Alexander Goehr: 11-15 Sept '17

[Serial_Apologist]

Of all living British composers of today, Goehr for me represents the closest continuity with the values of post-Enlightenment aesthetics as inscribed in the Euroclassical lineage of music. I guess that amounts to a kind of confessional on my part to the degree that, while I would defend to the death the right of free expression in the name of innovation by musicians working in any tradition or genre, I remain in many respects a traditionalist in my appreciation of music. I rather suspect that Mr Goehr thinks musically and philosophically in similar terms. I wonder what others think. Is the "Euroclassical" tradition, and all it has at various stages sought to encapsulate in terms of "expanding the permissible in the empire of sound" (as Debussy is said to have said about Stravinsky's "Le Sacre"), and a lot more than that with regards to reflecting the ever-increasing complexities of everyday living, together with the understanding of society's complexities and our reactions thereto in the sciences and humanities?

This is a big subject of course, and while nobody expects music to be the answer to all civilisation's ills, I would like to claim it has a big part to play. The question I ask is whether or not postmodernist multiculturalist relativisms now supercede the values encripted into the post-Enlightment idea of progress, which as I see it, provided the aesthetic backdrop to a postwar era that still believed in it, notwithstanding the many shortcomings that still remained to be recognised, let alone addressed, and are now being re-examined metaperspectivally, ie from multicultural viewpoints which downplay or wish even to eradicate the "Eurocentric" viewpoint as no longer of relevance in our multicultural age. It will be interesting to find out how much these questions are taken up in consideration of this week's COTW.

[teamsaint]

Of all living British composers of today, Goehr for me represents the closest continuity with the values of post-Enlightenment aesthetics as inscribed in the Euroclassical lineage of music. I guess that amounts to a kind of confessional on my part to the degree that, while I would defend to the death the right of free expression in the name of innovation by musicians working in any tradition or genre, I remain in many respects a traditionalist in my appreciation of music. I rather suspect that Mr Goehr thinks musically and philosophically in similar terms. I wonder what others think. Is the "Euroclassical" tradition, and all it has at various stages sought to encapsulate in terms of "expanding the permissible in the empire of sound" (as Debussy is said to have said about Stravinsky's "Le Sacre"), and a lot more than that with regards to reflecting the ever-increasing complexities of everyday living, together with the understanding of society's complexities and our reactions thereto in the sciences and humanities?

This is a big subject of course, and while nobody expects music to be the answer to all civilisation's ills, I would claim it has a big part to play. The question I ask is whether or not postmodernist multiculturalist relativisms now superseded the values encripted into the post-Enlightment idea of progress, which as I see it, provided the aesthetic backdrop to a postwar era that still believed in it, notwithstanding the many shortcomings that still remained to be recognised, let alone addressed, and are now being re-examined metaperspectivally, ie from multicultural viewpoints which downplay or wish even to eradicate the "Eurocentric" viewpoint as no longer of relevance in our multicultural age. It will be interesting to find out how much these questions are taken up in consideration of this week's COTW.

Promises much. Looking forward to this.

[Richard Barrett]

I wonder what others think.

For me, whatever values are enshrined in Goehr's work, it is some of the most turgid and boring music I've ever heard. And I say this not as a convinced adherent of postmodern laissez-faire, but as someone who believes that the outward search embodied in the most radical and thoughtful 20th century art and music should be continued indefinitely, rather than stalled in a shortsightedness that sees no further than Schoenberg's incomplete renewal of musical resources.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For me, whatever values are enshrined in Goehr's work, it is some of the most turgid and boring music I've ever heard. And I say this not as a convinced adherent of postmodern laissez-faire, but as someone who believes that the outward search embodied in the most radical and thoughtful 20th century art and music should be continued indefinitely, rather than stalled in a shortsightedness that sees no further than Schoenberg's incomplete renewal of musical resources.

Yes - all "renewals of Musical resources" are bound to be "incomplete", of course, and whilst there are pieces by Goehr that I like to hear (the Piano Trio, the Second String Quartet, the Little Symphony, the Deux Etudes immediately come to mind ... and then the list grinds to halt) I cannot think of anything of his that embodies the best of what I understand the "post-Enlightenment" to mean; the search to discover new means of expression, to give voice to the ideas and concerns, and to give response to the problems and opportunities that arise with each development of human history. Goehr's is an aesthetic that seems to think that a bakelite telephone with a very long cable is a good idea of a mobile phone: it is aware of a need, but the solutions it suggests to fulfil that need are cumbersome, inelegant and inadequate.

[Richard Barrett]

Yes - all "renewals of Musical resources" are bound to be "incomplete", of course

Of course. (You know what I meant though!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course. (You know what I meant though!)

- I have a (much) higher regard for the value of the "incompleteness" than you do, I think.

[Richard Barrett]

- I have a (much) higher regard for the value of the "incompleteness" than you do, I think.

The trouble with Schoenberg is that he liked Brahms too much.

[ahinton]

- I have a (much) higher regard for the value of the "incompleteness" than you do, I think.

Perhaps - but I don't know what's wrong with Goehr simply being Goehr, at which he is presumably better than anyone else. I might also wonder what his detractors think about his close contemporary and compatriot Hugh Wood in the terms expressed above...

[ahinton]

The trouble with Schoenberg is that he liked Brahms too much.

And the reason that this as a "trouble" is...???...

[DracoM]

Well, I've always struggled with Goehr, but, oddly, not Webern, Berg, or Schoenberg. And I have puzzled as to why.
While the latter three have the zest of invention and very sharp ears for nuance and development, I have found Goehr derivative - even imitative - without implicit development, and in the main a bit wearying and sterile.
Will try with this week, but.............

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The trouble with Schoenberg is that he liked Brahms too much.

(Alexander Grrr)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps - but I don't know what's wrong with Goehr siomply being Goehr, at which he is presumably better than anyone else.

Absolutely - and, as I mentioned, there are works of his that I greatly enjoy listening to. But for the aesthetic considerations S_A queried, I wouldn't chose Goehr as a representative demonstration.

I might also wonder what his detractors think about his close contemporary and compatriot Hugh Wood in the terms expressed above...

Alas, for me, RB's adjectives "turgid and boring" sum up my experience when listening to Wood's work exactly.

[french frank]

Just listened to the piano concerto op 33. It wasn't turgid in any way that I understand the word, or boring to me personally. This may be because it is music that I look forward→ to from my position. I am backward. Others whose position is musically in the present look back on it critically in comparison to works by others and how music has generally evolved.

In the end though, we enjoy it or we don't, critically or uncritically. Like all music. We all expect/demand different things from music and how it should change/evolve.

PS I remember travelling up to Gt Malvern a few years back to see Goehr's operatic treatment of K. Lear which I enjoyed. But I did gather there were not-so-stifled guffaws and jokes over the opera's title (Promised End).

"Is this the promised end?"

"Or image of that horror?"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But for the aesthetic considerations S_A queried, I wouldn't chose Goehr as a representative demonstration.

That sentence actually made sense when it left this keyboard - I hope the meaning is clearer than the syntax!

[DracoM]

Just listened to the piano concerto op 33. It wasn't turgid in any way that I understand the word, or boring to me personally. This may be because it is music that I look forward→ to from my position. I am backward. Others whose position is musically in the present look back on it critically in comparison to works by others and how music has generally evolved.

In the end though, we enjoy it or we don't, critically or uncritically. Like all music. We all expect/demand different things from music and how it should change/evolve.

PS I remember travelling up to Gt Malvern a few years back to see Goehr's operatic treatment of K. Lear which I enjoyed. But I did gather there were not-so-stifled guffaws and jokes over the opera's title (Promised End).

"Is this the promised end?"

"Or image of that horror?"