Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[Ian]

No they weren't
lots of people paid lots of money to listen to Zappa, Duran Duran, David Bowie etc they were "modern music"

This is correct of course, but if you are going to bring “popular music” into the equation then you have to be consistent.

Part of HG’s story of music IS to bring “popular music” into the equation which means, of course, the bits that are unpopular even within a ring-fenced classical music field are pushed even further away from a position of meaningful relevance.

[MrGongGong]

Zappa is an interesting case isn't he
as many of the folk that listened to "weasels ripped my flesh" ended up listening to Ensemble Modern

Music isn't as divided into genres as one might think.......

[teamsaint]

Indeed, even the the UK's best selling Cd has only sold a couple of million copies - a tiny fraction of the total population. But your point is?

That the way in which things are presented as "niche ", "minority", or whatever is unhelpful at best.
So it's really important to get out of looking at or thinking of things in those terms.

[Ian]

Zappa is an interesting case isn't he
as many of the folk that listened to "weasels ripped my flesh" ended up listening to Ensemble Modern

Music isn't as divided into genres as one might think.......

Genres are no more than a marketing construct - one which classical music benefits from, no doubt.

You are right re: Zappa. But isn't it is a bit like saying that people that listened to Braveheart soundtrack ended up listening to the LSO?

[Ian]

That the way in which things are presented as "niche ", "minority", or whatever is unhelpful at best.
So it's really important to get out of looking at or thinking of things in those terms.

I totally agree. But it is at least helpful for a composer/genre/style to a least have an audience large enough to support the said composer/genre/style.

Given the size of the world's population this can easily be achieved even for a niche within a minority.

[MrGongGong]

Genres are no more than a marketing construct - one which classical music benefits from, no doubt.

You are right re: Zappa. But isn't it is a bit like saying that people that listened to Braveheart soundtrack ended up listening to the LSO?

But that would be true
whether it's any good is another matter all together

(there is also the case of the Lincoln Cathedral choir on the Cradle of Filth album ........ but lets not go there it will upset the CE folks)

[Ian]

I wasn't referring to HG, I was referring to your remark about the defensiveness surrounding musical modernism and aspects of contemporary music.

The Gramophone recently had an editorial piece along the lines I suggested, Alex Ross's Rest Is Noise articulates a narrative where the Cold War is fought over again with heroic American minimalists rescuing music from grim Darmstadtians, the BBC's Sound & Fury gives John Adams yet another chance to repeat a related text, James MacMillan has a Telegraph blog where he goes on about his marginalisation at the hands of a bunch of Commie musical enemies of ordinary audiences (in between announcing his next LSO commission). Etc.

I’ve just watched a 26 min BBC video of music featured in Sound & Fury. It comprised performances of Messiaen, Ligeti, Xenakis and Birtwistle. As far as I can remember, John Adams was given about 20 secs in each programme broadcast so far. Yet you cite this series as part of a pattern of defensive dismissal of difficult and complex music.

[MrGongGong]

What is this "difficult" and "complex" music anyway ?
To a novice listener (and I've done the experiments) the B Minor Mass is "difficult and complex" and Xenakis's Metastasis is "clear and straightforward"

(maybe NOT to play.......... Unless you are Irvine Arditti )

[Bryn]

... the BBC's Sound & Fury gives John Adams yet another chance to repeat a related text, ...

I suspect some dubious editing has gone on regarding Adams's contributions to the Sound and Fury programmes. It's only a few weeks since he was gainsaying Goodall re. Schoenberg:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?7368-Howard-Goodall&p=251562#post251562

[Serial_Apologist]

But are you taking into account that from at least 1967 (when I started to listen to R3) right through to the 80’s (during which period I spent six years as a music student [I only mention this to indicate a serious level of engagement]) Complex, difficult, or at least highly dissonant, modern music was, more or less, de rigueur. The consequence of this was that audiences where seriously put off the concept of modern music per se.

At the time, the on-message justification was that the audience was merely lagging behind, as is their wont, but no fear they would soon catch up. The problem was it didn’t quite work out like that - the ideological battles continue. But it is certainly not the case that “complex” “difficult” music hasn’t had its chance.

Well I was there for Proms performances of the early modernist classics by the BBCSO under Boulez in the mid-late 60s, as well as at avant-garde/experimental music evenings at the Arnolfini in Bristol, and can attest that nearly all concerts saw packed audiences - so we seem to have enjoyed different experiences. Several of my close friends made a "natural" transition from Progrock to avant-garde and experimental: one bought up the entire issue of DG's avant-garde series - the ones in brightly banded sleeves - as well as Wergo and Nonesuch recordings, and the Philips Electronic Panorama; we had packed evenings listening to the stuff then going out and buying our own copies; none of us was "musically educated" in any formal sense beyond, in my case, having sung in the school choir, had piano lessons to Grade 5, and failed in a Choral Scholarship - and compared with the others in our group, that's boasting!.

[Ian]

I'll dig out my programme & post details later

Any luck with that program?

the only recent concert that to a limited extent of fits your description is this:

Alban Berg: Piano Sonata, Op.1
Claude Debussy: Masques for piano
Arnold Schoenberg: 6 Little pieces for piano, Op.19
Leos Janácek: Sonata I.X.1905 (From the Street)
Arnold Schoenberg: 3 Pieces for piano, Op.11

It did sell out the 300+ seater Purcell room, but presumably it's not the concert you mention.

[Ian]

- so we seem to have enjoyed different experiences.

No, we are talking about different things. You are referring to specific events that you personally enjoyed and remember as being particularly successful. I'm talking about an overall, generalised trend, that has nothing to do with my or any other individual's personal taste.

[Julien Sorel]

No, we are talking about different things. You are referring to specific events that you personally enjoyed and remember as being particularly successful. I'm talking about an overall, generalised trend, that has nothing to do with my or any other individual's personal taste.

My recollection of getting interested in music as a teenager in the 1970s was of hearing the music you describe a while back in the thread as unpopular on Radio 3, of being able to borrow lps of Medieval music, Renaissance polyphony, Bach cantatas (the early Harnoncourt / Leonhardt recordings) of Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Berio, Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen and developing some knowledge of contemporary jazz from my inner city public library (I got to know the works of Samuel Beckett in the same way). I recall well attended concerts and events and I remember packed audiences for Boulez's Proms (Boulez has always had a very partial view of the history of modern music, I agree: but it wasn't impossible to get a sense of what else was going on). At university late 70s early 80s, while not doing a music degree, I had plenty of opportunities to follow that up and develop my interests (I went to university in London, so I accept that skews the picture). There was also punk, or the first 3 / 4 years of punk.

If the "generalised trend" you mention exists, then I'd suggest it's no coincidence that its generalisation coincided with (a) Thatcher / Reagan neoliberalism (b) the general adoption of economic neoliberalism across a narrowing political spectrum (c) an associated attack on anything that does not sit comfortably within market / marketing categories (d) the development of a view of the purpose of education as preparing people for work (e) the refinement of the idea that the "consumer" can chose what has been chosen for the "consumer."

You write about the trend you identify as if it happened or continues to happen spontaneously. I disagree. There has been a programmatic drive to narrow people's intellectual-political-emotional horizons over the past 30 years. It's not just in classical music, of course: the BBC commissioned drama 30 + years ago it wouldn't dream of touching with a bargepole now.

[Ian]

My recollection of getting interested in music as a teenager in the 1970s was of hearing the music you describe a while back in the thread as unpopular on Radio 3, of being able to borrow lps of Medieval music, Renaissance polyphony, Bach cantatas (the early Harnoncourt / Leonhardt recordings) of Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Berio, Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen and developing some knowledge of contemporary jazz from my inner city public library (I got to know the works of Samuel Beckett in the same way). I recall well attended concerts and events and I remember packed audiences for Boulez's Proms (Boulez has always had a very partial view of the history of modern music, I agree: but it wasn't impossible to get a sense of what else was going on). At university late 70s early 80s, while not doing a music degree, I had plenty of opportunities to follow that up and develop my interests (I went to university in London, so I accept that skews the picture). There was also punk, or the first 3 / 4 years of punk.

And despite all you say it is still now easier (thanks to the proliferation of recordings and the internet) to hear “Medieval music, Renaissance polyphony, Bach cantatas, Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Berio, Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen”

If the "generalised trend" you mention exists, then I'd suggest it's no coincidence that its generalisation coincided with (a) Thatcher / Reagan neoliberalism (b) the general adoption of economic neoliberalism across a narrowing political spectrum (c) an associated attack on anything that does not sit comfortably within market / marketing categories (d) the development of a view of the purpose of education as preparing people for work (e) the refinement of the idea that the "consumer" can chose what has been chosen for the "consumer."

So why would these interests want to clamp down on a musical movement that, according to you, was so massively popular? Why was this music not “chosen” for the consumer.

You write about the trend you identify as if it happened or continues to happen spontaneously. I disagree. There has been a programmatic drive to narrow people's intellectual-political-emotional horizons over the past 30 years. It's not just in classical music, of course: the BBC commissioned drama 30 + years ago it wouldn't dream of touching with a bargepole now.

you must be thinking of Lovejoy.

[Julien Sorel]

I'm not thinking of Lovejoy, no. Do you find yourself often thinking of Lovejoy?

I didn't say anything was massively popular. Do you have an obsession with the size of things? There was genuine, minority, interest, and concerts and events were well attended by people from a range of backgrounds over a range of ages. You have something against minorities?

It's easier to hear music now when you know about it. Back then if you were curious you stood some chance of coming upon it via the BBC and then developing an interest. I'm not saying it doesn't happen now because it does. But it's symptomatic that the BBC presents a series about modern music with the subtext in the C20 these composers got together and stopped music sounding nice. I don't think a BBC series on modern art would present Cubism in the same way.