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

[Ian]

That's because most performances have highlighted its famous "patriotic theme" by slowing it down and thereby effectively divorcing it from the rest of its movement - which I understand is not the case in the composer's own recording of the work, in which there is no "jolt" or feeling of different emotional territory. And Holst wasn't too happy about the appended verse that became the hymn whose music quite a few must have encountered in school services before hearing "The Planets".

The important thing for me is that it is a great tune.

I was just thinking that Jeruselem is quite interesting in that it has something of a condensed version of this sort of thing about. But the main thing is, it's another great tune.

[Ian]

I don’t know if this is relevant, or might provide some sort of insight. But here goes:

In my time I have composed hours and hours worth of cartoon music - often highly detailed, orchestral - loads of Warner Bros, Tom and Jerry, influenced stuff.

Pastiche is a big part of this sort of work and we often had to come up with pastiches of the rousing imperialist march and/or hymn - nearly alway used in an ironic context, mind you. Now you might think that, in this sort of situation, the composers only concern would be a cynical approach to doing the job as easily and as work-free as possible - take the money and run. But it wasn’t like that - the opportunity was to try and come up with that ‘killer‘ idea. I’m not saying we always, or even often, achieved that - but that was the motivation and the purpose.

And it’s still the case, for me that the thing I’m always hoping to find in a new piece is that ‘killer‘ idea. And it’s mainly because of that I’m not very interested in the things about a piece of music - including, for example, when it was written.

[Serial_Apologist]

The important thing for me is that it is a great tune.

I was just thinking that Jeruselem is quite interesting in that it has something of a condensed version of this sort of thing about. But the main thing is, it's another great tune.

Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" overture had a lot to answer for, imo.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don’t know if this is relevant, or might provide some sort of insight. But here goes:

In my time I have composed hours and hours worth of cartoon music - often highly detailed, orchestral - loads of Warner Bros, Tom and Jerry, influenced stuff.

Pastiche is a big part of this sort of work and we often had to come up with pastiches of the rousing imperialist march and/or hymn - nearly alway used in an ironic context, mind you. Now you might think that, in this sort of situation, the composers only concern would be a cynical approach to doing the job as easily and as work-free as possible - take the money and run. But it wasn’t like that - the opportunity was to try and come up with that ‘killer‘ idea. I’m not saying we always, or even often, achieved that - but that was the motivation and the purpose.

And it’s still the case, for me that the thing I’m always hoping to find in a new piece is that ‘killer‘ idea. And it’s mainly because of that I’m not very interested in the things about a piece of music - including, for example, when it was written.

Plenty of inspiration there - imperialisms have always involved a lot of killing.

[Ian]

Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" overture had a lot to answer for, imo.

Another great tune

[Ian]

Plenty of inspiration there - imperialisms have always involved a lot of killing.

Actually tunes are being killed off at the moment - it’s getting increasingly common for directors to ask composers to take out anything distinctly melodic. Don’t ask me what the political significance of that is though.

[ahinton]

Actually tunes are being killed off at the moment - it’s getting increasingly common for directors to ask composers to take out anything distinctly melodic. Don’t ask me what the political significance of that is though.

I wasn't going to, not least because I cannot imagine what political significance such acts of musical murder might be (and also because I am self-admittedly melodically challenged)...

[Richard Barrett]

it’s getting increasingly common for directors to ask composers to take out anything distinctly melodic.

I know very little about the ins and outs of film music, but that is something I've noticed in commercial films in recent years - the people in charge seem to prefer to have unmemorable music going on all the time rather than memorable music happening at important junctures. (Mica Levi's music for Under the Skin is the only recent exception to this that I can think of.) There must be sound economic reasons for this homogenisation of film music, otherwise it wouldn't be happening, and of course if there are economic reasons there is a political dimension of some kind.

[jayne lee wilson]

And the same goes for David Matthews of course: nobody is saying it's "wrong" of him to write the music he does, and I wonder why some contributors to this discussion have consistently misinterpreted the comments made by me and others as claiming that it is.

On one hand surely it's uncontroversial to observe (a) that since the 1980s there has been a general trend towards conservatism in Western political discourse, as the traditional ruling class has gradually rolled back the achievements made since 1945 by social democracy and (b) that in the same period there has been a retrenchment into conservatism in culture in general, and (given the subject under discussion) music in particular, with the music of David Matthews as an example. Indeed, similar rhetoric is frequently found in both areas. On the other hand there seems to be a reluctance on some quarters not to see the connection between these two phenomena. It isn't primarily a question of taste, still less of what the composer's intentions are or can be inferred to be, or of "right" and "wrong". All music should be open to analysis and criticism as a social and political phenomenon.

Yes, all music should be open to that, as to any form of analysis. (It will of course be much more difficult, but possibly carry more authority, if a wide range of the composer's works are considered!).

But if you offer a negative social and political critique of a work that others have taken pleasure in, they are going to defend it, aren't they. But they'll be defending their pleasure from a largely hedonistic point of view; they may or may not see your political angle, but feel that you are disapproving of their pleasure, even condescending to it; or they may fight back on the music's behalf, probably not from a conscious social or political angle. The result may well be a factionalising into hostile groups, even among those few who bother to listen to orchestral music composed for the concert hall today.

L'Art-pour-L'Art...
Doesn't it all start with pleasure? And finish when the pleasure stops...?

Listening For Pleasure need not be trivialising or shallow; it may be the deepest, richest connection a human being can make to a work of organised sound. Certainly the most physical one (short of playing it...)
A social or political critique may (may, note: qualifier, neither insistent nor exclusive!) narrow the possibilities of response and, as an obvious consequence, meaning. At the very least, it asks the artwork to bear a specific meaning which some other listener is bound to disagree about. But my actual listening - that one-to-one confrontation of an individual soundworld - seems to me most intense when free of any social reference, political placing, or stylistic prejudice (politically implicated or not...).
I can see why someone (with superficial knowledge of his oeuvre) might consider my enjoyment of David Matthews' (extremely varied!) orchestral music conservative, or Conservative; place say, the 3rd Symphony alongside Night's Black Bird or Du Cristal, I can easily hear why; but I can't feel it, or experience it, as less "relevant" or less "contemporary"; or as relating to a political condition. I simply relate it to a different musical genealogy, and would offer several David Matthews' works as, in any case, subtly subversive.

***

After a minor illness which kept me from almost any listening for nearly a fortnight, tonight I began, inspired by my own and RB's comments with: John Adams' Grand Pianola Music and Xenakis' Tetora (for string quartet). I'd heard neither for years.
The Adams surprised me with its freshness, and made me laugh, and cry; much more to my surprise, I was intensely engaged with the Xenakis too, played immediately after. It didn't find an emotional response, no, but riveted fascination: I really wanted to hear it again(**). The Adams' piece had warmed me up, opened up my visceral responses to a Xenakis work I could make little of when I bought the Jack Quartet CD a few years ago. I felt I was beginning to understand it, but not in a way I could explain verbally.

Grand Pianola Music dates from 1982; Tetora from 1990. Neither sounded newer than the other; both sounded contemporary, or just: freshly relevant to this individual listener.

(**)Where, anyway, can one draw the line between emotion and fascination? The one shades mysteriously, effortlessly, into the other, as into other shifting states of mind...

[ahinton]

I won't take up space quoting your entire post but, once again, a response replete with the pragmatic good sense that most of us have come to expect from the wee sma' 'oors in Merseyland! Personally, I just don't happen to get (i.e. be able to engage with) Tetora, though the same composer's Tetras for the same ensemble I find wonderful - and I imagine that Night's Black Bird might be thought of as one of its composer's more "approachable" pieces - but all points well made, as usual!

One problem attaching to conscious or even subconscious listening with the socio-political awareness factor somewhere in the background of the listener's response mechanism is that differences of socio-political viewpoint and perspective between one listener and another might tend to generate (usually unintended) differences in reaction and possibly also to inflate that aspect of the work in question in the listener's mind rather more than the composer might have intended or expected (if at all) - or indeed even to misidentify and/or misinterpret it altogether, such as it might be. Another aspect of the socio-political awareness issue from the composer's, rather than the listener's, standpoint might seems to rest to some degree upon the fact that most composers will have no idea either to whom their music will be performed at any time or the various socio-political world-views of their listeners at any time so, in consciously seeking to charge what they do with some kind of socio-political "message" or at least to write with their own stances on such issues somewhere in mind (especially in works in which no words form part of what they're writing) might arguably seem to risk placing at least one aspect of their efforts on something of a Haydn to nothing, it seems to me...

[Ian]

I know very little about the ins and outs of film music, but that is something I've noticed in commercial films in recent years - the people in charge seem to prefer to have unmemorable music going on all the time rather than memorable music happening at important junctures. (Mica Levi's music for Under the Skin is the only recent exception to this that I can think of.) There must be sound economic reasons for this homogenisation of film music, otherwise it wouldn't be happening, and of course if there are economic reasons there is a political dimension of some kind.

‘the people in charge’ aren’t exactly a homogeneous bunch - a bit like composers really. But one thing I noticed over my time working in film was the gradual diminishing of control entrusted to the director. It used to be the norm that the director’s vision was paramount - and that’s not to say they wouldn’t listen to ideas - its just that the final decision was up to them. But increasingly I noticed the rise of the ‘executive producer‘ often an administrator working for the organisation providing the funds. Often, they were people who thought they uniquely knew what audiences wanted and, for some reason, consequently, did their utmost to remove anything distinctive. Sometimes, in a co-production when you might have had four executive producers, all in a race to develop their personal egos, I sometimes wondered if any film would be left.

In a ‘cut your nose off the spite your face’ sort of way, the satisfying thing was though, that on balance, that approach did not necessarily bring success.

[Ian]

The result may well be a factionalising into hostile groups, even among those few who bother to listen to orchestral music composed for the concert hall today.

But hasn’t this been a feature ever since music has diversified in an ‘out of control’ way since, say, the second half of the 19th C?

I like the fact music is out of control - but neither do I take that status for granted. There have been and always will be those that seek to control what others do or think - whether by political, military, economic, educational or aesthetic means.

[Serial_Apologist]

A social or political critique may (may, note: qualifier, neither insistent nor exclusive!) narrow the possibilities of response and, as an obvious consequence, meaning. At the very least, it asks the artwork to bear a specific meaning which some other listener is bound to disagree about. But my actual listening - that one-to-one confrontation of an individual soundworld - seems to me most intense when free of any social reference, political placing, or stylistic prejudice (politically implicated or not...).

Speaking for myself, on the contrary: in my experience learning that some of my favourite long-term listenings turned out to be of music by people with whom I was unknowingly broadly in sympathy with their world view has actually led to a broadening in my appreciation of them - Vaughan Williams coming most immediately to mind. If people think a social or political critique of art or music narrows the possibilities of response they are imv themselves taking a narrow view of politics: one, I think stemming from the idea of politics as a cross on a ballot paper every 4 or 5 years, not one that sees the political as inextricably interlinked with the personal, as the feminists used to say (and maybe still do).

[ahinton]

Speaking for myself, on the contrary: in my experience learning that some of my favourite long-term listenings turned out to be of music by people with whom I was unknowingly broadly in sympathy with their world view has actually led to a broadening in my appreciation of them - Vaughan Williams coming most immediately to mind. If people think a social or political critique of art or music narrows the possibilities of response they are imv themselves taking a narrow view of politics: one, I think stemming from the idea of politics as a cross on a ballot paper every 4 or 5 years, not one that sees the political as inextricably interlinked with the personal, as the feminists used to say (and maybe still do).

But much as I take your point (and am far from disappointed in reading your expression of it), I would hope that Vaughan Williams' best work (with which I have to admit it took me along time to get to grips) can transcend the world views of its listeners without blinding them to such work, in rather the same way as some (though not certain others!) can listen to and be profoundly moved by The Dream of Gerontius without being Catholics or even Christians...

[Daniel]

Perhaps slightly strange this thread, in that even with all the differing viewpoints, I feel I can agree with almost everybody (although sometimes people seem to be talking about slightly different points when conversing, which leaves plenty of latitude for both to be right ...). Contemporary as a descriptor clearly has plenty of room for different people to set up camp around it and belong.

However, when artistic impulse or expression is stifled by external influence such as corporate control, and one observes a cultural stagnation that for example suits business rather than culture, I think it is even more important that there is music that pushes against this. Much as I'm glad that David Matthews wrote his 8th Symphony, clearly it is not such a piece of music (and I don't think it needs to be).
It's a sign of a healthy culture that current assumptions/status quos are challenged and tested and broken free of, this is how science works and enhances our lives after all (not without pressures from its own corporations of course). But some things in science remain constant (with a few refinements) and relevant, and if impulses are genuine, I think in a sense the same is possible in art - one can still fashion new creations using old frameworks.

The question of an artist's motivation is an important one, and it's difficult not seeing it as having a political dimension, whether conscious or not. But I think it's about reception as well as about creation.
The example of pop music given upthread, can show very well the stultifying effect of corporatisation on an art form, with a stylistic groundhog day appearing to be in quasi operation in the mainstream. Though to the young people enjoying it, it's all new, and that gives it vitality for them. Nursery rhymes stay the same too, and are no doubt every bit as magical to each new generation. I think if one listens with the enthusiasm and intelligence of say (if I may?) Jayne Lee Wilson for example, all sorts of music can be vital, current and meaningful, it's not just about the creator.