Tabakova String Paths

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

fhgl 's attitude is not a surprise - he prefers barbed wire music after 1950 !

Rumbled! This is what most frequently features on the ferney playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfv1hb37j9M

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am interested to note the connection with Diana Burrell, with whom, amongst others, she studied composition. I haven't been able to find any recordings of music by Burrell - so can't comment whether Tabakova's work is in any way derived from one of her mentors.

A couple of Burrell's works on youTube, Dave, the first of which is a sort of stew of Tavener, Messiaen and Birtwistle-lite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phdPUXDtyZ0

... the second more fun, but goes on a bit too long (for me):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHGYJnXNFk

I've always had problems with DB's Music - I'm never sure exactly what's being "said" in her work and the superficial sounds don't make me want to persevere with it: rather grey, and a not very interesting grey either. I don't know how good a teacher she is, but the fact that Tabakova has a different "sound world" suggests that DB is able to help her students develop their own "voice".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The last person who seemed to want to try and achieve something monumental and 'new' with the symphony, it seems, was Simpson. I mean, try and succeed. However, he has no audience (aside of those who haunt boards such as this! )

Lutoslawski's Fourth, I think, post-dates Simpson's Eleventh, but point acknowledged. "Audience" is a concept that I think has taken on different connotations since the "Age of Recording" from those of the 18th - 20th Centuries. It is quite possible that more people have already heard Ms Tabakova's works than heard Beethoven's in his lifetime. Simpson's admirers are scattered: there probably wouldn't be enough people in (say) Southampton who would buy tickets for a concert involving one of his works to make such a programme economically viable for any orchestra adventurous enough to attempt such a programming. But a quick glance at youTube shows that people access his work in thousands (either that or there's half-a-dozen people who are really keen ).

It's quite conceivable that, within the next few years, composers and performers (and not just those at the start of their careers) will increasingly bypass the old-style Music publishing, recording and broadcasting companies, and maybe even concert venues, contenting themselves with the cyber audience. The online communities, who already have a much vaster selection of Music available to them when and where they want, will become the Audience - sampling works on Spotify etc at low-quality, free recordings and buying what most appeals to them at higher quality direct from the composers' and artists' websites.

I don't think that Live events will ever become "extinct", but, in the age of Electronic Music, these will become "special" occasions - and the more expensive events will focus on the more economically viable mainstream/standard repertoire. But the number of people throughout the world who listen to Simpson's Music will be much vaster than it could ever possibly be if it relied on the Concert Hall for which it was intended. A very ambiguous state of affairs.

I wonder what you make of Tom Service's analysis of Beethoven's 5th in today's Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/music/tom...th-tom-service

I was very impressed by it - and have commented on the "Symphony Legacy" Thread.

[aeolium]

Those are interesting comments about the changing ways of accessing music and the effect these are having on composers and performers, ferney. Do you think that it will reach the stage where cyber-concerts (as opposed to digital recordings) could increasingly replace traditional live events due to the wider audience, and might this have a beneficial effect on the "long tail" of musical works - those infrequently performed and recorded due to the relatively small size and geographical dispersal of the audience for such works?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think a lot depends on how far domestic technology can get to the acoustic experience of a Live concert, aeolie. As it is at present, I think it's rather like the difference between a digital/electic Piano and "the real thing" - there are advantages to the electric versions (cheaper, easier to maintain, lighter weight, decent harpsichord voice, transposing, recording etc) but they just don't match that "whoompf" of sound that runs along your fingers and arms and throughout your body when you play an Eb major chord on a decent Piano.

So no serious "replacing" of Live events, but certainly a greater use of internet concerts, particularly by orchestras, just as many orchestras now have their own CD labels: these will, I think, be replaced by downloads. What the repertoire will be would, I imagine, depend on developments in communication between cyber audiences and orchestras: if, say, a thousand on-line listeners have access to programmers and tell them that they'd be prepared to pay a couple of quid to hear a concert that included Lilburn's Second Symphony, then such a performance is more likely than if (as at present) concerts are simply put onto the internet (which audiences then have to seek out for themselves).

I think the potential is considerable - whether what emerges lives up to this ... well, I prefer to be optimistic. (<rosetintedglassesemoticon>)