be the method that interests me most, and it's inevitably going to be skewed and non-representational (unless you're picking an individual whose beliefs in composers completely matches what is actually going on - and I just don't believe that you're ever going to find that individual), hence my idea that you want more than one person in more than one field to make the selections. As it happens, I'm much more convinced personally by a lot of recent Ades than by a lot of recent Ferneyhough. Whatever that means.
Good for you! I'm not. But we could have an interesting discussion about that at another time! Errr.... Those who can, compose. Those who can't, select composers to interview. Those who can't select composers, select interviewers to select composers? (no slur on hh, by the way!) I hope you're not suggesting that composers should restrict themselves to writing music, Ian...  You realise that the same thing could be said about performers.... |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #58 on: 18:43:50, 23-03-2007 » |
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I was trying to draw a distinction between a list of composers that attempts to represent the current British scene, and one that is chosen by the interviewer to express his/her own particular choice of composers that they believe are important.
The latter is more open to aspirational ideas (what the British scene should be, in the opinion of the interviewer) and potentially transforming forces (having read the interview, composers have their profile raised).
Absolutely agree with you on all that, hh. Would say exactly the same things myself, esp about the potential for an interviewer to try to be influential in the sense of making a strong case for possibly underrated people he really believes in - although I do think he'd probably have to include a couple of the more familiar names even if he wasn't entirely convinced, just in order to forestall criticism that he was so prejudiced he wasn't worth paying attention to at all. Sorry if I was a bit snappy earlier. I'm still pretty depressed by the implication (which you may not have intended) that there is no longer such a thing as one critic/writer on music with a broad enough grasp to have a go at taking in the whole scene. That's not to say more than one such observer shouldn't have a go, but the idea of splitting a single book between 4 or 5 (as distinct from Aaron's suggestion of a series of books) sounded to me like admitting defeat in the face of the scene's apparent fragmentation and partisanship. I do believe those things can be overcome. |
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« Last Edit: 18:46:14, 23-03-2007 by time_is_now »
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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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