Avant garde music

[Mandryka]

What does avant garde mean in music? How, if at all, is it different from experimental music? And who are today's avant garde composers? Who were yesterday's avant garde.

These questions have come up in discussion with friends and I've realised that I'm not at all clear about it all!

[Serial_Apologist]

What does avant garde mean in music? How, if at all, is it different from experimental music? And who are today's avant garde composers? Who were yesterday's avant garde.

These questions have come up in discussion with friends and I've realised that I'm not at all clear about it all!

I seem to remember John Cage, in Silence, distinguishing avant-garde from experimental in music by defining the latter as indeterminate is respect of its performance - as in the case of totally improvised music: other forms, such as jazz or for example the partially aleatoric pieces such as Lutoslawsky's Jeux vénitiens, would fall under the avant-garde category as framework and boundaries containing areas of total or partial extemporisation varying one performance from another are preset - but I guess Bryn or RichardB can provide us with better, fuller definitions. I seem to remember a book being written on the differences between the two, but can't now recall the author.

[RichardB]

I seem to remember a book being written on the differences between the two, but can't now recall the author.

I think that would be Experimental music: Cage and beyond by Michael Nyman (1972).

[Mandryka]

It does seem true that the musical establishment in Europe and the US only accepts determinate music. And it also seems true that some types of indeterminacy come tied to a system of values - it’s not just experimentation.

[Bryn]

VLS clearly had his own negative agenda in making this programme but . . .

[RichardB]

It does seem true that the musical establishment in Europe and the US only accepts determinate music.

I'm bound to ask: what is to be understood here under "the musical establishment"? And what evidence are you thinking of? Don't forget that, taking the US as an example, very many of the well-known composers of "experimental music" - Lucier, Feldman, Mumma, Behrman, Tenney, Oliveros to name a very few, spent a large part of their working lives in university faculties.

[NatBalance]

What is determinate music? I can't find a definition. Is it music that is written down as to exactly how it should be performed?

Rich

[smittims]

I think the term avant-garde, as it was originally used, no longer applies to new music today, or it needs a new application.

I think it became most used in relation to the new music produced after 1945 by composers who seemed to turn their backs on what went before and to start again. I think it was Stockhausen who said that after living through the Third Reich he never wanted to hear a military march again, and many others must have felt the same about tonic and-diominant music, or indeed any music that harked back to the 'good old days' of ordered tonality, as it had become too associated with the poiltics of pre-1939. So these composers where seen as standing out in the forefront of change.

Total serial music appeared, to many to reach a sort of ultimate point with such works as 'Gruppen' and 'Pli Selon Pli' ad the alternative, for many , was indeterminacy, inclusiveness (paint throwing and piano-brushing ) and other means not previously considered music at all. I felt that at that stage the time was ripe for a new Stravinsky to appear; I don't mean a composer whose music sounded like Stravinsky's , but someone who, like him, was master of a new style .

Instead there seemed to be a retreat into music re-using tonality and even referring to romantic music (I'm thinking of Nicholas Maw's 'Scenes and Arias' ). Some composers whose music seemed very avant-garde turned to writing more traditional works, such as Roger Smalley's 'Symphony'. So I feel there's a much more mixed picture now. Even younger composers are writing more 'old-fashioned ' music , e.g. Cecilia MacDowell, whose pieces sound to me like pastiche mediaeval with a dash of Boulez.

I remember Michael Berkeley saying in a discussion that there's never been a more exciting time to be a composer. But it seems to me that this doesn't make it any easier. So many new pieces I hear seem mere displays of technique and knowledge without inspiration. In other words, I don't think there is an avant-garde now, or if there is it isn't being broadcast on Radio 3 !

[RichardB]

I remember Michael Berkeley saying in a discussion that there's never been a more exciting time to be a composer. But it seems to me that this doesn't make it any easier. So many new pieces I hear seem mere displays of technique and knowledge without inspiration. In other words, I don't think there is an avant-garde now, or if there is it isn't being broadcast on Radio 3 !

The term "avant-garde" has taken on a historical connotation so it tends not to be used any more. And, as you say, one reason for this is a stylistic retrenchment among composers (and those who programme their work, of course, which includes the BBC), which I think has clear parallels in the rise of neoliberal politics as a response to that of social democracy between 1945 and around 1980. I don't really know what is meant by one time being more "exciting" than another to live in as a composer. Not to put too fine a point on it, to me it sounds like meaningless bullshit. Official musical institutions in general have never been as conservative as they are now, when it comes to nurturing music that searches after (for want of a better formulation) new forms of expression. Some might find that exciting I suppose.

[ahinton]

pastiche mediaeval with a dash of Boulez

Ooh - love it! Must try it sometime. Not...

[ahinton]

The term "avant-garde" has taken on a historical connotation so it tends not to be used any more. And, as you say, one reason for this is a stylistic retrenchment among composers (and those who programme their work, of course, which includes the BBC), which I think has clear parallels in the rise of neoliberal politics as a response to that of social democracy between 1945 and around 1980.

Well, yes and no; plenty of composers continue to work without any obvious suggestion of "stylistic retrenchment", Ferneyhough being just one obvious example among many.

I don't really know what is meant by one time being more "exciting" than another to live in as a composer. Not to put too fine a point on it, to me it sounds like meaningless bullshit.

I have no idea what it is supposed to mean either, not least because it is far from obvious (at least to me) how such "excitement" is supposedly identified and defined, let alone how any particular time can be said to bring it about; perhaps Mr Berkeley could explain what he means by this (if he's not already done so). If anything, perhaps the nearest thing to this might be identified by the sheer diversity of musical expression today compared, say, even to half a century ago...

[smittims]

As far as I can recall his remarks, I think Mr. Berkeley meant 'exciting' in the sense of there being more possibilities, that (I'm trying not to put words into his mouth) composers need not feel exected to write in a style.

It was said in reply (again, it's a memory of about 20 years ago) to a wish to have a 'grammar' of modern composition, as music had become too arbitrary.

I think there is a fear that some composers (The New Music Show may be a guide) are writing any old stuff in the belief that they can't be criticised for 'breaking the rules' since anything goes now. To some extent, of course , this has always been said by some, pre-1914, and a Brains Trust listener in 1939 questioning if 'Mr.Britten and Mr. Bliss are pulling our legs'. I remember when Per Norgard's Sixth Symphony was played at the Proms (not really an 'avant-garde' work) a poster onthe BBC board said (to my amusement) 'I can only assume this was an elaborate hoax'.

I do wonder if what you call stylistic retrenchment came at least partly from a fear that the avant-garde were leaving their audience too far behind. I wonder too, whether composers favoured by 'the musical establishment' (oops) are (if subtly) told to write nice well-constructed works that won't scare the listeners .

[Mandryka]

I'm bound to ask: what is to be understood here under "the musical establishment"? And what evidence are you thinking of? Don't forget that, taking the US as an example, very many of the well-known composers of "experimental music" - Lucier, Feldman, Mumma, Behrman, Tenney, Oliveros to name a very few, spent a large part of their working lives in university faculties.

Well I was thinking of the programmes in the most prestigious and rich European and US coastal concert halls, places like the Musikverein and the Berlin Philharmoniker. And the sort of thing released big the most powerful record labels like DG. And the music played on the most popular and influential radio stations. And the music reviewed in the most widely read newspapers and. . .

[Mandryka]

What is determinate music? I can't find a definition. Is it music that is written down as to exactly how it should be performed?

Rich

Have a look at the wiki for indeterminate music and then apply the negative

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music)

It’s probably a bit of a vague concept thought, a question of degrees - even scores by Schumann have an element of indeterminacy (Glenn Gould used to say that traditional scores left nothing determined apart from relative pitch! )

[ahinton]

As far as I can recall his remarks, I think Mr. Berkeley meant 'exciting' in the sense of there being more possibilities, that (I'm trying not to put words into his mouth) composers need not feel exected to write in a style.

...by which I take you mean a particular style or styles; if that diversity, while welcome, is also in and of itself "exciting", I would be somewhat surprised, really...[/QUOTE]