The death of western art music has been greatly exaggerated

[kea]

Also possibly my favourite expression of Christianity in 20th century classical music is the late work of Galina Ustvolskaya.

Without getting too deep into the whole religion thing.... when listening to e.g. Tavener it's easy to imagine a display of piety, and difficult to imagine the reason for that piety. It feels quite self-absorbed. With Ustvolskaya I don't ever forget that an innocent man was tortured and killed so that the rest of us might live, that the world is full of injustice, that we can hope for a better world but in the end God is unknowable and etc. This is also why I like Penderecki's Utrenja. Christianity (& Judaism by extension) are actually quite dark as far as religious faiths go, and don't really offer much consolation.... some denominations soften the message obviously, though not Eastern Orthodox as far as I know. (please note that I am Jewish so some Christians will probably discount my views entirely >.>)

Also I'm not sure whether he would have thought of himself as a Christian—he seems to have generally avoided discussing religion in interviews—but Horatiu Radulescu's music is definitely "Christian" in effect even if it's dressed up in Taoist titles. I would actually consider his music to be significantly more "Eastern Orthodox" than say Pärt's.

[Lat-Literal]

Of course the people who do realise that simple truth aren't much better: Richard Taruskin has spun a great deal of conspiracy theorising about how serialism is basically the result of a covert CIA plot to counter Soviet influence in Europe, and really, Zhdanov was right and Prokofiev and Shostakovich's music gets much better after the government cracked down on their artistic "formalism", and if we're uncomfortable with that conclusion we should realise Western governments did the same thing in a more unofficial manner by orchestrating the artistic community's denial of opportunities to composers who wrote tonal music between 1950 and 1980, which totally happened guys, there are three sentences in Ned Rorem's autobiography that prove it.

(I have no idea why everyone keeps claiming that composers who wrote consonant music had zero opportunities and were excluded from artistic life for most of the twentieth century. Maybe they didn't get the artistic life they wanted, or respect from the people they were most envious of, but it's not like people like Britten and Bernstein and Malcolm Arnold etc. were exactly short of commissions and performances...)

Also possibly my favourite expression of Christianity in 20th century classical music is the late work of Galina Ustvolskaya.

Without getting too deep into the whole religion thing.... when listening to e.g. Tavener it's easy to imagine a display of piety, and difficult to imagine the reason for that piety. It feels quite self-absorbed. With Ustvolskaya I don't ever forget that an innocent man was tortured and killed so that the rest of us might live, that the world is full of injustice, that we can hope for a better world but in the end God is unknowable and etc. This is also why I like Penderecki's Utrenja. Christianity (& Judaism by extension) are actually quite dark as far as religious faiths go, and don't really offer much consolation.... some denominations soften the message obviously, though not Eastern Orthodox as far as I know. (please note that I am Jewish so some Christians will probably discount my views entirely >.>)

Also I'm not sure whether he would have thought of himself as a Christian—he seems to have generally avoided discussing religion in interviews—but Horatiu Radulescu's music is definitely "Christian" in effect even if it's dressed up in Taoist titles. I would actually consider his music to be significantly more "Eastern Orthodox" than say Pärt's.

Great posts both - and mainly beyond me. But each to some extent picks up on allegations I've made - what you mention about alleged covert CIA plots is not dissimilar to the idea I put forward that Sir William Glock in Britain orchestrated within the BBC a Year Zero - so I should try to comment. That is especially true given the links between Glock and Britten who in your posts is among the composers represented almost as antidotes to that sort of approach. To look for other names, Ruth Gipps would be an unarguably non Year Zero figure.

Here's the gist:

My position on Britten which was very anti has slightly softened in the past three years. I can meet him on romanticism and the sea. But there is no question whatsoever that he was portrayed as the golden boy and Glock's BBC Third Programme was at the heart of it. Any assessment of the extent to which a more conservative tradition was treated fairly in Britain must start with those two people. To be fair, the jury is out on Glock. Some say he was a conservative and that he gave Ruth Gipps - who I would promote at every available opportunity - nine commissions. Her attitude - understandable but she was notoriously difficult - suggests otherwise while Petroc T has been one of many who have commented on the climate as it was perceived by those not favoured. Not good. For one reason or another and it wasn't that Glock had not seen war service he had had a need to promote one or two British composers above all the others. And if more for the light Vapours than the Sex Pistols by inclination, to apply a crude new wave/punk analogy, he often went for the latter internationally. Why?

Because he was an individual with power who had something of the all powerful Reith about him while also being snottier nosed. He attached that power to innovative broadcasting zeal for better and for worse. The narrowing down of the British to a few above the rest - and it was George Lloyd who really suffered in the war and then suffered the most musically - reflected his own big sense of position. Britten was no serialist of any note but he was regarded as modern. Leaning towards the avant-garde - with Tippett as the principal second. So to suggest if anyone wishes to that Britten and ilk were a part of the old guard looking forward would be as crazy as to say the same of any Penderecki. Requiems etc for the establishment come and go but these British composers were there precisely to be not Vaughan Williams or anything else pre war. A new broom which also applied to politics and broadcasting itself.

But many of the strands actually bypassed Glock. Glock's position, this is key, although I would have thought it inadvertent, enabled Britten to exercise control of what was then the serious musical establishment in this country especially in one of his favoured ways, catty exclusion. That didn't necessarily mean away from Glock that the outlook towards music being made here was as adventurous as it was towards composers from abroad. But the approach was partially defined by Britten's tendency to be especially critical of earlier British composers. And certainly he was anti women composers who had never been given much glory. It was on that particular axis that Gipps got hot under the collar. It didn't take much as I have said, however good her music, and it elided with her broader experience. As for Arnold, his course - downward - was his own while Bernstein, I think, was true American gold.

On the religion:

I am not sure that I consider Christianity and Judaism by extension don't offer much consolation. That, though, is neither a musical or broadcasting consideration unless as a concept it is being applied specifically in some musical way. It is probably true to say that one of the most positive aspects of diversity vis a vis music in the 21st Century is the sheer mileage there is now with Ustvolskaya and especially Weinberg. In some respects, it runs counter to this century's tendency to let both atheism and anti-semitism be matters of debate rather than merely giving them a direct elbow. And it isn't only right to like them. It is as rebelliously fashionable as anyone interested in being so could hope for by way of reference. I am C of E but feel a personal responsibility - and musical leanings - as someone who stands for diversity to ensure that the diversity brigade don't get away with being anti Jewish. It's not cool. Whenever I sense that that sort of attitude arises, I stick my neck out and redouble my efforts. Just not having it. Simple as that - and I'm more vehement the longer time moves on.

[P. G. Tipps]

All very interesting ...

There are clearly some very knowledgeable people on this Forum and the differences of opinion amongst the knowledgeable themselves are quite fascinating but not really that surprising.

Some here may deplore the very idea but I have searched the internet to discover for myself what else Mr Reilly has to say on the subject of music rather than rely on dismissive and clearly 'agenda-driven' howls of disapproval regarding the man's politics and religion. Mr Reilly certainly has his own quite open 'agenda' on music but you don't have to move very far to find plenty of other, quite separate 'agendas' on here, french frank!

So ... I have been perusing the pages of Mr Reilly's book Surprised by Beauty. I have downloaded it, will read it in full at my leisure, and report back to members. I'm sure some will be on tenterhooks awaiting that report so I'll be as quick as possible.

Mr Reilly's views certainly have the benefit of consistency, if nothing else. I like that ... consistency immediately commands my respect and attention. Still, I have just been skimming some of the pages though obviously I must dig an awful lot deeper.

However, I was struck by a chapter on Hans Gál the Austrian-Jewish composer whose music was suppressed by the Nazis and who subsequently fled his homeland and settled in Scotland. It's very interesting indeed. Members who claim Mr Reilly is antisemitic might be particularly interested. Or maybe not.

I won't provide the actual evidence by posting the link. That would be most unfair on some members. Those who really want to see the truth will search for the truth themselves. Often it's the only way ...

[MrGongGong]

I like that ... consistency immediately commands my respect and attention. .

So to be clear about it
You place great store on what this chap says about music because he demonstrates "consistency" ?

To assume that all "agendas" are somehow equal because you can call them "agendas" is one way to go I guess?

But carry on with the tome, hope you have your trusty dictionary by your side to tell you what is "right"

[Richard Barrett]

It only took a couple or so clicks

... to find a link to an article you can only read the first page of unless you have access to JStor through an academic institution, was my point, so you can't have read the article or seen what conclusions Prof Forte came to or even which pieces he was talking about and how he defines serialism as explored by Messiaen! Yes, different people define it in subtly but crucially different ways, so that in general one has to be specific about what it is to mean within a particular book or essay at some point, so that everyone is ahem singing from the same hymn sheet, apart from those who think words are completely and comprehensively defined by a couple of lines in a dictionary.

[Bryn]

... those who think words are completely and comprehensively defined by a couple of lines in a dictionary.

Well let's face it, words had no meaning before 1604. Three cheers for Robert Cawdrey, eh?

[french frank]

Mr Reilly certainly has his own quite open 'agenda' on music but you don't have to move very far to find plenty of other, quite separate 'agendas' on here, french frank!

Just to remind you, Mr Tipps, the subject under discussion was one particular article by one particular writer. I said he was agenda-driven (which is why he tried to link music and religion/spirituality). What relevance is there to saying 'So were lots of other people'? The only reason he denounces Schoenberg et al and their music is that he doesn't like it: his argument suits his religious beliefs.

I have certainly argued with others about the way they dismiss certain kinds of music on the grounds that they don't fit certain 'criteria' - criteria which they themselves have invented. But that is another topic …

[Richard Barrett]

This is also why I like Penderecki's Utrenja.

The best thing he's written in my opinion, mainly because it has wider resonances, of, one might say, the kind of "dark night of the soul" which can be related to by most people, whether religious or not, that go far wider than the "display of piety" of someone like Tavener; as does the music of Messiaen with its awestruck vision of the natural world, something else that can be experienced outside a narrowly defined concept of faith. Soul-searching isn't limited to those of a religious persuasion, but it's something alien to Reilly and his ilk, for which the fundamental questioning implied by it would strike at the heart of what is essentially (once more!) a totalitarian view.

Returning for a moment to serialism: I and others have pointed out here many times that, given that it defines a method of composition rather than a style, it's not possible in principle to detect whether a piece of music has been composed using this method just by listening to it (though this may be possible in some cases). So when Reilly thinks he's talking about Schoenberg's serialism, what he is really talking about is Schoenberg's "emancipation of the dissonance", or, to put it another way, Schoenberg's logical and indeed inevitable expansion (if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else) of the harmonic resources of music beyond the point reached by Wagner and Liszt in the late nineteenth century. Cultural conservatives like Reilly (and Scruton) are basically concerned with putting all the stuff back into a Pandora's Box with an arbitrarily chosen date stamped on the outside, in this case something round about 1900, although previous generations back through the centuries have put their own dates on it. Nothing in the history of humankind has ever been "uninvented", although there are always those who claim it's the only way music (or whatever) can be saved from decline. It's a profoundly joyless and pessimistic outlook, therefore hardly Christian in any meaningful sense.

[jean]

...the "display of piety" of someone like Tavener...

I don't think this is quite fair to Taverner or those 'like' him.

I'll try to say why later.

[Richard Barrett]

I don't think this is quite fair to Taverner

Assuming you mean Tavener: I do think it's entirely fair, given the effort he clearly put into appearing almost comically pious whenever his photo was taken!

[edashtav]

Assuming you mean Tavener: I do think it's entirely fair, given the effort he clearly put into appearing almost comically pious whenever his photo was taken!

C'mon, Richard Barrett, John Tavener was in constant pain!

[Bryn]

Assuming you mean Tavener: I do think it's entirely fair, given the effort he clearly put into appearing almost comically pious whenever his photo was taken!

Not quite whenever:



but certainly in later life.

[Bryn]

C'mon, Richard Barrett, John Tavener was in constant pain!

Certainly the Marfan had more and more impact over the years but the condition cannot be held fully responsible for poses and mode of dress, etc. I took Richard to be referring to.

[P. G. Tipps]

Just to remind you, Mr Tipps, the subject under discussion was one particular article by one particular writer. I said he was agenda-driven (which is why he tried to link music and religion/spirituality). What relevance is there to saying 'So were lots of other people'? The only reason he denounces Schoenberg et al and their music is that he doesn't like it: his argument suits his religious beliefs.

Rest assured, french frank, I'm well aware what the topic under discussion is supposed to be about ...

I note that you have also completely dismissed Reilly's article describing it as 'worthless', I think. Apologies if I'm mistaken.

If so, isn't that being every bit as 'simplistic' as Reilly himself in his article? Wrongheaded maybe but worthless? Certainly not!

The 'relevance' of pointing out that almost everyone who takes an active part in a debate such as this might also have an 'agenda' is merely to demonstrate that 'agendas' are not particularly peculiar to people like Mr Reilly when they dare to express an opinion some of us here might not particularly wish to read.

The OP presumably thought so as well ... he/she clearly did an excellent job in encouraging the advertising of all sorts of 'agendas' in this thread, that's for sure!

Enough ...

[french frank]

I note that you have also completely dismissed Reilly's article describing it as 'worthless', I think. Apologies if I'm mistaken.

If so, isn't that being every bit as 'simplistic' as Reilly himself in his article? Wrongheaded maybe but worthless? Certainly not!

I think it unlikely that views can be both persistent or obstinate in erroneous opinion, perversely or obstinately wrong on a subject, and yet be of some worth on that same topic.

The 'relevance' of pointing out that almost everyone who takes an active part in a debate such as this might also have an 'agenda' is merely to demonstrate that 'agendas' are not particularly peculiar to people like Mr Reilly when they dare to express an opinion some of us here might not particularly wish to read.

My view, on the other hand, was that that was not relevant to the current discussion.

The OP presumably thought so as well ...

Yes, if you you look at the OP's other posts from a while back you will see s/he is usually at odds with commonly held views here.

It is perfectly possible to share the same tastes as someone else and yet still detect the inadequacy of their attempts to 'justify' their tastes.