The death of western art music has been greatly exaggerated

[ahinton]

Would that be Christopher Fox that he wants to hunt?

If only it were Liam, some good might come of it (can I get away with that, FF?)...

[ahinton]

I think he is hiding in the Briars

Oh dear! Poor Gavin!

[greenilex]

Sorry, got no in chat, but I do disapprove most strongly of the religiosity masquerading as aesthetics in the article...why are the only worthwhile composers devout Christians?

What about the Russian tradition, for example? Or do we only accept Orthodox chant?

[Nick Armstrong]

What a load of drivel!

You and others here are at one with the forthright Mahan Esfahani...

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry, got no in chat, but I do disapprove most strongly of the religiosity masquerading as aesthetics in the article...why are the only worthwhile composers devout Christians?

What about the Russian tradition, for example? Or do we only accept Orthodox chant?

But they were all strong believers. <heavy irony emoticon>.

The point being made from what I can deduce from having read half the article, is that the three composers on whom the author confers special praise being Christians, somewhat sidesteps the fact that each one of them went for texts outwith their own denominational proclivity, thereby entertaining versions of The Truth markedly at odds with one-another.

What can possibly be this selfsame writ whose alibi is Schoenberg, (and by implication, as ahinton has indicated, all those leading up to him as well as following in his wake), and which manages to avoid the sectarian wranglings of centuries, other than some form of Historical Providence?

[kea]

Sorry, got no in chat, but I do disapprove most strongly of the religiosity masquerading as aesthetics in the article...why are the only worthwhile composers devout Christians?

Antisemitism evidently is alive and well in the mind of the author: Schoenberg could not complete Moses and Aron specifically because he was Jewish, apparently, and therefore couldn't answer theological questions because the answer was Christ. The negative phrases used to describe serialism and modern music are also long-established code words for "Jewish". Philip Glass and Steve Reich, also Jewish, get no credit for "reviving" music from under the rubble of modernism, since minimalism is apparently just a very basic form that laid the groundwork for the more "evolved" music of Christian composers. Of the early minimalist composers the author only quotes John Adams, who is... a Christian as far as I know, if not a particularly devout one. No word whatsoever on La Monte Young or Terry Riley, whose religious beliefs fall outside the Judeo-Christian axis. I'm not impressed.

[MrGongGong]

No word whatsoever on La Monte Young or Terry Riley, whose religious beliefs fall outside the Judeo-Christian axis. I'm not impressed.

La Monte Young grew up as a Mormon
though he fell out with Jeremy Grimshaw during the process of the writing of Grimshaws book (which is worth a read IMV) partly because of the focus on the influence of the church on his music.

[Bryn]

Some of my best friends were minimalists, though they did not self-identify as such. Now they are more 'new tonality'

[Beef Oven!]

...and writing on occasion.

In 1952 or thereabouts, Boulez infamously wrote "Schoenberg is dead"; his assertion was not merely tasteless but of questionable accuracy in the light of the extent to which the sport of Schönberg Shooting retains currency. What is it with these people continuing to take pot shots at Schönberg two-thirds of a century after his death? What do they get out of it?

There seem to me to be things in this piece that I don't imagine Roger Scruton would have written or necessarily even condoned.

The main problem, of course, is the general thrust (if it can be so called) of the article which centres upon the specious myths of Schönberg having effectively destroyed tonality and that it's somehow risen, phœnix-like, from the ashes courtesy of the minimalists / minimal spiritualists (and, by implication, the so-called "Neo-Romantics" and others); it's not even as though the forward-thinking work of Wagner, Liszt, Scriabin and his followers, Varèse, Vermeulen, Ives and others had anything to do with any of this - it was all that dastardly Schönberg!

If tonality ever died, I must have been away from RCM the day they taught about that in history classes. The very fact that the author seems unaware that what Schönberg and many others did was to expand and enhance the expressive capabilities of music alone determined its place in the waste paper basket; the sheer diversity that grew from this to the point at which Ferneyhough, Dutilleux, Rubbra, Messiaen, Arnold, Pettersson, Xenakis, Henze, Stevenson, Tippett, Adams et al would work contemporaneously, yet this fact evidently cuts no ice with the writer who clear preference is for a spurious agenda driven evangelism in this ill-conceived essay.

Sorry; I've already written far too much on this drivel. I'll stop now that the steam seems no longer to be escaping from my ears...

Thanks for this post and do write more!

The article that you are responding to is very stimulating and interesting, albeit wrong-headed, IMV.

[P. G. Tipps]

The .......... article is very stimulating and interesting, albeit wrong-headed, IMV.

A simple, straightforward, fair-minded response as opposed to the knee-jerk Christophobia and silly abuse so apparent elsewhere here.

When an article described as 'drivel' so easily touches such raw nerves it might just ... maybe only just ... contain a little grain of truth?

[MrGongGong]

A simple, straightforward, fair-minded response as opposed to the knee-jerk Christophobia and silly abuse so apparent elsewhere here.

When an article described as 'drivel' so easily touches such raw nerves it might just ... maybe only just ... contain a little grain of truth?

In the same way that you can grow tasty mushrooms in horseshit you mean ?

[Richard Barrett]

Rather ill-advisedly I got involved in a discussion on this site a little while ago, countering some cultish nonsense and ad-hominem ranting with reasonable and (though I say so myself) cogently stated arguments, and after a brief exchange everything I posted there was moderated. They don't like it up 'em, Mr Mainwaring!

I'm not going to waste my time on the article linked here. Those people are small-minded, mean-spirited enemies of music.

[Neil]

Sorry, but I found nothing stimulating or interesting about it, nor could I find any precious grains of truth; only bias and ignorance and a lack of understanding or appreciation of the compositional problems composers like Schoenberg were faced with around the turn of the century and after Wagner.

Let those who choose to believe or take the view in the article get on with it. Good luck to them. They're not worth arguing with. Depressingly distorted views, regurgitated yet again. A waste of time.

[ahinton]

Rather ill-advisedly I got involved in a discussion on this site a little while ago, countering some cultish nonsense and ad-hominem ranting with reasonable and (though I say so myself) cogently stated arguments, and after a brief exchange everything I posted there was moderated. They don't like it up 'em, Mr Mainwaring!

I'm not going to waste my time on the article linked here. Those people are small-minded, mean-spirited enemies of music.

I'd like so much to think that you are wrong about this. Sadly, however, there's no way that this can be the case. I was going to post there myself but I just couldn't summon the energy to do it; faute de mieux, naturellement. I jut don't get all this spiritual-Christian stuff which, if nothing else (and sadly it is an awful lot else), is an insult to thinking Christians.

[kea]

There is great contemporary/20th century music based on Christian spirituality. Pärt, Tavener and Górecki aren't it imo, and even if someone else thinks more highly of them, the article does them no service by tearing down the rest of the twentieth century to elevate them.