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smittims
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« on: 11:17:05, 19-08-2007 » |
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I'm looking for intelligent open-minded views here. it seem to pose interesting questions about the scope and boundaries (and maybe the morality) of 'classical' music.
As far as I can see here is a man who has had a long and successful career creating music and who wants to extend himself by producing something on a more ambitious ,larger scale,which is part of the classical world. He seems to be saying,why can't I be allowed in?
On the other hand, I understand that he needs help with notation and orchestration ,and maybe development. If this is so I wonder why such a wealthy man who has aquired so much experience in music has never got round to doing what students do in a few years,namely compose and write his own music.
I was prompted to these thoughts by seeing the CD of 'Ecce Cor Meum' in an HMV sale for £10 but not having the courage to take the plunge. Can anyone describe it to me?
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smittims
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« Reply #1 on: 11:20:15, 19-08-2007 » |
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In para.3 I should have said '... namely, learn how to compose and write his own music'.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #2 on: 12:03:33, 19-08-2007 » |
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I haven't heard it, smittims, but I was remotely connected to the creation of the Liverpool Oratorio. I was told that he was offered the chance to listen to Britten's Young Person's Guide, in order to learn the sounds of orchestral instruments (many of which he didn't know), but showed no interest in either that or learning to read music. He also thought it amusing that he hadn't been accepted, as a child, for the Liverpool Cathedral Choir, when he had so obviously (to him) been more successful musically than any of the former choristers! His general feeling seemed to be that since he had the money, there was no need for him to learn anything. I remember people saying, "Do you think he knows?" (That is, does he know he's ignorant?) Most people thought he did know, but wouldn't admit it. Carl Davis was the real composer of that very doubtful piece.
This is simply a report of the feelings of many of the professional musicians at the time. Of course it was quite a long time ago, and possibly he is more humble now, and more ready to learn. I wonder?
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tonybob
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« Reply #3 on: 12:17:52, 19-08-2007 » |
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word is that
a; he ain't particularly classicly minded
2; (as has been said) he has little interest in learning about instruments etc
3; he's a slave driver (ask carl davis)
4; he should, really, be described as librettist of the l.o., carl davis as composer.
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sososo s & i.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #4 on: 12:23:12, 19-08-2007 » |
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I think he is, or was, simply unprepared to accept the disciplines of classical composition, together with the probablity that he would discover they were beyond him!
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #5 on: 13:56:05, 19-08-2007 » |
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The Long Version
It seems to me that, while he may be competent at putting together rather jaunty, hummable melodies, he lacks the skills to approach more substantial work. Presumably he feels that since he can afford to hire the services of a more [competent] composer to arrange his ideas for a serious work, he can also afford to claim the credit for the creation of said work while either unaware of, or choosing to ignore the comparative amount of effort provided in return for his remuneration.
The Short Version
What everybody else said already, more or less.
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #6 on: 14:04:15, 19-08-2007 » |
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The Long Version
It seems to me that, while he may be competent at putting together rather jaunty, hummable melodies, he lacks the skills to approach more substantial work. Hmmmm - can't a 'jaunty, hummable melody' (which, to get right, is extremely difficult) itself have 'substance'? Why would McCartney's attempts to work in a different medium entail a necessary aim for more 'substance' than with Beatles or other songs? |
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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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martle
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« Reply #7 on: 16:11:19, 19-08-2007 » |
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It certainly isn't easy at all to 'write' (however we define that in this context!) popular songs of the quality of, I'd say, the majority of the Lennon-McCartney output. 40 years on and more, they are still some of the most radical, harmonically subtle and structurally inventive examples of the genre, whilst at the same time having maintained broad, popular appeal across two or three generations. No mean feat.
What's remarkable, and to me remarkably sad, is that post-Beatles, niether of them ever again came anything like close to that quality again, individually or (in Macca's case, with Wings) as part of another band. Something to do with the special chemistry of collaboration there, possibly.
What's also sad about Macca's present ambitions is his seeming lack of curiousity and willingness to work at it (by all accounts); and that's doubly sad since we know that at the height of his fame and his powers (late 1960s) he was curious, absorbing all kinds of ideas from the avant-garde (attending Berio's Italian Institute talks eyc.), albeit not putting many of them into practice. The person who did put some of them into practice (at least in terms of production techniques and textural innovation), and who seems to have been Macca's guide and guru in this regard, was George Martin - classically trained, very smart, very au fait with an awful lot of different types of music. I don't think there's an equivalent figure for Macca now - Davis? David Matthews? Perhaps he thinks he no longer needs one.
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Green. Always green.
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ahinton
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« Reply #8 on: 22:48:43, 19-08-2007 » |
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The Long Version
It seems to me that, while he may be competent at putting together rather jaunty, hummable melodies, he lacks the skills to approach more substantial work. Hmmmm - can't a 'jaunty, hummable melody' (which, to get right, is extremely difficult) itself have 'substance'? I'll refrain from comment upon the work of Sir Paul McCartney here but cannot but endorse your remark about such melodies by saying that writing a good and memorable melody is - at least as far as I am concerned - just next to absolutely goddam' impossible? I suspect very strongly that Rakhmaninov, for example - just like other composers that could also do it - could only do it because they were at the same time capable of just about everything else in the composer's box of tricks (by the use of which term I absolutely do not, of course, seek to demean any of them!)... Best, Alistair |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #9 on: 23:12:56, 19-08-2007 » |
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There is certainly something sad about wanting to be a "classical" composer but being prepared only to go so far as to buy oneself that "title" by employing others to do the hard work. Lack of curiosity is a very unhelpful attribute for a composer also.
I don't reckon that Carl Davis much either.
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #10 on: 23:22:56, 19-08-2007 » |
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Wasn't it George Martin who was responsible for introducing string quartets, harpsichords and high trumpets into the Beatles' work? I thought might have led McCartney to experiment more but he set up an unremarkable group called Wings instead.
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ahinton
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« Reply #11 on: 23:56:29, 19-08-2007 » |
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There is certainly something sad about wanting to be a "classical" composer but being prepared only to go so far as to buy oneself that "title" by employing others to do the hard work. Lack of curiosity is a very unhelpful attribute for a composer also.
I don't reckon that Carl Davis much either.
I agree on all points here. Just out of interest, though - you didn't buy YOUR title, did you, Richard? Good Evans, of course you didn't! The very thought - how dare I even imagine such a thing?! Best, Alistair |
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« Last Edit: 09:11:57, 20-08-2007 by ahinton »
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smittims
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« Reply #12 on: 09:06:22, 20-08-2007 » |
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Thanks very much for these coments.I agree with what is said here.
There is of cousre a traditon of sorts with composers of melodies or songs gettingd someone else to do all the writing out and orchestration. Irving Berlin, I believe ,did this.
In the 1970s I had an amuisng encounter witb someone who imagined I'd be happy to take down his songs from his singing and then arrange and orchestrate them , after which he ,presumably would take all the credit (as with CDs called 'the Songs of Frank Sinatra' etc)!
I have McCartney's 'Working Classical' and find that quite pleasant, but 'Standing Stone' was clearly far too long for its material.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #13 on: 10:32:48, 20-08-2007 » |
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I was told that he was offered the chance to listen to Britten's Young Person's Guide Is Paul McCartney really so different from the rest of us that he has to be 'offered the chance' to listen?  Surely he could find his way to a record shop himself, or use a false identity on Amazon or something (I expect that's what the Queen does when she doesn't want to be bothered queuing on Oxford St). |
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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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smittims
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« Reply #14 on: 10:57:23, 20-08-2007 » |
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I took it to mean that he didn't know the piece,and someone suggested 'why not listen to the YPG? ' and he said ' Oh, I don't want to be bothered withn technicalities.'
I have had the impression from some interviews I've heard ( allowing for possible false emphasis as sometimes happens in edited interviews) that he is one of these people who thinks learning and professional skill is a bad thing which will inhibit his expressive feeedom.
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