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

[Serial_Apologist]

Leaving petty politics aside, I'm sure you speak for many music-lovers and have hit the nail well and truly on the head.

It is those on the other side of this argument about poor D. Matthews Eighth Symphony (which I rather enjoyed) who appear to be the real 'reactionaries' here?!

I thought Bruckner was your man, and that you hated Brahms!

[P. G. Tipps]

I don't know what nail that is or indeed which marteau was used by which maître to hit it with, but what irks me is the taking of "sides" in the first place - entrenched positions, that is - when it ought to be plainly obvious that no two people are or will ever be able to listen to Matthews 8 or Pli selon pli or Don Giovanni or Vanity with the same ears, as I'm now getting rather tired of saying...

Oh do come on, ahinton ... come clean ... you appear to have been unusually in broad diasagreement with RB and others on this at least ... ?

Just go that extra inch and be boldly and independently decisive, for goodness sake! :

[P. G. Tipps]

I thought Bruckner was your man, and that you hated Brahms!

Hate Brahms? Don't be silly!

I just don't 'get' his music.

As I've said many times before ... MY LOSS!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

; it is that very diversity that prompts me to ponder on whether if might be argued that works are less capable of being "of their time" than was the case when the "time" of a work would have been rather more readily identifiable.

Perhaps - or perhaps it's more liberating for a composer to have such choice available?

Stanford was writing at the same time as Bartók, Varèse, Ornstein, Schönberg, Fauré, Webern, Mosolov, Scriabin, Medtner, Sorabji et al - already a wide variety of approaches to composition - but what we have nowadays is a far greater diversity still. For this reason, I don't for example regard any one of those four English composers born in 1943 - Ferneyhough, Bryars, Matthews and Holloway - as being any more or less "of their time" or even "responding to / reflecting their time" than any of the others.

But none of the composers you have mentioned wrote in a style that could be mistaken for one of sixty years earlier (although I don't know Ornstein's work at all well enough). It is only in this post-Thatcher age that a composer can not merely be taken seriously for writing in such an older style, but actually cheered for it - and only now that people pointing out that this fact can be called "narrow-minded" for doing so.

I just do not hear in Matthews 8 irrefutable evidence of the closing of his ears to what's going on around him - still less him "stuffing his fingers in his ears and going "nahnahnahna-Nahnah"" (and if that's what you hear, it does seem a little surprising that you managed to enjoy it nevertheless!). Also, I don't think it unreasonable to say that no composer's works can all be equally impressive!

Yes - the "nahnahnah" bit was more in exasperation than reflection. When I hear a piece for the first time, I often (as in this case) try to imagine what I would ber thinking if I'd turned on the radio and heard the work without the announcer's introduction. If I'd not known that it was David Matthews' Eighth Symphony, I might have hazarded that it was a work, probably by an English composer, from around the time of Martinu or Rubbra - with memories of the Schoenberg Second Chamber Symphony tickling around. As I enjoy Martinu, Rubbra (and the Schoenberg), I quite liked the Matthews on those terms.

But I find it depressing that a professional composer should want to write in such terms when so much of such vitality has happened since. Tippett didn't, nor did Stevenson or Butterworth (both of whom wrote a lot of Music that both - Arthur especially - would hate to be described as "modernist" and which hasn't been graced with the radio time afforded to the Matthews) nor does Payne, nor does Hinton. It isn't a matter of it not sounding like the Music of today that I most adore - it's not a matter of "Traditionalist" vs "Modernist" - it's a matter of it failing to sound as if it was written by someone who has something vital to say and who has found a vital way of saying it.

[teamsaint]

AH's #237 points towards something very important.
For the music lover, it isn't just the variety of style available that it is the problem, it is the sheer availability of so much music.

For many of us, as with lovers of literature, time spent on the passion is inevitably to do with enjoying and absorbing, rather than (too) closely analysing, although of course that is always going on at some level. However, this is probably at the expense of understanding and developing the critical tools available to us. A lot of the time this doesn't probably matter too much. You don't need to understand critical theory to recognise and thoroughly enjoy a work of genius like Macbeth or Emma, or The Catcher in the Rye. I don't imagine reading groups sit around discussing their latest excellent text with reference to theories about post modernism, or applying Marxist theory. You don't need a deep background in musical theory to admire the genius of A Beethoven Symphony...although it would doubtless deepen the appreciation.
A knock on problem more particular to classical music, ( I know, I know), is that a much of the time of the listener is likely spent in performance criticism. this is fine of course, but it could easily, and probably too often is, at the expense of analysis or thought around the score.
Most of the time, for most of us, none of this matters too much. But this discussion has highlighted, IMO, that the way in which we, ( most ,but of course not all of us ) fail to develop the sophisticated analytical tools that are available, is when a "problem " piece, like, apparently, Matthews 8, finds its way into our consciousness.
Suddenly we are floundering for a theory that explains it all, and this , IMO, is where JLWs technique is so valuable here. She has shown us one way of dealing with this work, by both outlining a critical method and then, crucially applying it in a practical way.
You could spend a huge amount of time looking for methods to describe and make sense of a big body of work like the Matthews Symphonies, but Jayne at least shows us one way to do it. You could argue what the wider context for analysis might be, ( the Langue as Linguistics students s might say) and that just the Matthews Symphonies alone is too narrow an area, but the method has the great value of giving a basis for structured thought, which the "problem "work surely benefits from.
I'm sure board members can find plenty of examples of problem works, The finale of the Manfred Symphony sprung to mind for me,but I do think this discussion has highlighted the need for better critical tools when the musical going gets tough. RB has also pointed us in a similar( and very interesting) direction, but personally I haven't found a way to apply what he is suggesting, other than casually through my own unstructured musical appreciation.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Jayne - sorry, clive's post distracted me from replying to your #216.

So, D Matthews' 1-7 already ruled out then?

No - as soon as I stop wasting time replying to this Thread, I shall give #2 a go. I so wish I hadn't written that! "I shall listen to his Second Symphony".

Have you an idea at all of what such a revelational symphony would be like? Saying "it can" be done, but you "can't imagine how" suggests a barrier somewhere; or maybe just impossibly high standards...

I don't know about "impossibly high" - but I have the attitude that at 55, I am probably nearing the mid-point of my life and whilst I want to hear new work (from all centuries) I don't want to waste time giving stuff a third or fourth hearing when there's an Eroica or an Opening of the mouth or a Love Supreme that would merit the time and attention. Perhaps "impossibly high hopes"?

Ferney - said with the smile of the music-lover, honest - are you really sure you wouldn't hear DM's 8th differently later on?

No - I might not like it at all in a few month's time. If it's broadcast again, and I'm not otherwise engaged, I'll probably listen again. But the eagerness to listen to it again and again that is stronger than my ability to resist (which has punctuated my listening since Cluytens' Beethoven #5 back in the early '70s and which continues to this day whenever I first encounter a work that "clicks") won't be there.

But if I find the David Matthews Symphonies, or the Max Davies' - (9th and 10th are two of the best!), to be "brave and meaningful" creations relating to and renewing a symphonic tradition, then it's no less valid than any other serious listener's, is it?

No - but I cannot help wishing that you could communicate what it is about the Music you describe that makes you arrive at your opinions.

There's often the problem of confusion or - undefined interrelation, between personal response and a supposedly more objective artistic judgment...

Often, yes - but there doesn't always have to be; I don't like most of Messiaen's Music - but I can describe how his Music is composed in the glowing terms it deserves. My dislike may be irrational and subjective, but being aware of that, I don't let it get in the way of my appreciation of it. I'd just prefer to talk about Varese.

THAT's why I keep saying I'm a music-lover, open-minded and pleasure-seeking, why I remind other listeners of how irrational & subjective our individual musical response is.... an insight into any given piece may flash before you unexpectedly, at any moment of further listening, maybe years hence...
Two successive years, I tried and failed to find a "way in" to Roussel. Years later the Testament CD of Cluytens' 3 & 4 came out.... lifelong love affair thereafter. I can't explain why. Suddenly I just CONNECTED...

Oh yes - that frequently happens. (The first time with Birtwistle's Refrains & Choruses when I heard and hated it when I was 17; Mozart's Requiem which I enjoyed for years before a chance overhearing of a recording - in Eastbourne library of all places - held me transfixed and I've adored it since; the Martinu Symphonies - thank you, Mr Belohlavek.) I doubt that it's going to happen with me and the Matthews' Eighth.

[jayne lee wilson]

And you are perfectly entitled to so disagree with him for that reason if you so wish, of course - but can you name any work that you love, that you regard as one of the masterpieces of Music, or even that you simply "quite like" that was written in an idiom of sixty years (or more) earlier than it was composed? Can you imagine Tchaikovsky writing in a manner that could be confused with Spohr? Schubert with JC Bach? RVW with Stanford?

You have mentioned Brahms - he was highly critical of Liszt, but his Music doesn't stay in the same place as Schumann's (and that was closer than sixty years to Brahms) but hears and absorbs Wagner: the opening of the First Symphony - take away the pedal C and you have something that could be from Tristan - it's that pedal that says "This is how I do it"; just as the Tippett Third takes what Tippett needs from Boulez. No composer worth his/her salt has ever closed his/her ears to what's happening around him/her with as much grim determination as Matthews has done in his Eighth Symphony. And with results that even his admirers have suggested aren't as impressive as some of his other works.

It is this stuffing his fingers in his ears and going "nahnahnahna-Nahnah" that strikes me as sad. There is so much work out there that is much more positive, that has the wit and grace and vigour that this work so sadly lacks.

The more you reference Matthews' 8th Symphony against other works and styles, the more absurd your refusal to reference it against David Matthews' other works becomes, (as I said way back in #177). You've argued yourself into that corner... and language like "cutting a sorry figure"or "sticking fingers in his ears" etc., is pretty sad in itself....and your dismissal of the contemporary symphony as even a possibility seems to rule out Max Davies' 9th and 10th too...(maybe all 10, the barrier seems set so high. Phew.).

Listening to 2 again this morning, with its 4 continuous movements superimposed across an original template of 7 shorter sections all teeming with small, developmental motifs, then considering the 8th again (whose 1st movement has a very unusual shape in classical terms, a sort of "interrupted allegro"), I thought of Gorecki and Arvo Part, both of whom started out very close to more overtly contemporary "modernist" styles, but felt unable to develop anything from them, evolving much simpler forms and and idioms, some of which reach back over centuries. Or Penderecki, who often seems to look back to late-Romantic styles instead. I still can't see why reaching back say, 60 years is less valid than that. Most especially in a cyclical context of 8 symphonies, all very distinctive in their ethos and references...

Otherwise I agree with ahinton, that present musical life is so diffuse and open it seems impossible to pin any creator spiritus down to rules about artistic validity. And still no-one has told me if they consider my enjoyment of Saariaho or Unsuk Chin alongside David Matthews baffling, or superficial, or something......
It does at least show a different listening angle from some others here. I still think there's not enough actual listening going on, too... (confronting music is very different from reflecting upon it, and sometimes confounds you about what you thought you knew).

(**Crossed in the posts, fhg - but, beyond the sort of details I offer here and earlier, I don't know what else I could offer you (of all frighteningly knowledgeable
people) about what "makes me like" the various works & composers I mention; except to emphasise: they give me a new experience (whether Max 10, DM Symphony No.8 or Unsuk Chin's Graffiti..., within, or without, different traditions of course...! As Ahinton said, one listens to each with "different ears...". We're back, once again to the subjective & irrational etc...)

(**sorry for the endless additions, but I've just noticed that the enthusiastic review of the Wergo Graffiti album (Chin, Neuwirth, Sun Ra) in Gramophone 3/2015 was penned by... Richard Whitehouse, who's been one of the most receptive reviewers of DMatthews' works, including the 8th Symphony. It's not just me then...)

http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_concert_review.php?id=12783

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/graffiti?pmtx=save-x&utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.4&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F

[Richard Barrett]

Jayne, I'm not sure that you're taking much notice of what's being said by FG and myself, over and above what you see as a "refusal" to hear this piece in the light of its predecessors. Nobody is calling you superficial, or telling you why you "should" or "shouldn't" like anything, or any of the other things you seem wrongly to imagine you are under some kind of personal attack for. And I don't really see why you think it's important to bring in music critics to support your view. Any of us could find published music criticism to support almost any view! The point is this:

It is only in this post-Thatcher age that a composer can not merely be taken seriously for writing in such an older style, but actually cheered for it - and only now that people pointing out that this fact can be called "narrow-minded" for doing so.

This is the sad thing as far as I'm concerned. It's an opinion, yes: but it comes not from a closed mind that refuses to countenance anything that doesn't tick the "modernist" box, which is not the case - it comes from an open mind that reacts in a certain way to this music, and then (and only then) tries to find some kind of coherent and expressible reason for this reaction.

[ahinton]

Oh do come on, ahinton ... come clean ... you appear to have been unusually in broad diasagreement with RB and others on this at least ... ?

Just go that extra inch and be boldly and independently decisive, for goodness sake! :

Clean about what? Decisive about what? I am "in broad disgreement with RB and others [about two others, I think] on this" solely to the extent that I don't hear Matthews 8 as they do; I'm not seeking to assert that they're "right" or "wrong", just that what they hear isn't what I do. I thought that I'd made that much clear, at least!

[Roehre]

A very interesting and intriguing discussion.

for a starter to define my opinion re Matthews 8:
I am firmly at JLW's side in my appreciation of the work (and that of the other 7 symphonies for that matter).

The discussion is in itself a repeat of what qualities music -here: a symphony- should have and how influences from the composers' surroundings should or could define contents and structure.
We will never get even the slightest chance for a compromise on this.

But we also have to put the question: why should we?

It's the present day composer's prerogative to do as he likes - put his art first (l'art pour l'art), put his feelings first, give his political opinions a place, integrate of not integrate musical, literary or other arts' developments surrounding him, etcetera etcetera.
For any of these pros and cons can be imagined - as has been the case ever since the first musical magazins saw the light of day.

The point has been made that Matthews seems to negate developments in the musical world from the last 50 years or so in the composition of the Eighth.
Also is mentioned that the public is enjoying (or not) present day compositions of a more "conservative" character than seemingly was the case in the 1960s or so. [I am not so sure whether the presentation of such "more conservative" works is a result of post-Thatcher developments in society. This is a general development we see occurring all over the western(ized) musical world]

For both applies: There is one development which so far has not been mentioned, and which is fundamental in the way composers (or: artists in general, as this applies also to literature and the visual arts) potentially are influenced, or gain knowledge from and appreciation of approximately the whole of the pensum of music composed in the western world (and elsewhere!) since the origins of western music through the media of recordings (effectively since the 1920s) and the many printed editions of scores from very well known to the very obscure composers.
Since some 3 decades or so the mer a boire is literally infinite.

On top of that: The phenomena of the web with e.g. YouTube and all downloadable and hence nearly immediately available recordings are most certainly speeding up this proces of being "drowned" in information of all types and sorts.

A composer (and artists in general) is therefore exposed to until recently unimaginable series of choices.
All of these are by definition contemporary - as they do influence here and now.
As a consequence whatever conscious or unconscious choices a composer makes during the compositional process, unless he knowingly refers to "older" forms, his work cannot be other than contemporary (whether it's "avant-garde, pushing borders, or "conservative" or "middle-of-the-road" is not really important here)

Because of these influences and availibility to the general public of this mass of information on literary all styles and epoches, the listening habits will tend to a kind of middle of the road too - and the orchestral managers who a century ago set Beethoven symphonies at the heart of the concert practice, will now do the same with that "middle of the road" music of today -next to Mahler and Beethoven et al. The consequence is a general tendency to "conservative" works (hence: long live immersion days and BCMG programming!)

Of course David Matthews chose and created the structure and the contents of his music as a craftsman, as an experienced composer.
But I don't think one should appreciate negatively the result because it seems not to take in account recent musical, political, economical, sociological or other developments. It's a product of this age of unlimited choices and influences.
Not more. Not less.

[Richard Barrett]

I am not so sure whether the presentation of such "more conservative" works is a result of post-Thatcher developments in society. This is a general development we see occurring all over the western(ized) musical world

Of course. But for those of us who lived in the UK at the time, the policies of the Thatcher governments were the most obvious symptom of these trends.

I don't think one should appreciate negatively the result because it seems not to take in account recent musical, political, economical, sociological or other developments.

This is putting things the wrong way around though, as if there were some preexistent set of rules which music must be deemed to obey. As I said before: one "reacts in a certain way to this music, and then (and only then) tries to find some kind of coherent and expressible reason for this reaction."

I don't on the other hand see why the immediate availability of so much music needs to affect a composer's choices in the way you describe. Making artistic choices doesn't need to be like wandering around a supermarket.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's the present day composer's prerogative to do as he likes - put his art first (l'art pour l'art), put his feelings first, give his political opinions a place, integrate of not integrate musical, literary or other arts' developments surrounding him, etcetera etcetera.
For any of these pros and cons can be imagined - as has been the case ever since the first musical magazins saw the light of day.

The point has been made that Matthews seems to negate developments in the musical world from the last 50 years or so in the composition of the Eighth.
Also is mentioned that the public is enjoying (or not) present day compositions of a more "conservative" character than seemingly was the case in the 1960s or so. [I am not so sure whether the presentation of such "more conservative" works is a result of post-Thatcher developments in society. This is a general development we see occurring all over the western(ized) musical world]

Thatcherism and Reaganomics together with their dismal effects on the arts and rise of the Saachi phenomenon have spread throughout the world in the wake of the collapse of the E Bloc. I call it Capitalist Realism. I don't think we can see this as just parochial, or just ascribe it to profusion of aesthetic choice, which has been around at least since the '60s and at that time and for a while after was addressed creatively, eg in Third Stream from the academic side and the autonomous jazz/improv co-operatives established both sides of the Pond.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't on the other hand see why the immediate availability of so much music needs to affect a composer's choices in the way you describe. Making artistic choices doesn't need to be like wandering around a supermarket.

WOMAD and similar "world music" events strike me as more or less synonymous with the latter: acts decontextualised from their sociopolitical milieux and put on western display for magpie pick'n'mix. Maybe not having attended many such events I am misrepresenting what they are about, but I don't think so.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Roehre extends ahinton's comments (to the effect that all Musics are available now and therefore contemporary) by mentioning the Internet. It's undeniable that a mind-boggling amount of Music is available free at the click of a mouse in ways that would have been unimaginable a quarter of a century ago.

But I don't buy it.

The very same Internet makes available an equally staggering amount of the world's visual Arts - but we don't have visual Artists so keen on revisiting the expressive styles of their grandparents in the way that some composers do. There aren't drip paintings, sculptures of reclining nudes with "holes", multiple screen prints of Madonna. Young visual Artists are much more enthusiastic about discovering their own ways of doing what they do than many of their contemporaries in the Music world.

Kindle and other internet devices have made available novels, poems, and play texts - but there is no equivalent eagerness to reproduce kitchen sink dramas, taller windows or an Alexandrian Quintet from younger writers as there is to look back in hunger amongst the creative choices of some Musicians.

[Richard Barrett]

The very same Internet makes available an equally staggering amount of the world's visual Arts - but we don't have visual Artists so keen on revisiting the expressive styles of their grandparents in the way that some composers do. There aren't drip paintings, sculptures of reclining nudes with "holes", multiple screen prints of Madonna. Young visual Artists are much more enthusiastic about discovering their own ways of doing what they do than many of their contemporaries in the Music world.

Kindle and other internet devices have made available novels, poems, and play texts - but there is no equivalent eagerness to reproduce kitchen sink dramas, taller windows or an Alexandrian Quintet from younger writers as there is to look back in hunger amongst the creative choices of some Musicians.

Also, what contemporary visual artists and writers do is not routinely described as "classical"!