Through the looking Glass

[Boilk]

Because it's usually used by people who have the mistaken belief that music (and art) they don't like is some kind of con trick.

Aha! So Tracy Emin is a great artist after all! Thanks for enlightening me, I'd always mistakenly thought the vast majority of her work was a pile of utter c**p.

[MrGongGong]

Aha! So Tracy Emin is a great artist after all! Thanks for enlightening me, I'd always mistakenly thought the vast majority of her work was a pile of utter c**p.

I also happen to think that most of her work is rubbish
BUT
don't conflate taste with significance or even value

It's not a con even though I happen not to like it or even think that it's somewhat over rated .........

[Dave2002]

Tricky one this. I like some Glass pieces, but I gave up on that symphony rather early on - perhaps after 15 minutes (though might have been due to non musical reasons, such as having other things to do ...).

It does seem still to be available for listening again, if anyone wants to give it a try - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j28w0

The problem with some pieces (and maybe composers as well) is knowing when to write them off.

[Bryn]

Tricky one this. I like some Glass pieces, but I gave up on that symphony rather early on - perhaps after 15 minutes.

I wish I had (given up that early, that is). The trouble is, while I find nearly all the stuff Glass has done since Music in 12 parts pretty dire, there are one or two exceptions. The chamber opera Orphée is an example of something I find worth giving time to.

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem with some pieces (and maybe composers as well) is knowing when to write them off.

I think - dare I say - that with a bit of experience one can spot the ones who aren't headed anywhere pretty early on. It's the ones who show early brilliance - (George Benjamin, anyone?) - and then lose confidence, that I worry about, because, in part, I think it is attributions of them not being part of where music is declared by the commentariat to be going that can cause them to lose it.

(Havergal Brian, Frank Bridge, anyone?)

[heliocentric]

I also happen to think that most of her work is rubbish
BUT
don't conflate taste with significance or even value

It's not a con even though I happen not to like it or even think that it's somewhat over rated .........

The "emperor's new clothes"/"con trick" thing is extremely tiresome, especially if some attempt is being made to have a discussion. Like Bryn I have very little time for anything Glass has done since the 1970s (and, while I'm about it, anything Tracey Emin has ever done), even though I do give anything new of his a try because there could always be a spark somewhere of what I (used to) like in his music. But to call him a con artist is a serious accusation, without any evidence apart from "I don't like it", and I don't think it's possible in principle to tell whether an artist is or isn't being "sincere" in their work. Nor does it necessarily matter. What I listen to is Philip Glass's music, not Philip Glass, and if I feel a connection with that music (if it "speaks to me", as some would put it) I really don't much care whether or not Glass was transfigured by the white heat of inspiration, or chuckling to himself at the prospect of getting away with it yet again, when he was writing it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not sure Benjamin "lost confidence" because of anybody else's perceptions/prescriptions about his Music. He spent nearly a decade after his early success refining and rediscovering his needs for himself and has produced much fine Music in recent years that is regularly played throughout Europe. I think he's perfectly happy in his own skin and quite content to let the UK catch up when it's ready!

Much more frequent, in my opinion, is the phenomenon of the UK composer ruined by success: an initial set of remarkable works that result in an inundation of commissions that prevent their composers from developing their Music, forcing them to repeat ideas that featured in their early successes over and over, so that they lose whatever potential they had to a stream of mannerisms and clichés. (James MacMillan, Mark Antony Turnage, Thomas Ades, anyone?)

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not sure Benjamin "lost confidence" because of anybody else's perceptions/prescriptions about his Music. He spent nearly a decade after his early success refining and rediscovering his needs for himself and has produced much fine Music in recent years that is regularly played throughout Europe. I think he's perfectly happy in his own skin and quite content to let the UK catch up when it's ready!

Much more frequent, in my opinion, is the phenomenon of the UK composer ruined by success: an initial set of remarkable works that result in an inundation of commissions that prevent their composers from developing their Music, forcing them to repeat ideas that featured in their early successes over and over, so that they lose whatever potential they had to a stream of mannerisms and clichés. (James MacMillan, Mark Antony Turnage, Thomas Ades, anyone?)

Yes.

[heliocentric]

an inundation of commissions that prevent their composers from developing their Music, forcing them to repeat ideas that featured in their early successes over and over, so that they lose whatever potential they had to a stream of mannerisms and clichés. (James MacMillan, Mark Antony Turnage, Thomas Ades, anyone?)

... although who's to say they wouldn't also have done so without the "success"? After all, that kind of attention is usually accorded to young composers whose work leans comfortably on institutionally-sanctioned traditions and forms from the start, in other words who are already halfway to mannerism and cliché, don't you think?

[Roehre]

I'm not sure Benjamin "lost confidence" because of anybody else's perceptions/prescriptions about his Music. He spent nearly a decade after his early success refining and rediscovering his needs for himself and has produced much fine Music in recent years that is regularly played throughout Europe. I think he's perfectly happy in his own skin and quite content to let the UK catch up when it's ready!

Much more frequent, in my opinion, is the phenomenon of the UK composer ruined by success: an initial set of remarkable works that result in an inundation of commissions that prevent their composers from developing their Music, forcing them to repeat ideas that featured in their early successes over and over, so that they lose whatever potential they had to a stream of mannerisms and clichés. (James MacMillan, Mark Antony Turnage, Thomas Ades, anyone?)

And yes again

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... although who's to say they wouldn't also have done so without the "success"? After all, that kind of attention is usually accorded to young composers whose work leans comfortably on institutionally-sanctioned traditions and forms from the start, in other words who are already halfway to mannerism and cliché, don't you think?

Possibly: I still quite enjoy Isobel Gowdie, Three Screaming Popes and Asyla, though.

Another way of doing things is Jonathan Dove, whose early successes did little for me but who, following a "silent" period, is now producing much more "radical" work - the opposite of the "traditional" trajectory!

[Roehre]

Possibly: I still quite enjoy Isobel Gowdie, Three Screaming Popes and Asyla, though.

O yes. As I do. But that is IMO not contradictory

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Nick Armstrong]

Aha! So Tracy Emin is a great artist after all! Thanks for enlightening me, I'd always mistakenly thought the vast majority of her work was a pile of utter c**p.

I must say I'd come to your 'mistaken' conclusion too, Boilk... likewise about Mr Glass, insofar as I've sampled his works. I'm sure there are exceptions, but with limited time available in life for music which for me is inexhaustibly excellent, I find I have to make choices based on partial information - 'snap' decisions, possibly. I have no inclination to give either Mr Glass or Ms Emin any further time - my personal choice is that there are hugely more profitable and enjoyable ways of spending that time.

[Rolmill]

I agree that the ENC argument is over-used, often as a substitute for genuine consideration of why the piece doesn't work for that listener, but the Guardian review did not (as I read it) use the ENC/con trick criticism - that was in a subsequent post on this thread.

So I would be interested to know why MrGG thinks the review is "c..p" (I'm sure this is not simply another way of saying that he doesn't agree with it ).