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

[Beef Oven!]

I think it means there's a drunken bovine at the screen... hooves do have their limitations, and animals tend to think in pictures....

No, I'm not drunk. Is that the best you can come up with? Let's trade some real insults.

BTW, you're up early.

[ahinton]

No, I'm not drunk. Is that the best you can come up with? Let's trade some real insults.

BTW, you're up early.

Why is it that people write so much about the première of David Matthews' Eighth Symhony here when the thread is so clearly a pretext upon which to write about other things, such as trading insults, the composer's alleged denial of so much post-1950 music (which is surely far more important that what's in the symphony itself), the socio-politicultural milieu within which Matthews functions, the impact of Hampstead Garden Suburb upon his choices of notes (and presumably also of antediluvian manual shears rather than a Black & Decker device for his cuttin' edge activities) and so much else besides?

So many more questions - so little time...

Ah, and speaking of trading insults (if you must), how much do you charge for yours? Do you have a flat rate or does it depend upon length and content? And do you accept euros in payment?

Just curious.

Not.

[Daniel]

Whether or not DM’s 8th pushes against ‘corporate control’, though, is not a question that can be answered by [...] listening to the music with an innocent ear.

Hi Ian, (briefly for now as am being summoned elsewhere) actually that is how I'm doing it, it's the only thing I have to go on.

Obviously you think I'm wrong to do this. But as a mere listener (not expert or having inside knowledge of David Matthews) if I ask myself that question, my decision is arrived at based on only what the music sounds like to me.
It's a personal thing and of course I may be wrong (JLW talks about the music being subtly subversive), but if I compare it with another piece mentioned earlier, Xenakis' Tetras, then I instinctively feel the latter pushes against musical boundaries, which by extension is interpreted by me, as pushing against wider boundaries too. I used corporatism as an example of a boundary, as I think it infiltrates so many aspects of our lives, including what music gets played, but I have no idea if Xenakis was aiming to push at any non-musical boundaries or not - that was simply (part of) my emotional response to it, the answer I got when I posed that question. As I said, I think it's about both listener and creator (the dual needs of tango-ing spring to mind ...).

Sorry if that's jumbled, but as I said, slightly pressed for time.

And while I remember, thanks, Richard for the earlier Schnittke related story, it goes some way to explain the music's enigmatic appearance next to his name.

[Beef Oven!]

Why is it that people write so much about the première of David Matthews' Eighth Symhony here when the thread is so clearly a pretext upon which to write about other things, such as trading insults, the composer's alleged denial of so much post-1950 music (which is surely far more important that what's in the symphony itself), the socio-politicultural milieu within which Matthews functions, the impact of Hampstead Garden Suburb upon his choices of notes (and presumably also of antediluvian manual shears rather than a Black & Decker device for his cuttin' edge activities) and so much else besides?

So many more questions - so little time...

Weirdos, drunkards....so many questions.

[Richard Barrett]

And while I remember, thanks, Richard for the earlier Schnittke related story, it goes some way to explain the music's enigmatic appearance next to his name.

You're welcome. Indeed film music has been mentioned in passing a few times in this thread. It seems also to be an area of musical creation where a certain stylistically retrospective quality is aimed for, often harking back to the first half of the century when so many European composers arrived in the US and forged a whole vocabulary of cinematic music based mostly on that of the concert composers of the previous generation. I guess that most of the orchestral sounds most people in the world hear are in the form of film music.

[ahinton]

Weirdos, drunkards....so many questions.

Didn't know that this is by David Matthews...

[eighthobstruction]

....you are up early....

[ahinton]

A further thought occurs. Brian Ferneyhough (just to take one example) is, as I've mentioned, a compatriot and very close contemporary of David Matthews and, whilst there might on the surface appear to be precious little in common between them other than their nationality, birth year and the fact that they're both composers, it could be argued that each in his own way has stuck to his guns over decades and not been persuaded, coerced or whatever to write differently to the ways in which we know each of them to have written; does anyone suppose that, were David Matthews to adopt a stance closer to that of Brian Ferneyhough and compose in ways that might, for example, persuade those who allege his denial of much music of the past 60 years or so, he would receive noticeably more or fewer commissions and/or that his music would receive noticeably more or fewer performances?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... does anyone suppose that, were David Matthews to adopt a stance closer to that of Brian Ferneyhough and compose in ways that might, for example, persuade those who allege his denial of much music of the past 60 years or so, he would receive noticeably more or fewer commissions and/or that his music would receive noticeably more or fewer performances?

I, for one, would not suppose any such thing and would only go so far as to surmise that I might find it more interesting and rewarding if it did. I doubt that this opportunity would feature very highly in Mr Matthews' considerations - and indeed would go further, and demand that it didn't!

[ahinton]

I, for one, would not suppose any such thing and would only go so far as to surmise that I might find it more interesting and rewarding if it did. I doubt that this opportunity would feature very highly in Mr Matthews' considerations - and indeed would go further, and demand that it didn't!

I agree with you here (as might be implied from the way that I wrote about this!); the only reason for my putting those questions arose from the suggestion upthread of how audience, commissioning and other allied expectations might be thought broadly to have gone in a direction since around 1980 that appears to represent some level of retrenchment and a move towards a kind of "conservatism" compared, say, to the period 1945-1980 which made me wonder whether or to what extent this might in any way have affected any composers' thoughts about what goes these days. Certainly David Matthews' and Brian Ferneyhough's work over the past 50 years or so show no signs of having been materially affected by such considerations and, given how very different their musics are, it would not surprise me to find that few if any other composers' work has either. The only material change since the rise of the internet era that seems to me to have any impact here is the sheer fact that such a vast variety of musics of all kinds has become so much more easily accessible to listeners (by which I mean, of course, accessible to listen to, not necessarily accessible per se!), but I don't see that as creating fundamental changes of listener expectation where new music is concerned...

[kea]

It's not even about the creator in fact. All the protestations that David Matthews or whoever can "write what he likes" are beside the point. Of course a creative musician can write what he/she likes. Not that this should be taken for granted of course. And it's maybe worth remarking that the kind of retrospective style David Matthews is working in is actually rather comparable to the kinds of artistic styles enforced on artists by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Might that not be a reason to think twice about what one's own music might be a symptom of - that is to say, about the fact that it's the kind of thing that used in Cold War days to be pejoratively described as "officially sanctioned music" if it had emerged from the USSR?

Ooh I hadn't even thought of that. You're right though.

I'll draw a comparison, if I may, with capitalist feminism: during the first and second 'waves' there was a very strong focus on liberating women from the dictates of men—e.g. rejecting marriage, female clothing and cosmetics, prostitution, pornography, compulsory heterosexuality and so on. And for a while it seemed like people were starting to recognise that these sorts of things were tools men used to dominate women, not things women would have chosen of their free will necessarily. But neoliberal capitalism brought a massive backlash (the 'third wave') as men started to flood into feminism, and suddenly lots of feminists were insisting that they weren't nasty, man-hating, unshaven, lesbian feminists like those other ones and were in fact totally heterosexual and were choosing to be housewives and strippers and porn actresses or whatever. (Of course anyone can choose to be those things but the point is that individual 'identity libertarianism' is a distraction; it's not just an enormous coincidence that those things just happen to be exactly what the patriarchy expects of women.)

I see something similar with all the composers nowadays who are like 'Well I'm not a nasty atonal composer like Boulez and Stockhausen and all those other ones, the fact that my music happens to sound like a style enforced by a totalitarian regime is my personal choice and is not up for analysis ok, I have the freedom to write whatever I want' and at the same time... so much other music out there also happens to have the same characteristics so are we to assume that everyone is just freely choosing to write the same kind of stuff? (If we're disingenuous reactionaries, sure.) Or maybe we need to instead take a look at the distribution model that gets music out there and why it's only putting out there a specific kind of thing, or why people are much more enthusiastic in promoting a specific kind of thing than other things. What values lie behind it.

[ahinton]

I see something similar with all the composers nowadays who are like 'Well I'm not a nasty atonal composer like Boulez and Stockhausen and all those other ones, the fact that my music happens to sound like a style enforced by a totalitarian regime is my personal choice and is not up for analysis ok, I have the freedom to write whatever I want' and at the same time... so much other music out there also happens to have the same characteristics so are we to assume that everyone is just freely choosing to write the same kind of stuff? (If we're disingenuous reactionaries, sure.) Or maybe we need to instead take a look at the distribution model that gets music out there and why it's only putting out there a specific kind of thing, or why people are much more enthusiastic in promoting a specific kind of thing than other things. What values lie behind it.

Cards on table time. I write tonal music. It would never enter my head to say so absurd and insulting a thing as you have suggested above between your " ' and I know of no other tonal composer who would. As to this "distribution model", why bother; as Richard B has pointed out there are audiences for plenty of non-tonal music and challenging "modernist" (not his word and I wish I could think of a better one myself right now) work and one has only to look at his own performance schedule for evidence of this. Where is this "totalitarian régime" today? Unless I misunderstand you, you sound almost as though you're seeking to forge one or at least assume that one actually existsing in which the taking of sides is an essential component, to do with any and all of which I want to have nothing (as Churchill might have put it).

[Richard Barrett]

Very interesting, kea, I hadn't thought of that connection but it seems to me like a powerful analogy. The nub of it

(Of course anyone can choose to be those things but the point is that individual 'identity libertarianism' is a distraction; it's not just an enormous coincidence that those things just happen to be exactly what the patriarchy expects of women.)

would probably apply in many situations other than composing music, since it's one of the ways in which conservatism has won back the "hearts and minds" of those lost to social-democratic values in (broadly) the 1945-85 period, to the point where it's now possible to blame victims of various kinds for virtually all the ills of society and get away with it.

In the end it's not a question of facile and misleading labels like "tonal" and "atonal" (plenty of early techno music was by no means tonal, for example) but whether music, and culture in general, does or doesn't implicitly/explicitly express the possibility of change or whether (see the Badiou lecture I linked) it "celebrates" a present conceived as based on inherited, pseudo-"timeless" values. I'd go so far as to say that if a creative artist doesn't take this kind of responsibility into account, whatever political engagement they might claim to have is superficial and contradictory. How's that for a portentous statement!

[MrGongGong]

misleading labels like "tonal" and "atonal"

Morning Leigh ;-)

I do think you are right here though

I find statements like "I am a tonal composer" (I'm not quoting Mr H here) rather odd these days

I write/.devise/create music
Some sounds 'tonal'
Some not

but I would never start from the idea of writing 'tonal' music

[ahinton]

Morning Leigh ;-)

I do think you are right here though

I find statements like "I am a tonal composer" (I'm not quoting Mr H here) rather odd these days

I write/.devise/create music
Some sounds 'tonal'
Some not

but I would never start from the idea of writing 'tonal' music

Nor would I. If it happens to come out that way, then so be it. I don't do it like that as a matter of some kind of religious convinction. Furthermore, "tonality" can in any case be relative and its extent dependent upon the experience and perceptions of different listeners.

That said, RB is right to point out that tonality or otherwise is not really the prime issue here (although it might be thought to be at least one such issue by some people). That said, the statement that RB implied might be taken to be portentous, whilst not portentous per se to me, nevertheless raises questions.

"Whether music, and culture in general, does or doesn't implicitly/explicitly express the possibility of change or whether (see the Badiou lecture I linked) it "celebrates" a present conceived as based on inherited, pseudo-"timeless" values. I'd go so far as to say that if a creative artist doesn't take this kind of responsibility into account, whatever political engagement they might claim to have is superficial and contradictory", he writes.

First of all, why would every composer necessarily lay public claim to having any particular political engagement? Is that somehow compulsory or at least wise in order to be a composer or to be recognised as one?

Secondly, if, as one might reasonably expect, not every composer would lay claim, publicly or otherwise, to the same or similar political engagement, should that difference be seen to serve as some kind of illustration of the relative values and nature of the respective composers' work and/or its place in and relevance to society?

Thirdly, what are "pseudo-"timeless"" values? Are there also "genuine ones"? If so, how do the former differ from the latter? One could speak of "timeless" values in the music of Bach, but that would hardly have been possible at the turn of the 18th/19th centuries when Bach was not performed as he is today and has been for many decades.

Fourthly, RB writes of "one of the ways in which conservatism has won back the "hearts and minds" of those lost to social-democratic values in (broadly) the 1945-85 period, to the point where it's now possible to blame victims of various kinds for virtually all the ills of society and get away with it"; whilst I presume that he refers here to political conservatism, I assume from others of his writings on the subject that he draws at least some parallels between this and musical "conservatism", yet he has provided illustrations of the successes garnered by music that would surely not be described as "conservative" and his own record of performances demonstrates that such musical "conservatism" appears by no means to have come to hold sway and pushed more "adventurous" composers and their work onto the sidelines.

Lastly (for now, anyway!), "if a creative artist doesn't take this kind of responsibility into account, whatever political engagement they might claim to have is superficial and contradictory" seems to me to have a faint whiff of Boulez, serialism and the uselessness of composers who have failed to engage with and understand the need for it sufficiently as spoken from on high all those years ago, however unintended that impression might be; isn't a composer's prime "responsibility", however "conservative" or "non-conservative", to be totally honest and write what he/she believes in to the best of his/her ability, uninfluenced and unimpeded by socio-politicultural pressures real or perceived?

As I sought to suggest way back in this thread, is not the sheer breadth of today's musical conspectus something to be celebrated rather than something to invite the risk of divisiveness and factionalisation? I would certainly hope so. There's no way that, in Britain, for example, a mere three years could have brought forth composers as diverse as Ferneyhough, Bryars, Holloway, the two Matthewses, Tavener and Finnissy half a century earlier; the differences between them are considerably greater than, for example, those in Russia between Medtner, Roslavets, Gnessin, Sabaneyev, Stravinsky, Steinberg and Myaskovsky over a similar period from 1880.