Neglected composers

[Colonel Danby]

I do respect Boulez and the modern school of composition and have lots of their stuff in my collection: so I would not be without Stockhausen (anybody with any part of the DG Licht cycle going cheaply, I would be very interested) and love most of the contemporary scene.

But most of all, I worship at the shrine of Saint Richard of Itter and his gorgeous collection of British music in the Lyrita series of recordings. These releases since the late 1950s have never been anything less than amazing, and I now have most of them on my shelves: I wept for joy when it was announced that the whole back catalogue was to be brought out on CD via Nimbus Records. Is there any hope that Lyrita might record any new material in the future, or is that it?

Anyway, we are all in Mr Itter's debt from a grateful nation...

[Honoured Guest]

The Essay: Secret Admirers
Radio 3 presenters celebrate lesser-known composers
Mon 17 to Fri 21 March, 22:45 - 23:00

[Richard Barrett]

As so often, the phrase "neglected composers" seems to be applied principally to those like George Lloyd who write/wrote in an anachronistic style. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that per se, but there appears to be an assumption that it's only (neo-)tonal composers who are at the receiving end of this neglect, because of the disproportionate airtime or whatever given to "modernists", although this is very far from being the case. Sure, Lloyd's music is and has been "neglected" by the BBC (although by no means always, as has been pointed out), but then so is that of people like Gerhard, Searle, Wishart, Cardew, not to mention younger generations. My impression is that the older conservatives like Lloyd are pushed off the air by younger conservatives like McMillan, but as a long-time expatriate I wouldn't know how accurate this impression is.

[MrGongGong]

As so often, the phrase "neglected composers" seems to be applied principally to those like George Lloyd who write/wrote in an anachronistic style. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that per se, but there appears to be an assumption that it's only (neo-)tonal composers who are at the receiving end of this neglect, because of the disproportionate airtime or whatever given to "modernists", although this is very far from being the case. Sure, Lloyd's music is and has been "neglected" by the BBC (although by no means always, as has been pointed out), but then so is that of people like Gerhard, Searle, Wishart, Cardew, not to mention younger generations. My impression is that the older conservatives like Lloyd are pushed off the air by younger conservatives like McMillan, but as a long-time expatriate I wouldn't know how accurate this impression is.

Why hasn't Trevor Wishart been COTW ?
He is one of the most significant composers of his generation
as well as being a wonderful communicator and an inspiration to countless composers all over the world

[kea]

As so often, the phrase "neglected composers" seems to be applied principally to those like George Lloyd who write/wrote in an anachronistic style. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that per se, but there appears to be an assumption that it's only (neo-)tonal composers who are at the receiving end of this neglect, because of the disproportionate airtime or whatever given to "modernists", although this is very far from being the case. Sure, Lloyd's music is and has been "neglected" by the BBC (although by no means always, as has been pointed out), but then so is that of people like Gerhard, Searle, Wishart, Cardew, not to mention younger generations. My impression is that the older conservatives like Lloyd are pushed off the air by younger conservatives like McMillan, but as a long-time expatriate I wouldn't know how accurate this impression is.

My impression has been that, in the broader scheme of things (not necessarily Radio 3), both the 'anachronistic' 'pre-modernist' composers and the more 'difficult' 'modernist' ones have been pushed aside in favour of pop-influenced Bang on a Can-type eclectics (Adams, Adès, Golijov etc) in the hope of attracting a younger and more hip audience. At least when contemporary music is mentioned at all.

(I am getting a bit tired of reading interviews with contemporary classical composers where they claim their influences are 'Balinese gamelan, Mongolian goatherd songs, 70s glam rock, Nikolay Obukhov, Frank Zappa and Johannes Ockeghem'. Not that there's anything wrong with drawing influence from a wide range of sources of course, but it seems like these are always the same kinds of sources—some kind of world music tradition appropriated in a very superficial way, some kind of popular music to reassure audiences that there will be a regular pulse they can tap their feet to, some obscure classical composer for the nerds in the audience—and the composer rarely seems to have any interest in doing their own thing, instead of just putting bits and pieces together in order to keep an audience moderately entertained with the 21st century equivalent of 19th century religious kitsch.)

((Hmm, that was a pointless rant, feel free to ignore it.))

[Bryn]

... (I am getting a bit tired of reading interviews with contemporary classical composers where they claim their influences are 'Balinese gamelan, Mongolian goatherd songs, 70s glam rock, Nikolay Obukhov, Frank Zappa and Johannes Ockeghem'. ...

Whereas, of course, Edgar Varèse's main claim to fame is that he 'influenced' Frank Zappa. [I've got me coat.]

[Richard Barrett]

getting a bit tired of reading interviews with contemporary classical composers where they claim their influences are 'Balinese gamelan, Mongolian goatherd songs, 70s glam rock, Nikolay Obukhov, Frank Zappa and Johannes Ockeghem'

You're right, eclecticism seems often to be an end in itself, especially now it's so easy to find and hear anything you want, and make it into music that's usually less than the sum of its undigested parts. Personally I don't see what can possibly be fulfilling in either making or listening to that kind of thing, but I don't have time for an extended rant today so that will have to do. (Sighs of relief all round no doubt.)

[verismissimo]

This may have been mentioned, but the late lamented Sir Edward Downes was a major performer of George Lloyd's work.

[Mahler's3rd]

Kenneth Leighton

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

((Hmm, that was a pointless rant, feel free to ignore it.))

"Pointless" or "pointed", it summed up exactly my own feelings.

[MrGongGong]

Whereas, of course, Edgar Varèse's main claim to fame is that he 'influenced' Frank Zappa. [I've got me coat.]

I think some of the cited "influences" are largely due to the way in which music in colleges and universities has developed in the last 30 years.
Before that time there maybe was a sense of a "mainstream" of "contemporary classical music" ? and ethnomusicology was a very niche and non-practical subject as was the inclusion of Jazz and "popular musics" in higher education.
We do live in an eclectic world.
Balinese gamelan had a profound influence on Britten, for example and so on. Was Brittens use of this "some kind of world music tradition appropriated in a very superficial way" ?
What is different is that many composers have immersed themselves in other musics by practically learning how to play and sing them. This, to my ears, is a much deeper understanding than what could maybe considered "naive exoticism" in the musics of earlier composers (not that Debussy's music is "bad" )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What is different is that many composers have immersed themselves in other musics by practically learning how to play and sing them. This, to my ears, is a much deeper understanding than what could maybe considered "naive exoticism" in the musics of earlier composers (not that Debussy's music is "bad" )

Yes - it depends on what we mean by "influence", I think. Debussy (and Stravinsky - and Picasso) took what they needed from other cultures and incorporated this into their own, already established "soundworlds". There's no attempt in, say, the Ebony Concerto to "write Jazz" any more than Dumbarton Oaks "rewrites Bach": it's Stravinsky's astonishing Musical imagination fertilized by ideas from other ways of thinking about Music. Debussy's Pagodes isn't Gamelin, it's Debussy, and bloody good, too.. Jazz, Bach, Gamelan all stay "there" untouched, undefiled by what other Musicians (including listeners) do to it.

I don't know that Musicians who have immersed themselves practically in other Musics necessarily produce much better Music as a result, even if their "understanding" is unquestionably "much deeper" than someone hearing that Music a couple of times. It depends on the imagination of the Musicians themselves - a restricted imagination is going to drown when so immersed, overwhelmed by the richness of the new ideas s/he encounters. A Debussy (yes, I know! ) just needs that "superficial" spark to fire their imaginations into producing something worthwhile.

It's the smörgåsbord approach that produces stuff that most regularly fails to excite me.

[Richard Barrett]

What is different is that many composers have immersed themselves in other musics by practically learning how to play and sing them.

Indeed, but I think kea's post wasn't about such people, but about the attitude that such immersion is not only unnecessary but somehow uncool in an "academic" kind of way.

My own feelings about this are: if you feel attracted to or inspired by one of the thousands of musics that can be heard, why shouldn't that involve an impulsion to study and try to understand it? - which might in turn involve some work before the fruits of the "inspiration" actually become audible.

[teamsaint]

Kenneth Leighton

#


well quite. Good example indeed.
The second symphony is a bit startling, if you listen to it a bit underprepared, as I did .

[MrGongGong]

My own feelings about this are: if you feel attracted to or inspired by one of the thousands of musics that can be heard, why shouldn't that involve an impulsion to study and try to understand it? - which might in turn involve some work before the fruits of the "inspiration" actually become audible.