COTW 4-6/12/17: 21st Century Opera

[Beef Oven!]

(But does Dumbarton Oaks "sound like" a Baroque Concerto Grosso to you?)

In my opinion, new music shouldn't sound like previous music. Neo-classical music was contemporary music, not new, as such.

[Beef Oven!]

Arguably, new music should eschew previous orchestral and instrumental conventions.

[Barbirollians]

The clue to answering this question is in the word "new" I think.

But new music is a temporal question . If Thomas Ades writes a new piece tomorrow that fhgl does not like for being Britten derivative it makes it no less new .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But new music is a temporal question . If Thomas Ades writes a new piece tomorrow that fhgl does not like for being Britten derivative it makes it no less new .

But I made a very clear distinction between "new Music" and "New Music" - a distinction that has nothing to do with whether or not I "like it" (for whatever reasons). Anything that hasn't literally been heard before is "new" - and there is nothing "wrong" in writing and/or performing "new Music for people who don't like New Music"; some of those "people" are perfectly decent, hard-working contributors to society, who deserve to grasp their legal pleasures wherever they find them. But "New" Art suggests a distinct attitude on the part of the Artists to explore avenues of Artistic expression that haven't been explored before, regardless of the immediate, wide-spread popularity of such explorations. It is different from the "temporal" dating of when an Artist worked to create a piece.

The opinion on Ades' work as expressed in the first sentence of #8 was (as I said) a personal "value reassessment" as S_A suggested/invited. That the work offered nothing (in the Musical language, or use of instruments or voices, or setting of libretto, or the plot of the libretto itself) that Britten would not have recognised - nor anything that would have made him leave the theatre during the interval - isn't under question, is it? Whether these things matter in each individual listener's appreciation of the resulting work isn't the point - I happen to dislike them (Ades the Showaddywaddy of Contemporary Music), but others might well latch onto those features as the very reason that they appreciate the work.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In my opinion, new music shouldn't sound like previous music. Neo-classical music was contemporary music, not new, as such.

Arguably, new music should eschew previous orchestral and instrumental conventions.

Largely I entirely agree with this - but not in a way that makes me avoid questioning why I believe this. There are works by contemporary composers (to nick your useful distinction) that I really enjoy that, annoyingly, don't avoid/eschew earlier conventions - or, at least, incorporate elements of such conventions into Newer ways of making Music.


Actually, now that I've written that, I can't think of any other than Alistair's! But you like the Music of the Matthews brothers, don't you? Ne'er an electronic pickup, an oboe multiphonic, or a bowed tailpiece in their work, that I know of.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyroadup, to finish on a positive comment - Sciarrino is a terrific composer and thinker of Music; far, far more rewarding to spend time with his work than wasting it on ... certain other composers I could mention. (And have.)

[Richard Barrett]

Anyroadup, to finish on a positive comment - Sciarrino is a terrific composer and thinker of Music

He is - and it shouldn't be forgotten also that his music is very much steeped in tradition despite perhaps superficially seeming not to be, but it uses tradition (and even nostalgia) as a starting point for something else, rather than as a stockpile of devices to be plundered as and when appropriate.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for all these wonderful replies. I'm always open to... dissuasion!