Musical talents that never quite made it....

[Richard Barrett]

I'm not sure that that is strictly true ?
I think it probably is within the world of "contemporary classical" instrumental music
but not in other genres

I agree, it was the aforementioned world I was referring to really, for example orchestral music in the last few decades (with exceptions!) has become very staid.

[Serial_Apologist]

Perhaps you would care to enlighten us and in particular me about which are the composers you feel are "the ones to watch". Also, I'd suggest not being quite so hard on HS - or he'll go off again, and then we won't see any more of his really enjoyable photos.

I am aware of some modern/contemporary composers - some still alive, others not so. I can't say any of them stand out for me. I have enjoyed music by Graham Fitkin, but that doesn't mean it's great. I'm not particularly fond of Thomas Ades, though I've heard him play the piano, and the same applies to Mark Anthony Turnage, who I'm sure is a good musician and sincere. I once went to a concert/recording at Maida Vale with the BBC SO, and at the end there was an announcement that there was to be a forthcoming weekend of music by Turnage. Almost all of the orchestra, who were still there, came in on cue, with a very loud and extended "Boo". Harrison Birtwistle is another whose work I have not taken to. OK - you can blame me, say it's my fault, I'm not listening in the right environment, with the right frame of mind, right ears etc., but what am I as a mere listener supposed to do? Pretend I like stuff, when really I don't!

One piece which I did enjoy was Liquid Marble, by Anders Hillborg, though I didn't like his "peacock" clarinet concerto much. I might have been in the wrong frame of mind when I heard that one. I heard both of these live.

I do appreciate some of John Tavener's music - though perhaps a little of it goes a long way. Jennifer Higdon and Joan Tower have written music which I think is significantly more interesting than much other contemporary music - also Michael Torke - though he seems to have receded a bit in recent years. Further, there may be some form of regression, as some slightly earlier composers, such as Xenakis and Stockhausen have written music which is more interesting (to me, obviously) than some of the up to date music by others. Steve Martland wrote some interesting pieces, but that doesn't make his music "great". Elliott Carter has written some worthwhile pieces - even if HS doesn't like his work. Of some composers already mentioned I thought Richard Rodney Bennett was very talented, and mostly I enoyed his music, but that doesn't make it great. George Crumb has written some worthwhile, and also some large scale works - but enough to be considered "great". Maybe/Maybe not.

I'm obviously now old enough to remember the excitement of hearing new works by Britten, Tippett and Stravinsky. Who are the present day composers who generate similar excitement now?

I know the feeling: where, for more mainstream contemporary music lovers, are the successors - in my case, in particular to Berio and Henze? For me a lot of the excitement in modern music went out when it seemed that composers after about 1975 were too easily ditching the advances made to the language available to composers by the Second Viennese School, as if to say all that advancement had been some kind of mistake that had left the commercial listener too far behind. On the other hand, experimental and avant-garde music seemed to have dissociated itself from any kind of social or political milieu, just becoming one among any number of postmodern options, including minimalism, for an evening or seasonal festival outing.

Listening to last night's Hear and Now I was however strongly impressed in particular by Colin Matthews's Grand Barcarolle - a composer whose music I had always admired until he seemed intent on taking a minimalist direction influenced by John Adams. If the above evidence is anything to go on he now seems back on track; perhaps, like "back to Bach" neoclassicism in the 1920s, minimalism will prove to have been a temporary fashion, the reaction against serialism it was claimed as being by Reich, Glass and others, and the way is now open for stylistic rapprochement with some sort of post-Schoenbergian mainstream that restores longevity to music ensuring of its future in the way the great classics and romantics have lasted and speak to our common humanity.

[teamsaint]

Well he always seems to come back, and if he's going to be so dismissive about modern music he ought at least to get his facts right!
That is very true. I think that succeeding generations of composers (with exceptions, obviously) have gradually abandoned the sense of exploration and discovery that motivated people like Stockhausen and Xenakis, which is a shame.

If this abandonment is real, and I don't doubt it, somewhere along the line does this have something to do with relationships to potential audiences?

I suppose that people generally create music for themselves, but also to be heard. Over the last 50 years, and spectacularly since the internet age dawned, its possible to take oneself , as a listener,on incredible musical journeys, into any number of areas , without coming into contact with those who creating and exploring new or different areas right now.
Doesn't that affect, at some point or level, the motivations and areas of interest for composers and performers?

I'd like to have put that better, but, instead, I will , in the wake of the revelations about the various ensembles that esteemed board members have played in, reveal that I was in fact the little known "fourth" member of Dolly Mixture.



In my dreams.

[MrGongGong]

I agree, it was the aforementioned world I was referring to really, for example orchestral music in the last few decades (with exceptions!) has become very staid.

Indeed
Though I would celebrate the way in which we no longer have a "mainstream" of "contemporary classical" music , what HCMF puts on these days is a good example. When Richard Stenitz was in charge he naturally invited his "mates" so lots of Berio, Stockhausen etc BUT those days are gone and music is very different now (even though many of those composers are still worthy of performance, recording and study) .

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not sure that that is strictly true ?
I think it probably is within the world of "contemporary classical" instrumental music
but not in other genres , it seems to my ears that some of the more interesting things I hear are hybrid musics that draw on traditions of Stockhausen, Xenakis , Acousmatic and improvised musics etc but have a more "handmade" quality than the work of the apparent "mainstream" (which is often competent but a bit dull !).........

I very much agree - to the point, almost, of having given up on "contemporary concert music" after devoting decades to getting to grips with it, resulting in a form of personal grief. Nothwithstanding charges of Eurocentrism I really hope, as one who kept the faith, that the western tradition has not exhausted its capacity for self-renewal, or I shall abandon it altogether and just carry on attending jazz and free improv gigs around the place; many of the young jazz musicians now coming up, and not just in London and New York, do embody that spirit of taking the best of what 20th century music had to offer and applying in their own terms and practices, and free improv (rather than pick 'n' mix) presents possibly the most propitious environment and practice in which different musical-cultural elements can be drawn together.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed
Though I would celebrate the way in which we no longer have a "mainstream" of "contemporary classical" music , what HCMF puts on these days is a good example. When Richard Stenitz was in charge he naturally invited his "mates" so lots of Berio, Stockhausen etc BUT those days are gone and music is very different now (even though many of those composers are still worthy of performance, recording and study) .

Don't you feel there is a danger that any continuum with and represented by those composers will be broken if one downgrades their advances as viewed through the classical continuum as part of a broader enlightenment, though?

(There is an argument that says this - classical music and its heritage is white man's expression of his superiority over the historical process, devotion to it analogous to admiring Georgian Bath (for instance) while ignoring the slavery on which it was built).

[MrGongGong]

Don't you feel there is a danger that any continuum with and represented by those composers will be broken if one downgrades their advances as viewed through the classical continuum as part of a broader enlightenment, though?

A good question.
In my experience of working with young composers there is a great deal (more ?) of interest and fascination with Ligeti and Xenakis (for example) than when I was a student in the 1980's.

[ahinton]

There is an argument that says this - classical music and its heritage is white man's expression of his superiority over the historical process, devotion to it analogous to admiring Georgian Bath (for instance) while ignoring the slavery on which it was built.

OK, I am now ready to be appropriately accused of having lived there for almost a quarter century!

[Serial_Apologist]

A good question.
In my experience of working with young composers there is a great deal (more ?) of interest and fascination with Ligeti and Xenakis (for example) than when I was a student in the 1980's.

That's really interesting, when one considers the enthusiasm with which Eastern European (especially Polish) new music took up their soundworld and some (at least) of their techniques in the 1960s.

[Serial_Apologist]

OK, I am now ready to be appropriately accused of having lived there for almost a quarter century!

The Georgian (including the Regency and going over into the early Victorian) is one of my favourite periods in architecture! My argument (when justifying this) is not that the terraces of Bath, Clifton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Belgravia should not have been built for the rich to indulge their ill-begotten lifestyles in, but that beautiful architecture and surrounds could be available for all were we to abolish this class system!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps you would care to enlighten us and in particular me about which are the composers you feel are "the ones to watch".

Post 133 on the "Eight Composers You Couldn't Live Without" I mentioned:

Boulez
Birtwistle
Ferneyhough
Lachenmann
Barrett (R)
Sciarrino
Saunders (R)
Saunders (J)
Furrer
Lang
Cassidy
Billone
Downie
Clarke (J)
Hinton
Stevenson
Butterworth (A)

These are the "present day composers who generate similar excitement now" in me at any rate. (Three weeks to the Ferneyhough premiere!)

Also, I'd suggest not being quite so hard on HS - or he'll go off again, and then we won't see any more of his really enjoyable photos.

I don't think that HS needs me to patronize him: he puts his opinions forcefully, so I don't think he wants others to be any less rigorous in theirs - what he and I both have in common, I believe, is a passion for what we think of as Music, and a horror of indifference towards it. (Yes, they are good photos, aren't they? His memoirs are treasurable, too.)

[ahinton]

The Georgian (including the Regency and going over into the early Victorian) is one of my favourite periods in architecture! My argument (when justifying this) is not that the terraces of Bath, Clifton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Belgravia should not have been built for the rich to indulge their ill-begotten lifestyles in, but that beautiful architecture and surrounds could be available for all were we to abolish this class system!

But I think that they already are, without the abolition of such as exists of such a system! - which is perhaps just one reason why I should be so accused(!)...

[Richard Barrett]

I would celebrate the way in which we no longer have a "mainstream" of "contemporary classical" music , what HCMF puts on these days is a good example.

I could hardly disagree with that!

[Richard Barrett]

Following on from MrGG, I don't think there's ever been as much interest in Xenakis as there is now, especially among younger creative musicians.