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

[Richard Barrett]

I'd be very interested in hearing a work that shot clean out of the water my theory that Blattwerk has made "The Concerto" genre totally redundant.

It wouldn't be possible to do with an orchestra what happens in that piece, for sure. But then it's possible to do with an orchestra things that only a stage full of human beings can do. Are those things really compelling? In some ways, writing for orchestra is indeed limiting, and writing for soloist + orchestra on the face of it even more so.

[kea]

Here's a speculative question which no-one need bother to answer - totally irrelevant to this thread - sorry! - but still... I wonder what piano concertos young aspiring pianists will be playing in the final of their "Young Musician" competitions (or equivalent) in 50 to 100 years' time. Still harking back to Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Brahms, Prokofiev, etc. Really?? Surely not, all these years later! But what then? The Birtwhistle concerto, or maybe Maderna or Lutoslawski? Or what about Beat Furrer's concerto? Somehow, I don't think so. It's extremely likely the piano will still be as popular as ever and these pianists will need something to show off their talent. But I think they'll struggle to find anything suitable for them from the latter half of the 20th C. onwards.

One thing that is frustrating to me is how that particular group of musical tastemakers has apparently embraced the ideas of Zhdanov where it comes to music—it must be consonant, end happily, use a recognised vocabulary of emotions drawn from film and video game music, not explore anything that is psychologically too dark, avoid formalism, and generally include content that is suitable to distract the working classes from their exploitation under capitalism. >_> So even when they do commission some new work for a piano competition (or a violin competition, or whatever) it's typically some piece of upbeat capitalist realism from someone like John Adams or Osvaldo Golijov, with appropriate nonthreatening multi-ethnic content that does not threaten colonialism and nostalgic references to pop music, or whatever. Or look at the early 20th century concerti they play: Prokofiev and Shostakovich, writing literally to official guidelines, and Rachmaninov, whose popularity comes mostly from his posthumous appropriation by the film industry (Warsaw Concerto—which I'm sure would be a permitted work if it actually existed—and so on). Ravel, who studiously avoided the darker emotions throughout his career. From Bartók we only typically hear the happier, more upbeat third concerto, not the more complex and formalist first two. Or a cello competition final just recently which permitted Shostakovich's first concerto (more upbeat) but not his second (more ambiguous, ends quietly).

Commissioners seem to apply the same logic, based on what they think will sell tickets. Which does not correspond to what actually sells tickets but they have never bothered very much about that.

Also my favourite individual Jo Kondo piece by some distance is still this one in large part because of how wonderfully the microtonal language meshes with his typical style.

[Richard Barrett]

This is what might be called "capitalist realism".

[jayne lee wilson]

As for the "lack" of Concertos from contemporary composers - where to start?

Orchestras: Without adequate funding, orchestras cannot afford rehearsal times for "more adventurous" repertoire of any sort (not just new works) - nor often to programme unfamiliar repertoire that will not draw in a decent-sized orchestra (witness the paucity of responses on this very Forum, which consists of people hungry for "off-the-beaten-track" repertoire, to a broadcast of Tippett's Piano Concerto last week). Add to those restrictions, the problem of rehearing with a soloist, and the disincentives become depressing.

Performers: as Richard has said, the accessibility of students to living composers and their work is very restricted. Only those performers who are already interested choose establishments whose teaching staff include other performers who are already involved in such repertory.

Composers: "writing" a "Concerto" suggests an engagement with aesthetics of performance (the individual struggling against and defeating the collective) that many creative Musicians would - at the very least - question. And with many "jobbing" orchestral Musicians hostile to New Music, there is little incentive (beyond the commission fee) for composers to put themselves through the depressing rigours of insufficient rehearsals and inadequate performances - especially when there are smaller individuals and groups who are much more enthusiastic at preparing and presenting their work. Besides, what Richard achieved in his Blattwerk for 'cello and electronics makes all subsequent "concertos" redundant. Many of the very best composers don't "need" orchestras, and most orchestras don't want these composers - so the orchestral concert repertoire gets ossified in the period c1800-1950.

Yes, Eric Whitacre, Ludovico Dreimercedes, and Nigel Hess will continue to supply substitute "modern" Concertos - but for goodness' sake ... !!!

Just scanning through a coupla years' recent-release downloads/CDs I can find many 21st Century Concertos in a stunningly wide range of styles and forces ( symphony/chamber orchestral, ensemble etc.) and many of them going completely against any stereotype of an "individual struggling against ....the collective", with the soloist(s) playing all kinds of roles with the orchestral group...

To name just a few....

William Blank Piano Concerto "Reflecting Black"
Sebastian Fagerlund Clarinet Cto & Violin Concerto "Darkness into Light"
Henrik Hellstenius Violin Concerto No.2 "In Memoriam"
Kalevi Aho Clarinet Concerto
Unsuk Chin Piano & Cello Concertos, "Sū" (concerto for sheng)
Colin Matthews Violin Concerto
David Matthews Oboe Concerto
Per Nørgård Violin Concertos 1 "Helle Nacht" & 2
Elliott Carter Boston Concerto, Cello Concerto, ASKO Concerto

As can be guessed from the titles, some of these works are scarcely an easy listen, emotionally or musically. They cover a dazzlingly wide range of moods, and I find them all to be challenging and enjoyable, and yes - musically "significant" to varying degrees...
So to say that a single work (Barrett's Blattwerk from 1998-2002), however high its own quality and significance may be, "makes all subsequent "concertos" redundant" seems a fairly remarkable claim. (It would seem a remarkable claim to make about any given work, in any genre, at any point in musical history, really).

Futuristically speaking..... how would you know?

[Richard Barrett]

Elliott Carter Boston Concerto (...) ASKO Concerto

Neither of these has a soloist though, so they really fall outside the soloist + orchestra category that we're talking about. As for the future: obviously I'm not going to comment on the specific example cited, but all of the examples you name seem to confirm the tendency for such works to be produced almost exclusively by mainstream-to-conservative composers.

[Serial_Apologist]

Neither of these has a soloist though, so they really fall outside the soloist + orchestra category that we're talking about. As for the future: obviously I'm not going to comment on the specific example cited, but all of the examples you name seem to confirm the tendency for such works to be produced almost exclusively by mainstream-to-conservative composers.

It's interesting to consider what musical forms going back into the distant past remain germane to contemporary composition. A few years ago, Daryl Runswick expressed the view to me that the fugue had lost any relevance in contemporary music. I mentioned Bartok. Thinking about it afterwards, it was stretching matters somewhat to cite a composer whose last proper fully-fledged whole-movement fugue (I'm not thinking of the numerous examples of fugato throughout his music) was the second movement of the solo violin sonata of 1944. I wonder if Daryl subsequently had a re-think: his latest CD "dot.music" includes a short Prelude & Fugue, composed by him as a composition student at Cambridge in 1967!

[Richard Barrett]

While a fugue is a form (maybe better described as a kind of texture) and in contemporary music will always (as it does in Beethoven) carry the connotations of an archaism, a solo+orchestra piece can take any form and doesn't need to have such connotations at all. I'm not sure actually what it might mean for some form to have "relevance in contemporary music" or not.

[Serial_Apologist]

While a fugue is a form (maybe better described as a kind of texture) and in contemporary music will always (as it does in Beethoven) carry the connotations of an archaism, a solo+orchestra piece can take any form and doesn't need to have such connotations at all. I'm not sure actually what it might mean for some form to have "relevance in contemporary music" or not.

I'd newed to ask him, but maybe Daryl was thinking broadly in terms of Boulez's condemnation of Schoenberg for making use in his dodecatonic works of what Boulez considered forms dependent on tonal relations. If that was what he was meaning, there are forms, variation form being one, canon another, that predate classical diatonicism and lived on through and beyond the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras.

[Richard Barrett]

I'd newed to ask him, but maybe Daryl was thinking broadly in terms of Boulez's condemnation of Schoenberg for making use in his dodecatonic works of what Boulez considered forms dependent on tonal relations. If that was what he was meaning, there are forms, variation form being one, canon another, that predate classical diatonicism and lived on through and beyond the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras.

That's true, but fugue is a much more specific and historically situated phenomenon than canon or variations, and also much more dependent on tonal relations.

[jayne lee wilson]

Neither of these has a soloist though, so they really fall outside the soloist + orchestra category that we're talking about. As for the future: obviously I'm not going to comment on the specific example cited, but all of the examples you name seem to confirm the tendency for such works to be produced almost exclusively by mainstream-to-conservative composers.

But who defines "mainstream-to-conservative"? And who defines...well, what...? The "true avant-garde"? The "truly modern"?
What doctrinaire-doctrine would suggest exclusion of - Blank, Norgård, Hellstenius, Unsuk Chin.... etc.... from the ....what, "truly modern"?
Is a listener like me somehow failing to challenge herself enough?

How does any listener decide, or pronounce upon, a work which "makes all subsequent "concertos" redundant"? Does such a statement help, or hinder, any definable "cause" of getting more modern ("recent" "contemporary" etc) music programmed or listened to?

And surely the point about the Carter works (ASKO, Boston) is not that they have no soloist, but that they have multiple soloists, i.e concertante groups, like the Bartok and Lutosławski works of....ancient legend.
"Concerto for Orchestra"... is a verbal, conceptual and musical challenge to the very notion of soloistic "concertos" in themselves....
....or else, a cornucopia of all the soloistic potentials.

[Richard Barrett]

What doctrinaire-doctrine would suggest exclusion of - Blank, Norgård, Hellstenius, Unsuk Chin.... etc.... from the ....what, "truly modern"?

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?

And surely the point about the Carter works (ASKO, Boston) is not that they have no soloist

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!

[kea]

To be fair, the kind of concerto that would be commissioned for a Young Musicians final would have to sit alongside Beethoven 5, Rach 3 and Prokofiev 2 and it's highly unlikely they would be willing to pay extra for 8-channel surround speakers and live electronics kits for 70 orchestral musicians, or six extra theorbo players and a bagpiper, or 20 extra rehearsals for every player to work out complex tablature notation and renegotiate their relationship with their instrument in a context of the psychoanalysis of instrumental virtuosity, etc. >_> I think if you are writing a concerto for that kind of event—or even in general, most of the time, unless you're very famous—you have to assume, besides the soloist who's likely to be more open to things, 2222/4231/timp.2perc/strings and maybe a harp, that can be put together in about two rehearsals at most.

That said, the genre of the concerto (as in "solo instrument + orchestra", whether or not it's called a concerto) was extremely successful in the 20th century/early 21st across stylistic lines: Hindemith wrote dozens of them starting with the early Kammermusiken 2-7, Alban Berg wrote two, Elliott Carter wrote at least five works for piano and orchestra & one each for most other instruments, Berio has plenty of Cheminses and Corale and ...points on the curve to find... etc, Boulez's explosante-fixe is kind of a concerto I guess, Dutilleux wrote two, Ligeti finished his career with several of them, Lachenmann did the Lachenmann thing in Accanto and Ausklang, Cage has a Concerto for Prepared Piano & Orchestra and a Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Feldman has a number of pieces called ____ and Orchestra, GF Haas has a concerto for 8 horns and orchestra which is less interesting than it sounds iirc, Grisey has a much better one in the final movement of Les Espaces Acoustiques but with only 4 horns, there are a couple of concertos for piano and orchestra (distinct from his "concertos" for solo piano) by Michael Finnissy, Rebecca Saunders has a really nice piece for two pianos and orchestra plus a couple with violin and cello as well (all of which have evocative lowercase one-word titles that are... honestly.... kind of interchangeable but you didn't hear it from me >.>), Wolfgang Mitterer has a Concerto for Piano, Electronics and Orchestra, Ivo Malec has a piece called Arc-en-cello for... something... I wonder what it could possibly be... and orchestra, Horațiu Rădulescu has a very strange Piano Concerto, Sciarrino has Libro notturno delle voci & Allegoria della notte & also a piece for cello and orchestra I forgot. Among composers who are willing to work within the limitations or famous enough that the limitations don't apply, it's evidently something that still provokes widespread interest.

[Richard Barrett]

highly unlikely they would be willing to pay extra

I certainly wasn't suggesting that a test piece concerto type thing would involve anything but standard instrumentation! - but I'm sure there are people around who could write such a thing without it being either anachronistic or embarrassing. Maybe I'm wrong. I never watch those things anyway, the idea of competitions for musicians makes me come out in hives.

As for your concerto list, I think I know almost all of them, apart from Haas but I can't be much bothered with his work. There are also some really interesting "concertante" pieces by Henze, Holliger, Dillon, BA Zimmermann, Xenakis - and Messiaen should perhaps be mentioned in this connection too. And some not so interesting ones by Harvey, Dusapin, Maxwell Davies etc.

[kea]

but I'm sure there are people around who could write such a thing without it being either anachronistic or embarrassing.

Arguably it's been done, it's simply that competition organisers are far too capitalist-realist to put Synaphaï or Recitativo oscuro or Piano and Orchestra on the set list so far, and conservatory students aren't necessarily trained to perform that kind of repertoire either.

the idea of competitions for musicians makes me come out in hives.

I never watch them, but I'm not quite too old to have abandoned dreams of winning one someday, to my shame...

Henze, Holliger, Dillon, BA Zimmermann, Xenakis - and Messiaen should perhaps be mentioned in this connection too. And some not so interesting ones by Harvey, Dusapin, Maxwell Davies etc.

And I've thought of a few more: Mark Andre (über), John Zorn (Aporias), Tristan Murail (Contes cruels), Toshio Hosokawa (numerous), Kimmo Hakola (piano concerto), Rolf Riehm (Wer sind diese Kinder), Mathias Spahlinger (Inter-Mezzo), Gilbert Amy (Cello Concerto), György Kurtág (quasi una fantasia & that viola one), Jörg Widmann (numerous), Matthias Pintscher (I'm sure there's something), Valentin Silvestrov (Metamusik), Hans Abrahamsen (a few), Simon Steen-Andersen (piano concerto with video). Not that I am necessarily endorsing the quality of any of these works.

The concerto is clearly on its way down from that exceptionally high ebb and the commissions mostly going to established composers, but it's hard to argue that concertos or concerto-like works aren't being written these days, including by some composers with varying degrees of cutting edges.

[Richard Barrett]

it's hard to argue that concertos or concerto-like works aren't being written these days, including by some composers with varying degrees of cutting edges.

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!)