BCMG, H&N, Sat 23/06/17; 22:00 - midnight

[jayne lee wilson]

It isn't doctrine or a value judgement, just an observation. They're all people who do most of their work in traditional forms, using traditional instrumentations, traditional notations, techniques and modes of playing, no electronic/digital technology etc. Clear enough?

Well it is actually, because orchestral music with a non-orchestral member as soloist (as in "Young Musician" finals!) and its viability was the subject. If you want to change the subject fine, but those pieces weren't examples of what was being discussed at the time!

Evidently - much clearer, yes, but if someone suggests that a specifically-named piece from 1998-2002 which does indeed use "digital/electronic technology" ...."makes all subsequent "concertos" redundant" then surely such a statement has to be challenged - from mainstream/conservative citations, or whatever. Not to mention that...interesting use of quotes around "concertos"....

[jayne lee wilson]

Indeed.

Looking down the instances mentioned by both of us I get the impression that a lot of the less mainstreamy ones seem more or less centrally concerned with the problematics of the solo/orchestra combination in a music-about-writing-music kind of way, whereas the more mainstreamy ones I guess don't acknowledge that there even is a problem. I think the ones that interest me most are those which embody neither o these attitudes, or which at least can be heard that way. I mean something like addressing the question "what if there were no problem." (Here you have to imagine me waving my hands around hoping against hope that it will help some meaning to emerge from what I'm saying!)

"....the instances mentioned by both of us..."

Thanks for that Richard, always nice to be acknowledged, let alone taken seriously. Sorry if I fall short here. I'm only a mere listener. Perhaps I really should stick to Schubert and Mendelssohn and Bruckner after all. (God, it wouldn't be difficult...)

But this is why I think "Concerto(s) for Orchestra" which are a fairly young concept (Hindemith 1925?) related to the Baroque Concertante group (Telemann!), are "centrally concerned with the problematics of the solo/orchestra combination..." etc. They do indeed " address the question... what if there were no problem?"....
...Don't they?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the ones that interest me most are those which embody neither o these attitudes, or which at least can be heard that way. I mean something like addressing the question "what if there were no problem." (Here you have to imagine me waving my hands around hoping against hope that it will help some meaning to emerge from what I'm saying!)

As I read this, I (mis?)understand you to be talking in terms of a "source composition" - a work that approaches a genre as if the composer were creating it, rather than trying to "fit in" with, or "rebel against", a historical tradition? (Or, to use the "Martian Poetry" idea for a moment - as if a Martian came to earth and, without ever hearing one, asked for a verbal description of what a "concerto" was and then wrote a work based on the description given?)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Kea's mentioning Rebecca Saunders, Lachenmann, and Sciarrino was salutary: demonstrating that there are, indeed, vitally important composers interested in (to nick the "get-out-of-jail card" term) "concerto-like" works of great originality and importance. (Richard's comments also show that there is at least one other "interested" in the genre, even if he hasn't written it yet!)

Are these works the sort of thing that I imagine that Neil was referring to when he introduced the topic with reference to what young performers might be as interested in playing as they are in the equivalent works of before 1950? Are the works he cites even amongst the most interesting and important written by their composers? ("Lachenmann [doing] the Lachenmann thing" suggets that Kea thinks not.)

Yes, Ausklang should be in the regular repertory - the fact that it isn't highlights the problem of how (in English-speaking countries at any rate) composers are faced with the museum aspect that orchestras and their core audience have imposed upon themselves. As a result, a work with the title "Concerto" is now either as quaint as a man wearing a bowler hat which he doffs whenever he meets a woman, or as self-consciously ironic as a woman wearing the bowler hat and doffing it to a bloke.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I greatly enjoyed the BCMG programme, incidentally - and was particularly attracted by the Jo Kondo pieces, as I was by the various youTube links to his works. They don't sound at all as I had "remembered" from years ago - so much so that I wonder if I've had the wrong composer in mind all along

Either way, along with Telemann, last week I have discovered the work of two composers I had thought I hadn't cared for - many thanks to Neil, MrGG and Richard for the "nudges".

[Richard Barrett]

"....the instances mentioned by both of us..."

Thanks for that Richard, always nice to be acknowledged, let alone taken seriously.

None of the instances you mentioned fell into the category of non-traditional music I went on to comment on. That's all.

But this is why I think "Concerto(s) for Orchestra" which are a fairly young concept (Hindemith 1925?) related to the Baroque Concertante group (Telemann!), are "centrally concerned with the problematics of the solo/orchestra combination..." etc. They do indeed " address the question... what if there were no problem?"....
...Don't they?

That's a good point to be sure. Those pieces do indeed sidestep a lot of the restrictions imposed by having a single soloist from outside the orchestra. On the other hand they create restrictions of their own which may or may not prove to be inspiring. For example, the first movement of Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra is I think brilliant in reconfiguring the orchestra in terms of an ensemble of variously combined "soloists" and creating a completely original form in doing so, while the other two movements are less creative in comparison.

[Richard Barrett]

As I read this, I (mis?)understand you to be talking in terms of a "source composition" - a work that approaches a genre as if the composer were creating it, rather than trying to "fit in" with, or "rebel against", a historical tradition?

That's more or less what I meant, yes. It's something I would often associate with Xenakis - if his music ever sounds like anything else, it usually seems to do so "by accident" rather than knowingly. I don't know that I'd use the term "source" since that implies (to me anyway) a model set up for further emulation. It's really just that I find it interesting for each composition to embody a distinctive form just as it embodies distinctive materials (that is, doesn't distinguish between form and materials where its musical identity is concerned), and in a way that permeates everything that happens in it.

[Neil]

I think the young solo pianist has to be considered because, to a large degree, the whole competition is about the soloist and the outcome could be highly important for his future career, possibly.
First of all, from an early age I would imagine that his or her training will have involved practising tonal music of one kind or another throughout his piano studies for a fair number of years to get where he's got to. Yes, of course, he may well have practised some 20th century piano pieces at some point, Bartok or Messiaen, for example, and enjoyed it, but he will have been conditioned to tonal music (so-called conventional music, what was 'the mainstream', if you like, with scale/arpeggio-like figuration and tonal chords within a functional harmonic structure, melodies and fragments that are memorable to him, even singable; tonal counterpoint which proceeds in the kind of seemingly logical way he has gradually come to learn and expect; ditto with cadences, modulations, ornaments, piano textures which often seem almost designed to fit the hand of a talented learner fairly well after dedicated practice - and my list could continue in this random fashion).
So tonal classical music will have been his staple diet for most, or 90%, say, of his formative years. His experience, or participation in 'non-academic' music, whether it be folk, rock, jazz or whatever, will confirm his or her ears' total saturation and immersion in tonal music of whatever genre.
The chances are that he will grow up to be an excellent pianist, maybe form part of a chamber group, etc., one day, but never like any music which is not in a key, with possibly a few exceptions, may never come to terms with it.

The vast majority of people I have spoken to in the past just simply do not like a great deal of modern music, and never will (which will hardly be news to you), if the music is completely divorced from tonality and some semblance of 'conventionality'. For that reason alone it will remain as very much a minority interest. Many wonderful pianists never seem to play it but instead make a lifetime's career of specialising in, say, Schubert or Chopin or Beethoven, etc. So my contention is that non-tonal music will never really appeal to the majority of musicians, never mind the general public. If there is any truth in this, many young students' tastes and preferences will probably be limited to the past, whether it be classical, romantic or possibly earlier music. And that, even if they've once taken part as a student in an inspired performance of, say, Xenakis, with a young charismatic conductor!

Of course, there's a whole raft of exceptions! But exceptions they are. Many young musicians are truly 'into' everything modern. But I'm talking about the silent majority... the type who might end up being piano teachers or heads of music, in a nice fee-paying school? Really, there aren't too many aspiring young pianists of, say, the John Ogdon, or indeed Margaret Kitchin variety. I'm not referring to their phenomenal ability as much as to their musical tastes when I say this.

Then there's the problem of learning atonal/modern music: notes, rhythms, textures, understanding, interpretation - often vastly more challenging than what the young pianist is used to, to learn and perform in a competition. Try learning (by heart) Schoenberg's op. 25 and compare it with memorising a few Schubert Impromptus.... by God, it's not easy, not for lesser mortals!

These problems, (in my opinion only), for many young pianists, would make it difficult to achieve the right balance when a composer sets out to write a new work which would be suitable for this competition, or anything similar. He'd need to have some empathy with the typical pianist's situation.

Just thinking, I wonder if the Schoenberg piano or violin concerto has ever been performed at The Young Musician of the Year the competition?

[MrGongGong]

"tonal" vs "non-tonal" how quaint

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"tonal" vs "non-tonal" how quaint

Or even "Concerto vs NONcerto":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLx7BvHSl_g

[Neil]

"tonal" vs "non-tonal" how quaint

It's because my death is imminent by the law of averages.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think that Neil's points in #38 are almost certainly accurate for the vast majority of young pianists. To be honest, as my brain is still happily chuckling from being given a good going-over by Philip Thomas and Apartment House courtesy of Cage's Concert for Piano & Orchestra, and Wolff's Resistance last Saturday night, I don't feel that there is a "problem" - or, if there is, it's one more for people who don't want Music to be so very different from what they already know and love. I don't think that many of them feel much of a problem, either: the more recent repertoires (the ones that prevent "Art Music" from becoming "Museum Music") are ones they quite happily ignore.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's because my death is imminent by the law of averages.

Damn the averages! Go for the exceptional!

[MrGongGong]

Damn the averages! Go for the exceptional!

Come to Huddersfield and change your ears

[Neil]

Well, I can only hope... but I keep hearing of well-known people, past their sell-by date admittedly, dying on the news. Dying seems to be very much in fashion these days, indeed it's all the rage! I'm kind of near the top of that queue you cannot step out of. You honestly want to be polite and step back to let the next man go ahead of you... but the sell-by date is stamped on you so you're just waiting on getting a push from behind or being grabbed from above....