David Matthews SYMPHONY NO. 8 First Performance 17/04/15

[Richard Barrett]

The cliff-hanger ending (after a tango-for-a-scherzo) of David Matthews' 4th?

So: as I said, I haven't heard any of Matthews' symphonies apart from the 8th. But just to comment on your comment... A tango is of course a preexistent rhythm/form/texture which here is substituting for another preexistent structural unit, and this is supposed to be a persuasive argument that the work in question isn't conservative? And then - who says a piece of music should in any case contain a "scherzo" (or something to fill a scherzo-shaped hole)? even if that piece of music is called a "symphony"? all of which betokens to me a weird reliance on pouring slightly less old wine into old bottles. I think it's important to remember that music which strikes out in a direction of its own can be more deeply informed by the music of the past (and indeed of a wider diversity of traditions), more "meaningful" in the terms of that tradition - which was of course itself always evolving in response to contemporary thinking, culture etc. than music which plants itself squarely in a conveniently-fictional comfort zone and maybe repaints it in a slightly different shade, as if "an Englishman's symphony is his castle."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think it's important to remember that music which strikes out in a direction of its own can be more deeply informed by the music of the past (and indeed of a wider diversity of traditions), more "meaningful" in the terms of that tradition - which was of course itself always evolving in response to contemporary thinking, culture etc.

Exactly - very important to recognise this.

[ahinton]

I think it's important to remember that music which strikes out in a direction of its own can be more deeply informed by the music of the past (and indeed of a wider diversity of traditions), more "meaningful" in the terms of that tradition - which was of course itself always evolving in response to contemporary thinking, culture etc. than music which plants itself squarely in a conveniently-fictional comfort zone and maybe repaints it in a slightly different shade, as if "an Englishman's symphony is his castle."

...which it surely wouldn't be by including a tango in it, would it? That apart, although I would not disagree in principle with the point that you make here, I'm just not convinced by listening to Matthews' 8th that it occupies - let alone plants itself (i.e. wilfully and consciously) - in any kind of "comfort zone", "conveniently-fictional" or otherwise or that anything about it is suggestive of its composer writing as though "in denial" of anything.

[Richard Barrett]

Exactly - very important to recognise this.

I'm trying to remember who it was that said (something like) there's more tradition in a single bar of Webern than in the whole of Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony. But please don't anyone get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that therefore there's something illegitimate about writing or listening to something like the "Classical" Symphony, just that making the argument for it (or David Matthews) in terms of "music that has enough of the past ... that relates to the symphonic tradition" is maybe somewhat lacking in logic - any "tradition" in fact consists not of a cosy club of like-minded and mutually respectful colleagues but a series of larger or smaller "revolutions" in which each generation has rejected as anachronistic a considerable part of what their forebears held to be axiomatic. (From the "Germanic symphonic tradition" the names who spring to mind are Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler... at which point the symphony as a form outgrows itself.) Until the late twentieth century that is. To my mind that says a lot about the kind of society we live in these days, and the choice for a creative artist is either to (consciously or unconsciously) buy into that institutionalise conservatism or to try and express something about the kind of world one would prefer to live in, which may or may not be situated in the future. ("Posterity" has nothing to do with it.)

[ahinton]

I'm trying to remember who it was that said (something like) there's more tradition in a single bar of Webern than in the whole of Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony. But please don't anyone get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that therefore there's something illegitimate about writing or listening to something like the "Classical" Symphony, just that making the argument for it (or David Matthews) in terms of "music that has enough of the past ... that relates to the symphonic tradition" is maybe somewhat lacking in logic - any "tradition" in fact consists not of a cosy club of like-minded and mutually respectful colleagues but a series of larger or smaller "revolutions" in which each generation has rejected as anachronistic a considerable part of what their forebears held to be axiomatic.

Busoni (who left no symphonies!) detested "tradition" - or rather what he perceived to be the widespread misppropriation and misinterpretation of the term along lines very similar to what you're talking about here; he loathed the idea that anything should somehow be put in aspic. But whereas Prokofiev's first symphony was a conscious and deliberate kind of pastiche, would you see David Matthews' 8th as doing the same kind of thing? Is he a conscious "traditionalist" or does he have the integrity to write as David Matthews?

Boulez once expressed deprecatory sentiments towards Dutilleux because he'd written a symphony (and was later to write another but then no more for well over half a century); clearly, he felt at the time that the symphony was not merely moribund but an unwelcome and undesirable throwback to past times whereas was needed now was something new. Was he entirely right? Should he have spoken to Dutilleux like that? Yes, of course David Matthews is very conscious of the symphonic tadition to which he has now made eight contributions of his own, but his symphonies don't convey to me any sense that he prefers to prioritise clinging to a past tradition over being himself as a composer.

I(From the "Germanic symphonic tradition" the names who spring to mind are Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler... at which point the symphony as a form outgrows itself.)

But sez who? I think that, post-Mahler, it was still capable of reinventing itself and, after all, there had been no shortage of Haydn in the background to Beethoven's symphonies nor of Beethoven in that of Brahms's or Mahler's. The string quartet is perhaps an even more agile and adaptable form that has remained alive for some 2½ centuries, Brian Ferneyhough having so far written 6 of them and David Matthews 13.

Until the late twentieth century that is. To my mind that says a lot about the kind of society we live in these days, and the choice for a creative artist is either to (consciously or unconsciously) buy into that institutionalised conservatism or to try and express something about the kind of world one would prefer to live in, which may or may not be situated in the future. ("Posterity" has nothing to do with it.)

Does one have first to "buy into (any) institutionalised conservatism" in order to write symphonies and do you believe that this has been the case since not long after Mahler? The many and varied contributions to symphonic repertoire since Mahler - from Bax to Shostakovich, from Rubbra to Weinberg, from Dutilleux to Sessions and from Henze to Matthews (a five-figure number of symphonies from a three-figure number of composers at the very least) - rightly or wrongly suggests to me otherwise - but perhaps I'm missing the point, or talking rubbish, or maybe even both (and perhaps I should therefore shut up and go away and write a symphony, which I have not yet done)...

[french frank]

Does one have first to "buy into (any) institutionalised conservatism"

Perhaps different people just have different "comfort zones"? If your musical world is focused in one particular area, 'classical' or 'contemporary', it may be harder to appreciate the subtleties of what is, in reality, not very familiar. Like minimalist movement.

[ahinton]

Perhaps different people just have different "comfort zones"? If your musical world is focused in one particular area, 'classical' or 'contemporary', it may be harder to appreciate the subtleties of what is, in reality, not very familiar. Like minimalist movement.

Perhaps they do, but it's another thing for others to recognise in their work that they occupy them, which I think would be quite difficult to be certain of in many cases.

[Richard Barrett]

Perhaps different people just have different "comfort zones"?

No doubt. But what's so interesting about (being in one or other of however many) comfort zones?

[french frank]

No doubt. But what's so interesting about (being in one or other of however many) comfort zones?

The only (possible) interest is how it might affect how individuals hear music which is not really of great interest to them.

[ahinton]

I wouldn't seek to speak for anyone else but my own experience persuades me that the act of composition and the inhabiting of comfort zones are entirely antonymous.

[french frank]

I wouldn't seek to speak for anyone else but my own experience persuades me that the act of composition and the inhabiting of comfort zones are entirely antonymous.

You speak as a composer. I wasn't referring to composers qua composer, but composers qua listener.

[Richard Barrett]

The only (possible) interest is how it might affect how individuals hear music which is not really of great interest to them.

I still don't really understand what you're getting at. What I was trying to say was that we aren't (presumably) talking about people whose relationship to music is as passive consumers but as active (listening) participants, in other words (presumably) people who don't feel an irresistible attraction to comfort zones. Or "what is familiar".

[Honoured Guest]

After reading a few of the erudite posts on this thread, I suspect that 17/04/15 may well have also been the last performance of David Matthews's imaginatively titled SYMPHONY No. 8.

[french frank]

What I was trying to say was that we aren't (presumably) talking about people whose relationship to music is as passive consumers but as active (listening) participants, in other words (presumably) people who don't feel an irresistible attraction to comfort zones. Or "what is familiar".

I certainly do think that large number of listeners feel quite satisfied with their own comfort zone(s). I was simply suggesting, timidly, that just as 'conservatives' may well be satisfied with what they know and are resistant to seeking out the 'new', so people who inhabit the 'new' have less interest in anything which they have 'heard before'.

I wondered, for example, when you said: ' "the need for tidy, dominant-into-tonic endings in which everyone lived happily ever after" irritates the hell out of me, it's musical conservatism in every sense' whether earlier composers such as Mozart or Schubert similarly irritated you, or whether the knowledge that, in their time, they weren't conservatives made a difference to what you heard and your reaction to it.

[ahinton]

You speak as a composer. I wasn't referring to composers qua composer, but composers qua listener.

I realise that, of couse - but whose "comfort zones" are under consideration here? - the composers' or the listeners' or both? - and how are they to be identified as such, especially as one person's "comfort zone" won't necessarily be another's, be he/she composer or listener?