If only…

[Pulcinella]

Maybe Tallis and RVW!

Pergolesi (or even attrib. Pergolesi ) and Stravinsky?

[kernelbogey]

....if Bach were to come back to life he would understand not only Stravinsky but also Boulez and all the rest, because he was a speculative musical thinker too, throughout his life, and if he had actually been alive for 350 years he would have participated in all the new musical discoveries that took place....

I was thinking, in this musical-tardis-fantasy, that the composer might be parachuted into the later century without the advantage of having, apparently, lived through intervening centuries and musical developments. It might make Tallis, hearing RVW, sit up more....

[RichardB]

It seems to me it destroys the composer's freedom of choice over his material (...) Which is the correct answer!

That part isn't, though, is it? I wonder how a thoughtful musician like Ireland wouldn't cotton on to the fact that serial composition is about freeing the composer's imagination rather than restricting it!

Kernelbogey, I and my friend back then were indeed thinking of Bach being suddenly dropped into the age of Boulez et al and having the measure of it.

[kernelbogey]

Kernelbogey, I and my friend back then were indeed thinking of Bach being suddenly dropped into the age of Boulez et al and having the measure of it.

[Mandryka]

Yes, that's an interesting question too, which I remember discussing with a friend many years ago. His opinion was that if Bach were to come back to life he would understand not only Stravinsky but also Boulez and all the rest, because he was a speculative musical thinker too, throughout his life, and if he had actually been alive for 350 years he would have participated in all the new musical discoveries that took place. On the other hand he would probably have disapproved of the increase of atheism among 20th and 21st century composers. On the other other hand he might understand that his own theory of reality had been superseded.

Resurrected Bach may not understand the point of Boulez’s music. Sure, he could understand the theory, and sure, he could use that theory to make some Bach type music. But I think he would have a harder time seeing why making sounds which are organised like Boulez is a worthwhile, musical, thing to do. He would have hard time understanding the context which made Boulez’s work seem like a good thing.

[cloughie]

I've always loved this from the then still-extant composer John Ireland, when asked by author Murray Schafer to offer his reaction to hearing Boulez's Improvisation sur Mallarme II, in a 1962 interview:

"Oh, interesting. He makes rather odd sounds. I liked the little clusters of sounds he obtained from the piano, celesta and the other instruments he used. It was very difficult to make anything of it. I don't know anything about the twelve-tone system you know. It seems to me it destroys the composer's freedom of choice over his material, but I wouldn't like to criticize it without understanding it. Everybody seems to be turning that way today, even Stravinsky. I'd like to know something about it as a matter of interest because I'm always interested in new trends in music. But I think it may only be a phase. Of course it's not possible to shock the ears any more these days. Boulez's sounds didn't shock me, but I found them interesting".

Which is the correct answer!

Seriously though, I like Ireland's reply. For someone of that generation who grew up in the era when, in his words, "Brahms was [thought by some to be] the greatest living composer", who was a near-contemporary of Ravel, and whose own idiom identified with and rarely advanced beyond Ravel's, I think it's remarkably open-minded, even by many people's limiting standards today.

My "if onlys" would be if only Holst had managed to complete the symphony on which he had been working right up to his death, of which the only extant fragment is the remarkable scherzo movement - and the same for Frank Bridge's strings symphony. Both works suggested potential new developments - which I happen not to see in VW's Ninth, notwithstanding recent claims.

Interesting S_A. John Ireland, living to the age of 83, would have or could have many contemporary influences during his life. His compositions were perhaps not the most innovative but mostly worth a listen, and worthy of more exploration. I think I share his thoughts on Boulez, but I will persevere with them!

[Serial_Apologist]

Resurrected Bach may not understand the point of Boulez’s music. Sure, he could understand the theory, and sure, he could use that theory to make some Bach type music. But I think he would have a harder time seeing why making sounds which are organised like Boulez is a worthwhile, musical, thing to do. He would have hard time understanding the context which made Boulez’s work seem like a good thing.

I think it's very hard to catapult someone 300 years into the future and try to envisage where they might have stood on many unforseeable social, spiritual and political matters from a religious establishment mindset of 1730, say.

[RichardB]

he would have a harder time seeing why making sounds which are organised like Boulez is a worthwhile, musical, thing to do.

Plenty of people have a hard time seeing that without being confronted with it having been dead for a couple of centuries! I remember many years ago reading a speculation that Monteverdi, given enough time, would have written Stimmung. That, like everything else in this discussion (and why not), is an untestable hypothesis, but the image it brought up in my mind is that at some level musical creation throughout history is a process that overarches the durations of the lives of individual humans, who are there just to contribute a momentary push to this huge and complex unfolding. So while in the present fantasy discussion we can argue that the resurrected Bach would or wouldn't have understood what Boulez was up to and why, in another more serious sense the music we categorise under the names "Bach" or "Boulez" actually does constitute two moments in the same ever-branching evolution. I don't know whereI'm going with this, it's past my bedtime.

[Mandryka]

Re evolution, change and similar concepts. If we look at another art form it may help - hairstyles. As far as I can see it would be mistaken to claim that hair creations throughout history is a process which overarches the durations and lives of individual stylists. Mutatis mutandis for music.

[Serial_Apologist]

Re evolution, change and similar concepts. If we look at another art form it may help - hairstyles. As far as I can see it would be mistaken to claim that hair creations throughout history is a process which overarches the durations and lives of individual stylists. Mutatis mutandis for music.

That's just hair-splitting!

[Serial_Apologist]

Plenty of people have a hard time seeing that without being confronted with it having been dead for a couple of centuries! I remember many years ago reading a speculation that Monteverdi, given enough time, would have written Stimmung. That, like everything else in this discussion (and why not), is an untestable hypothesis, but the image it brought up in my mind is that at some level musical creation throughout history is a process that overarches the durations of the lives of individual humans, who are there just to contribute a momentary push to this huge and complex unfolding. So while in the present fantasy discussion we can argue that the resurrected Bach would or wouldn't have understood what Boulez was up to and why, in another more serious sense the music we categorise under the names "Bach" or "Boulez" actually does constitute two moments in the same ever-branching evolution. I don't know whereI'm going with this, it's past my bedtime.

While I am unsure whether I should be accused of anthropormophism or some other term for attributing human aspirations to nature's evolutionary process, I do hold to an idea of progress as analogical to evolution in the Darwinian sense inasmuch that speciation and survival are like improvements in technological means to make life better. Technology has existed since creatures adapted natural objects into tools. Transhistorically, while there have obviously been setbacks and errors along the way humans have made improvements to the betterment of their lives, eg. to allow more time for reflection, knowledge acquisition, social interaction, involvement and planning, even though civilisation is presently blocked from further progress for political reasons. In the light of present-day suggestions to the contrary I still hold to a vision which translocates the evolutionary principle to human affairs and leaves exemplary evidence which the hopefully more foresighted among us can learn from or at least explicate to our contemporaries and for the benefit of future generations.

I would frame the issue of how figures we admire from the past might have responded to today's art and music in the following way by saying we don't know because their frame of references would have been different from ours. Ideas have evolved to the point at which evidence can replace the trust people in the past invested in faith in some higher anthropomorphic power or being. For me it is therefore the overarching principle afforded at this specific enabling vantage point that legitimises us to look back and see where past exemplars may have been lacking in certain areas of understanding which would render them uncomprehending of present-day life and its products and artifacts.

[RichardB]

Technology has existed since creatures adapted natural objects into tools.

Strictly speaking, technology has existed since proto-humans passed on tool-making knowledge from one generation to the next, sometimes with improvements.

I would frame the issue of how figures we admire from the past might have responded to today's art and music in the following way by saying we don't know because their frame of references would have been different from ours.

Well of course - "the past is another country" after all - but I don't think the premise behind this thread was intended to be taken too seriously! Sometimes I find myself imagining how my own (say) 30 year old self might respond if transplanted in time to the present and dropped into my current physical being, with varying degrees of surprise etc., and then thinking to myself that when I imagine such a thing it might somehow actually be happening...