"What are today’s composers to do with tonality?" asks Gramophone

[Richard Barrett]

I don’t think there is a classical music canon really. It helps the academics fill up papers and pull in research grants while the musicians and audiences just get on with it.You’ve only got to look at this forum to see how diverse tastes are...

And yet there's another ongoing thread in which most contributors are happy to make some kind of distinction between what is a "masterpiece" and what isn't.

Clearly it's difficult to assimilate creative musicians whose contribution is principally improvisatory within a musical value-system based on notated compositions, and indeed to a large degree based on the "size" of those notated compositions, so that a "miniaturist" is inevitably accorded less respect than a composer of more extended works. Why not throw out all of these assumptions?

[Serial_Apologist]

The article found by ff is very useful for discussion here, inasmuch as it approaches the question of "Canon" from the perspective of a celebrated classical guitar virtuoso, Segovia, who, it turns out, did so much towards making the instrument "respectable" in the eyes of the classical establishment - and did so by adapting by transcribing or re-arranging music from other classical genres for performance on the guitar, while at the same time personally remaining wedded by-and-large to the conventions shaping the music in its original incarnations, thereby probably according to where most music loving posters on this forum lie in their tastes.

In considering the the extent to which, since roughly the late 1960s, postmodernist opening up of criteria for judging musical quality outwith categories of music hitherto regarded as worthy of serious consideration, analysis, evaluation and or judgement, largely confined to classical music, and to jazz, considered as a genre aspiring to academic respectability, the writer desists from examining how one collection of agreed masterpieces or hegemonising trends, canons or trends within canons, come to assume ascendance at the expense of others, either long term or as passing fashions. One may think of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as always having occupied prime place in the pantheon of classical music's importance, yet we learn that Bach was viewed as old-fashioned by those of the Haydn-Mozart generation - or at any rate their promoters and followers - until re-popularised by Mendelssohn. And the fact of Sibelius's popularity in the 1930s and 40s - by which time Elgar was viewed as old hat except for ceremonial regal purposes - being almost totally eclipsed by the rise of serialism in those academies seen as progressive in the spirit of their age and its art and architecture, can deflect thinking away from being about the justification for giving prominence to this or that canon of repertoire, formal discipline or aesthetic in general terms.

If one takes the term "aesthetic" in its dictionary meaning, "Belonging to the appreciation of the beautiful, having such appreciation", or, preferable to me, "in accordance with good taste", is is immediately apparent that those in privileged positions to decide on such matters to lay down what "good taste" consists in, are also those with influence over what is acceptable or not acceptable for performance. This must reflect the position music that has come to be judged, by implication at the very least, in relation to its status in hierarchical terms governed by the notion of "canon" - and, in turn, by the circumstances of the music's genesis, inspiration, advocacy and realisation.

All these must be considerations at the back of the composer's mind in applying himself to the kind of music s/he wishes to write. And it would have been as much at the forefront for the Renaissance, Baroque or Classical composer composing his or her mass for church or cathedral, symphony for noble patron as it would the palace architect, garden designer, sculptor or portrait painter working to a spec. Ideas governing the formulation of music, its unfolding of narrative forms analogous to poems or novels, translated Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment concepts into musical equivalents, replacing the Renaissance and pre-Renaissance function of music for devotional, ritual centreing. New scientific thinking and its impacting on manufacture, the growth of instrumental music in its own right, the emergence of capitalism and requirement on composers to sell and thereby consciously personalise their music, increasingly reflected and expressed the concomitant split between Rationalist logic and balance, and Romantic subjectivity and the quest for freedom; yet in the coursing of the music, of its themes of contrast, conflict, tension and resolution, give rise to both the rudiments of compositional orthodoxy and its challenges: what may be contained within terms of "the canon" can comprise entire realms of psycho-musicological complexity that reflect and express the history that brings us to our present moment.

Full of warts and contradictions though that history may be, that inheritance encapsulated in the concept of "the canon" is one informed and enriched by a broadening, deepening consciousness, brought about and at levels not always explicit but nevertheless inarguable by that same expanding consciousness. Historically it was the ruling classes that enjoyed the privilege of indulging their leisure time - purportedly for character-shaping purposes rendering them suitable as rulers and leaders of wisdom, though in fact they hogged the luxuries and kept the masses out until opening the theatres and concert halls suited their interests.

If art exists to assure us that experience is in common, not the solepsism of individualised appeal it may pretend to be in an age of individualism and the privatised consumer, then the issue of accessibility to art forged in response and sometimes opposition to all our circumstances is worth considering in terms of what might be blocking this access? There is nothing intrinsically wrong in seeing classical music as enriching and ennobling, regardless of class, race or background. And yet, there has arisen in response to the recognition that western imperialism imposed its culture and religion on other lands and races the idea that the success of establishing global capitalism at their expense de-validates the indigenous cultures, adding insult to injury by then appropriating cultural forms modified by colonial imposition which should be regarded in terms of equivalence, thereby demoting the progress of centuries.

That, if you will, progress in the course of Western civilisation described by Ghandi as in theory "a good idea", is the accumulated baggage of the centuries of the domination of class over meeting basic essentials, in which cultural product will always be shaped by those powerful minority who have been forced to open their doors a little and not always, and tell the story in the legend by the picture rather than what can be heard in the picture - or musical work, or whatever. The selected version that comes to represent "the canon" is open to criticism: it is arguable (because I'm always arguing it elsewhere!) that the greatest non-western musics are those which have adapted advances in western music on their own terms: jazz coming immediately to mind. The idea that bourgeois music is music that expresses the interests, hopes and fears of the privileged needs replacing by one that says the "classical legacy" should be appropriated into common ownership, rather than making claims on music that has been appropriated, moulded and perpetually churned out brim-full of clichés to profitable ends into easily consumable disposable product.

[Joseph K]

The idea that bourgeois music is music that expresses the interests, hopes and fears of the privileged needs replacing by one that says the "classical legacy" should be appropriated into common ownership, rather than making claims on music that has been appropriated, moulded and perpetually churned out brim-full of clichés to profitable ends into easily consumable disposable product.

[Ein Heldenleben]

And yet there's another ongoing thread in which most contributors are happy to make some kind of distinction between what is a "masterpiece" and what isn't.

Clearly it's difficult to assimilate creative musicians whose contribution is principally improvisatory within a musical value-system based on notated compositions, and indeed to a large degree based on the "size" of those notated compositions, so that a "miniaturist" is inevitably accorded less respect than a composer of more extended works. Why not throw out all of these assumptions?

This forum is shot through with value judgements from beginning to end including ones from some forumites who then go on to maintain that you can’t compare that with that because they are different genres . In the end it is all music . I would say the music world is just about the most “judgemental” of any that I have professional experience of . Just look at the endless competitions like the BBC Young Musician series - I think they are a waste of time where they are not actively damaging to musical development .
The music world is tremendously judgmental - more so even than literary criticism where people really shy away these days from saying one author is better* than another . The great cultural critic Adorno disliked jazz . I think he’s wrong but can’t prove it - though a lot of jazz these days is formulaic note spinning .
Finally Can I controversially suggest that the current Mozart piece on Radio 3 Breakfast is “better” than the dreadful Somnia piece that preceded it? And it’s not even a particularly good piece of Mozart..

* yes I know it all depends what you mean by better ...

[Richard Barrett]

Just look at the endless competitions like the BBC Young Musician series - I think they are a waste of time where they are not actively damaging to musical development

I agree. Far too high a proportion of young musicians' lesson time is spent on preparing for competitions, and the height of ridiculousness is found in competitions for composers. I was on the jury for a major international prize for young composers some years ago. In the first round, I and my fellow jury members had to choose 15-20 scores out of several hundred for public performance in the final. This part was easy since each of us could choose the compisitions we personally found worthwhile. The problems started at the final where one composer had to be chosen for the prize, which, because of the wide stylistic disparity between both jury members and "competitors", was impossible, with the result that the prize was eventually shared between two composers neither of whom had been the first choice of any of the jury members.

The problem with Adorno and jazz isn't that he didn't like it, but that he tried to elevate this dislike into a moral judgement about "pseudo-individualisation" resulting from "standardisation of the framework", in the process displaying the fact that his blind spot for jazz basically prevented him from understanding what was going on in it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I agree. Far too high a proportion of young musicians' lesson time is spent on preparing for competitions, and the height of ridiculousness is found in competitions for composers. I was on the jury for a major international prize for young composers some years ago. In the first round, I and my fellow jury members had to choose 15-20 scores out of several hundred for public performance in the final. This part was easy since each of us could choose the compisitions we personally found worthwhile. The problems started at the final where one composer had to be chosen for the prize, which, because of the wide stylistic disparity between both jury members and "competitors", was impossible, with the result that the prize was eventually shared between two composers neither of whom had been the first choice of any of the jury members.

The problem with Adorno and jazz isn't that he didn't like it, but that he tried to elevate this dislike into a moral judgement about "pseudo-individualisation" resulting from "standardisation of the framework", in the process displaying the fact that his blind spot for jazz basically prevented him from understanding what was going on in it.

That is an all too common phenomenon- witness some of the recent Booker prize revelations.

[Serial_Apologist]

This forum is shot through with value judgements from beginning to end including ones from some forumites who then go on to maintain that you can’t compare that with that because they are different genres . In the end it is all music .

W...ell, i suppose it depends on what one means by "compare". Different horses, different courses?

I would say the music world is just about the most “judgemental” of any that I have professional experience of . Just look at the endless competitions like the BBC Young Musician series - I think they are a waste of time where they are not actively damaging to musical development .
The music world is tremendously judgmental - more so even than literary criticism where people really shy away these days from saying one author is better* than another . The great cultural critic Adorno disliked jazz . I think he’s wrong but can’t prove it - though a lot of jazz these days is formulaic note spinning .

[...]

* yes I know it all depends what you mean by better ...

Yes, I'm certainly with you (and Richard) on competitions.