Contemporary Music - How Much Work?

[reith]

I was listening to Radio 3 last night (Hear and Now) finding I could assimilate most of the works. One contained live electronic manipulation so the performance can never be repeated exactly. The work that gave me real trouble was by Ligeti, no surprise.

Firstly my reaction was indifference - the works all sounded familiar not because I knew them but they brought nothing new to the scene - they sounded like much recent contemporary music almost like pop music does, so question 1) is this music ever intended to last or, like pop music, does quality and uniqueness of voice matter as long as the stuff keeps coming? The alternative is that we should study it a little more to tease out the subtleties of style, developing the ability to distinguish one work/composer from another.

2) Is this mere fodder to provide college courses (and thus) keep a few fashionable academics off the dole queue?

3) Most of these works a) will never be recorded, b) some can never be performed in the same way again, so - COULD any "work" on behalf of the listener be expected? The answer to this one is therefore 'no'.

There are two approaches - one (which has been mine until lately) has been Cage-ian: "just listen" - which means I have to make like/dislike/indifferent judgements and leave it at that.

The second is espoused here and elsewhere - be prepared to do some work (as you might with Mahler, for instance). Well, you can't if recordings/performances aren't available. So should one work on what IS available - ANY recordings of these composers? (I interpret this as "listening practice" aimed at opening one's mind so that the Cage-ian approach can yield a richer, informed experience).

Or 4) are we wasting our time listening to this music at all?

What then?

cheers,
reith

[some guy]

Reith, I'll take pre-point one first:

the works all sounded familiar not because I knew them but they brought nothing new to the scene - they sounded like much recent contemporary music almost like pop music does

The phenomenon of "sounding familiar" can happen in two very disparate situations. One of those is what you've mentioned, music that sounds familiar because it is familiar. The other one, oddly enough, is music that sounds familiar because it's not. Classical music is like that to most people who don't listen to classical music. You've probably noticed this yourself. Put anything on with an orchestra playing and the unknowledgeable auditor will say "Oh, classical music." Play something by Haydn or something by Shostakovich and the response will be much the same. It's all one wash of long-haired music, with nothing much to distinguish one piece from another.

I cannot say that that's what happened to you, though, as I didn't hear the BBC show. So you could draw any sort of outrageous conclusion and be utterly unassailable. Indeed, your questions are strictly speaking unanswerable, because we don't have your referents. Unless we heard the show, we don't know what "this music" refers to in question one. We can only guess. You could at least name the work by Ligeti.

Question two I'm sure you already know is not serious. I hope so, anyway. Not sure even why you asked it. Full of loaded terms "mere fodder," "fashionable," and even, in this context, "academic." Think about it, though, how could this be any efficient way of keeping anyone off the dole? The music's not that popular. I think stealing from coin machines would be much more remunerative. And if those academics really are fashionable, that means that they really are popular and hence need no anti-dole measures. Or?

3) Most of these works a) will never be recorded, b) some can never be performed in the same way again, so - COULD any "work" on behalf of the listener be expected? The answer to this one is therefore 'no'.

If you knew the answer already...!!? So you've heard organists improvise, right? Was any "work" expected from the listener? How about Beethoven's long improv sessions? Did he expect people to tune out as soon as he stared noodling? Not to mention.

As for the a) part of this question, do you have some secret connection to the recording industry? To every, single separate company within the industry?

Question four, same problem as with one. We simply do not know, unless we heard the same show, what "this music" refers to. So, since we've already talked about diction and logic, and since we cannot talk about the music, we're left with only one other topic: you.

I think it's a good topic. Your focus here is after all on you and your reactions, so a legitimate question for you is "Who are you?" And perhaps "Why are your reactions important?" I know you present as someone who listens to a lot of new music and is often sympathetic to it. But you continue to have difficulties with the contemporary stuff that aren't the difficulties a true aficionado would have. They're the difficulties of someone who doesn't really listen to all that much of it, who still doesn't understand it very well, who very much prefers old, familiar-sounding tonal music.

I don't particularly care for Boulez or for Birtwhistle. But I don't use that dislike as a platform for screeds about how unsatisfying and ephemeral and not worth the effort new music is. I just don't care much for Boulez or Birtwhistle, that's all. No big deal. Friends of mine, new music enthusiasts, do care very much for those two. OK, my dislike is my problem. If I liked these two, for instance, I'd be a better person. And maybe some day I will. But I don't think my reactions to their music are part of some universal truth about modern music, or that they raise important questions about the value of modern music.

There's a lot of good stuff out there, Reith, believe me. Maybe this one BBC show was not all that good, it's impossible to tell. But so what? It was only one show. There are tons of recordings out there, of fully notated and of improvised and of indeterminate music. And there are lots of concerts all over the world. You don't have to rely on one BBC show, for sure.

[reith]

Originally Posted by some guy

Reith, I'll take pre-point one first: The phenomenon of "sounding familiar" can happen in two very disparate situations. One of those is what you've mentioned, music that sounds familiar because it is familiar. The other one, oddly enough, is music that sounds familiar because it's not. Classical music is like that to most people who don't listen to classical music....

True. I doubt I fall into these categories having listened to much music and usually able to differentiate - not always though - there's a mass of music out there (tonal and otherwise) that barely distinguishes itself.

Question two I'm sure you already know is not serious.

It has a serious tone to me.

If you knew the answer already...!!? So you've heard organists improvise, right? Was any "work" expected from the listener? How about Beethoven's long improv sessions? Did he expect people to tune out as soon as he stared noodling?

I was making the point that the opposite is often espoused seeimngly thoughtlessly.

As for the a) part of this question, do you have some secret connection to the recording industry? To every, single separate company within the industry?

No, why?

Question four, same problem as with one. We simply do not know, unless we heard the same show, what "this music" refers to. So, since we've already talked about diction and logic, and since we cannot talk about the music, we're left with only one other topic: you.....
.....I think it's a good topic. Your focus here is after all on you and your reactions, so a legitimate question for you is "Who are you?" And perhaps "Why are your reactions important?"

I posted because I wondered if others had the same view or otherwise - or shades between. It may help those who wonder if and why they can't catch on to contemporary music.

.......But you continue to have difficulties with the contemporary stuff that aren't the difficulties a true aficionado would have.

.
Yes, I'm not a true afficionado, comfortable with music from about 1600 to tomorrow (minus the classicists from about 1770 up to Sibelius, most of which I find broing). But I'm not enamoured to music that parades as the latest while being retro in disguise. Perhaps it's the creeping up of age. I look to a music that has almost become classical - original and refreshing: the 60s - 90s, the David Bedfords, Elisabeth Lutyens, Henze, Ferneyhough, Cage etc.
It's as if today's composition students have nowhere left to turn to "be original", if originality is the aim.

They're the difficulties of someone who doesn't really listen to all that much of it, who still doesn't understand it very well, who very much prefers old, familiar-sounding tonal music.

Well, there are only so many hours in a day (and I, in particular, need to exercise care if intending to compose of a day - others may be less vulnerable). It's less preference than variety especially when composing/playing. Tonality isn't easier, just different.

As for "understanding", that's one of those dubious propositions that means different things to everyone. Why should I, or anyone else, understand it? Isn't this rather partisanship? What is there to understand? There seems to be more to understanding the ritual than the music itself.
From a composing viewpoint, I don't go along with this dichotomy of tonal/atonal unless we're talking of strict serial music.

There's a lot of good stuff out there, Reith, believe me. Maybe this one BBC show was not all that good, it's impossible to tell. But so what? It was only one show.

Well, of course, one isn't as facile as to "judge" contemporary music on a single programme. It could be that I've heard too much music!


But...thanks for the response.

[some guy]

It may help those who wonder if and why they can't catch on to contemporary music.

But that's just what I think it won't do. Since we do not know, unless we heard the same show, what you are reacting to (you still haven't told us which Ligeti piece was played, you know)*, the only effect your post can have in that regard is to confirm people in their prejudices. Wouldn't it be better to try to encourage people to push past their prejudices? To at the very least encourage them to question their prejudices?

Why is listening to contemporary music so often expressed as work? I suppose it's like learning to listen to classical music generally. If it's not what one is used to, it's going to seem like work to sit through that Palestrina motet or that Schumann symphony. But the rewards are great, are they not? How about spending some time on the rewards? Are not the rewards of listening to Stravinsky and Prokofiev just as great? Or of Ferrari and Cage? Or of Dhomont and Bruemmer? I know I have found it true. And add Keith Rowe and Gol and Yoshihide and the like to the mix, well, there's a lot of wild, noisy, calm, soothing, exciting, pretty, harsh, eccentric music out there. What's not to like?

*In the second post, you don't name any of stuff set for composition exercises that appalls you, leaving us--again--with only information about you--and not very much of that, either. OK, there's something that appalls Reith, but he's not gonna tell us what it is beyond the most general of generalities, "stuff." If you want us to share your appallment, you're gonna have to do better than unnamed, unspecified "stuff." I know, there's always the risk that giving us specifics will mean that we can more efficiently disagree with you. If all you want is vague approval from people who vaguely sense that they already agree with you, then that risk is probably not worth taking. But if that's the case, then all you need do is say "Contemporary music, yuck." (To which your auditors can reply, "Yeah, yuck." "Oh, I agree. Double yuck.") Think of the time you'd save!!

[reith]

Originally Posted by some guy

Question two I'm sure you already know is not serious. I hope so, anyway.

Yes, I'm guilty of a bit of scope-creep there. I was sounding off against majors or degrees in composition. It was my view. Many will disagree and so be it. I'll repeat that it's possible to teach techniques, systems, but only a magician can teach creativity. A good teacher will be a good guide but nothing more.

So I'll edit the predicate from my previous post.

The BBC Hear and Now program comprised:
>>>>>>>>>>
Johannes Maria STAUD One Movement and Five Miniatures (15'36")
(World Premiere)
Clive Williamson (harpsichord) Jonathan Green & Simon Hall (live electronics)

Anton WEBERN Five Canons on Latin Texts Op. 16 (03'42")
Three Traditional Rhymes Op. 17 (02'19")
Barbara Hannigan (soprano)

Edward RUSHTON Palace (19'39")

Benedict MASON Nodding Trilliums and Curve-Lined Angles (22'28")

Gyorgy LIGETI Mysteries of the Macabre (06'44")
Barbara Hannigan (soprano)

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) Richard Baker (Conductor)
>>>>>>>>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/hearandnow/pip/8peqz/

[some guy]

Now then, even though I didn't have the time to spend on this, I pretty much set myself up for listening to the whole show, didn't I?

That'll teach me.

Anyway, thanks for this. It's much easier now to talk about the points you raised. Plus, I got to listen to a Hear and Now program, my first by the way. So, recording. I don't know whether Staud or Rushton's pieces will ever be recorded. But the question was whether their pieces were worth listening to. Well, I'd agree with you. They're pleasant enough pieces, but they do seem--on a single hearing--to be rather anonymous-sounding works. And that is a problem. I don't think it's a problem with new music, generally, so much as a problem with programming. Faced with a choice between truly new, inventive, and possibly off-putting work of some difficulty for both audience and performers and a work that sounds "modern" but not particularly fearsome, programmers will often as not play it safe. I wonder if they ever consider the damage they do everyone (and everything) by settling for tepid and bland. Perhaps not.

But that's only a guess. I simply don't know enough to be more than just suspicious. I've attended a lot of concerts, though, and bought a lot of cds, so I have some sense of the possibilities out there. And this particular BBC concert did seem to be going for safe.

I think they may think they're faced with a clear choice: play music people won't like (though how they could possibly know this ahead of time...!) and thus guarantee the demise of the show, or play music that can't possibly piss anyone off. At least with the latter, they have a show, and some show is better than none. But tepid and bland will also guarantee the demise of the show, I would think. Time will tell.

As for the other pieces, well all of those guys have already been recorded, numerous times. I haven't been able to get too excited about Mason, yet, though I wouldn't give that too much weight. You'll recall my personal take on Boulez. He's an important composer and an important figure generally for new music, but I don't care for his music all that much. My loss, as Ligeti is yours. That six minute tidbit wasn't much to go on, but Ligeti on the whole is very nice stuff indeed. Makes me want to haul out the Boulez cds, again. Give myself another chance!

Thanks, Reith. That was fun.

[reith]

Cheers, aucun problème but sorry to have taken up your time. No surprise about your conclusion and I do think it's the music falling into mediocrity rather than the BBC.

I attended a concert at the ICA last year (Instutute of Contemporary Arts) given by Cut and Splice - live electroacoustic music, only to be disappointed. Aside from the performer/composer chosing a particuarly annoying sound to manipulate in Part 1, a pulse waveform at about 2-3kHz for about 7 munites at the end, the second work started with a fixed frequency sound (a triangular wave I suspect) fed through a filter that the composer twiddled for the first five slow minutes - lile a waa-waa but giving intermittenet waas.
Like the first piece, it was drizzly and static.

People like Stockhausen in "kontakte", "mantra" etc., have done better with more primitive equipment. All these Cut and Splice miscreants could do with banks of ostentatiously displayed computer equipment was twiddle filters and mix different streams of pre-recorded sound. It was lack of inspiration and creativity, to me. Perhaps I missed the point: that it was about show and ritual.

If anyone heard that concert on Radio 3 they may have heard 2 sets of clomping footsteps during the second part. That was my friend and I "storming out" in disappointment and heading for the bar!

Some contrast with the Huddersfield Electroacoustic concerts Radio 3 broadcast in the early 90s...well, one didn't expect to like everything but a few pieces struck a rapport. And it was new music - a real advance from the Concrète from Schaeffer and Henry who had really primitive gubbins; and a time to explore.

A couple of friends and self took to semi-free improvising because there's no need to write down and record the music....as long as it keeps coming...audience participation welcome.

[reith]

Ironically, next Tuesday's late prom is Boulez' "Dèrive 2 (revised version (let's hope he got it right this time))" and Birtwistle's "Neruda Madrigales".

I haven't heard either work so I might tune in to remind myself why I also don't like this pair - although one never knows...there might be something to be got from them. Too late to get tickets though - perhaps a good thing.

[some guy]

Well, I agree that there's a lot of mediocrity about. But that's always been true. I don't know that I'd conclude, from concerts, that new music was sliding into mediocrity. Seems more likely, given that concert series are out to make money, that if you attend concerts, you'll hear a good dose of mediocre music, from any age. (Though that certainly wouldn't apply to ICA, I wouldn't think.)

I have attended a lot of festivals around the world in the past couple of years, and have heard very little that I'd call mediocre. Some, but not much. And that may just be the difference between a concert series and a festival. Maybe the best venue for new music is festivals not concert series. Hard to draw conclusions from such a small set.

I'm forced back on my own, single experience, dating from 1972 (when I "discovered" twentieth century music): the recorded music I buy, the festivals I attend, the new music concerts go to--there's been plenty of mediocre music in all of them. But there's been plenty of superb music as well. There's been, what's more, music that's seemed mediocre at first, to me, and has turned out to be superior. And there's been music that's seemed superb at first, but that doesn't last past a half a dozen listenings or so. Less of the latter.

I've certainly been listening to a lot more in the past couple of years since I quit my paying job, sold my house, and then made up the (so far) nonpaying job that sends me to festivals all over the world. And all I can say is that there's a lot of really fine music out there, well worth listening to. No "work" either, in the bad sense, just good old-fashioned, Ivesian, ear-stretching pleasure.

Vive le bruit!

[fundrazor]

I wonder if someone else can step into this private discussion?

To go back to the beginning .....

Reith, there are a number of presumptions in your first posting with which I would like to take issue. Firstly, let us (I hope) accept that music is a live sound-based medium, not a written or recorded one. Manuscript paper, digital recordings, runes, reel-to-reel tape and figured basses are merely ways in which the sound can be encoded in such a way that others can either perform or re-listen. (I accept that musique concrete falls outside this definition). Similarly, any concept of music as being definitive, in other words that there is any such thing as a definitive edition or version, is a very modern concept (from about 1830) and one which jazz and latterly contemporary composers have often eschewed. Therefore, whether or not a piece can ever be repeated exactly or whether or not it is recorded now or in the future is largely an historical irrelevance.

On a more substantive point, you raise a very interesting issue in regard to the "difficulty" or "sameness" of much contemporary music. This, it seems to me, has far more to do with the active nature of "listening" rather than the passive one of "hearing". This is not a criticism, insofar as I still have a great deal of problems in "listening" to much of the music of the last 100 years albeit there is equally much that I adore and relish. I have never warmed to Schoenberg, for example, despite studying him intensively. The more I listen, the less I seem to hear, and it all deteriorates into a serial mush - I suppose I regard him as an intellectual with no soul.

The fact remains, however, is that modern music requires an active participation by the listener and that much "classical" music does not to the same degree - and I give as an example the popularity of Classic FM and other "easy-listening" (misnomer) stations.

The great problem, and one I found as a composer, was that the search for "originality" (and what artist wishes to be derivative) drives the language of music further and further away from the vast majority of the population's ability to follow and, in today's throw-away society, few of them are willing to take the time and trouble to work at it. Hence composers try gimmicks in an attempt to re-connect by using snippets of material or repetition to engage the ear of their audiences (the "quotation" music of the late 60s or the minimalism of Glass et al). Interestingly, Berio effectively killed off quotation music with his monumental Sinfonia (third movement) which had zillions of quotes in it all held together by Mahler - he was really saying "top that if you can" and no-one even tried. The Sinfonia, by the by, is one piece which has been recorded (at least twice to my knowledge).

A greater problem in terms of recordings is not being to get hold of pieces you would actually want to buy (Nigel Osborne's Flute Concerto, Cello Concerto and Gnostic Passion to name but three).

Finally, you mention the academics. Your point has merit only insofar as you appear to have misunderstood the purpose of raw academia. It is supposed to be nutty, off the wall, highly challenging and often totally misconceived. In the same way that pure research is vital for physics, so it is with composition. If someone doesn't strain at the barriers no progress is ever made. If there is one justification for avant-garde academia it is the mind-boggling load of pre-Beethoven tripe that is loaded onto this site and Sibeliusmusic.com by so-called composers who have not had the rigour and challenge of serious study and who, as a result, couldn't resolve a dominant to a tonic never mind inverse retrograde a serial row or actually do something original.

There is an awful lot of rubbish contemporary music, but then there always was. Beethoven wrote some appalling pieces (try the Vindebona cantata or Wellington's Victory) and the Halle Orchestra library (where I once worked) is crammed full of appalling late nineteenth century symphonies and concertos which have rightly been condemned to the rat-fodder of history. What I think you need to do is accept that you are panning for gold when you listen to new music concerts - every so often a real nugget comes to the surface and there is also plenty of gold dust around to keep you in musical currency.