New Year, New Music 2018

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, now that the Christmas light offerings are over, R3 is running its annual highlighting of Contemporary Music during the mainstream schedules. The first week looks rather pale in comparison with previous years, with works that ought to be regularly featured in such schedules anyway. There seems to be a focus this week on Finnish composers with Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Aulis Sallinen, and Einojuhani Rautavaara, who died in 2016) but also Brits Howard Skempton and Composer of the Half-Week Colin Matthews - and Gyorgi Ligeti, who died twelve years ago!

A bit vanilla for the first week, then - but a couple of evening concerts caught my attention this week, both presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch Live from LSO St Lukes. On Tuesday 2/1/18 works by Canadian Linda Catlin Smith, and Swiss Jurg Frey alongside pieces by Philip Glass, James Weeks, Sarah Nemtsov, and Kerry Andrews.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kk0hr

And on Thursday, 4/1/18, Chaya Czernowin's Ayre features alongside works by Clara Iannotta, Alex Mills, Charles Mitchener, Michelle Lou, Thierry Tidrow, Lorenzo de Firenze, Valdegeir Sigurdsson, and Mirella Ivincevic - most of whom I've not previously heard of.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kk39c

Fantastic that this sort of Music is appearing during the "peak" schedules - where I believe it should be presented, and presented regularly. Quite makes up for the Musicals and Oom-pah-pahs (sorry, Alpie - that should be UMpa - paUmpa - pa) of the past ten days or so. And emphasises the point that the Station shouldn't so neglect this Music that its listeners and planners think that a composer dead for twelve years (with work written thirty years ago) still counts as "New Music"!

[Quarky]

The best post of 2018!..... so far.

[DracoM]

<< Fantastic that this sort of Music is appearing during the "peak" schedules - where I believe it should be presented, and presented regularly. Quite makes up for the Musicals and Oom-pah-pahs (sorry, Alpie - that should be UMpa - paUmpa - pa) of the past ten days or so. And emphasises the point that the Station shouldn't so neglect this Music that its listeners and planners think that a composer dead for twelve years (with work written thirty years ago) still counts as "New Music"! >>

Totally agree.
I just wish R3 was more adventurous elsewhere instead of increasingly CFM in the daytime scheduling.

[Alison]

Any views on Esa-Pekka Salonen as composer?

I find his work only of passing interest, very splashy in nature, ultimately unmemorable despite any number of half promising ideas. Quite likes the big gesture doesn't he? In a way I am surprised he is performed so much.

If anyone could single out particular recommended works I will enjoy following up.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Any views on Esa-Pekka Salonen as composer?

My own view is pretty much summed up by this:

I find his work only of passing interest, very splashy in nature, ultimately unmemorable despite any number of half promising ideas. Quite likes the big gesture doesn't he? In a way I am surprised he is performed so much.

[teamsaint]

Any views on Esa-Pekka Salonen as composer?

I find his work only of passing interest, very splashy in nature, ultimately unmemorable despite any number of half promising ideas. Quite likes the big gesture doesn't he? In a way I am surprised he is performed so much.

If anyone could single out particular recommended works I will enjoy following up.

If you are fond of things Rautavaaraesque , you might enjoy Foreign Bodies.

But your description does chime with my own feelings on his music. TBF though, if I saw a work programmed at the RFH, I wouldn't be averse to checking it out.

[Alison]

Cheers Sainty.

Hats off to those who went to the Total Immersion event!

[oddoneout]

think that a composer dead for twelve years (with work written thirty years ago) still counts as "New Music"!

Well, compared to the music of someone who died several hundred years before(Hildegard of Bingen anyone) that's not a completely unreasonable view!
However I would also suggest that 'New Music' could be taken to be music that offers something new, and so isn't necessarily directly tied to time of writing. Not all music being composed now is what I would think of as being new in the sense of breaking new ground.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

However I would also suggest that 'New Music' could be taken to be music that offers something new, and so isn't necessarily directly tied to time of writing.

"Offers" to whom? Couldn't this suggestion imply that a week of Hummel can be defined as "New" because most listeners haven't heard it?

Not all music being composed now is what I would think of as being new in the sense of breaking new ground.

Well, no; most of it isn't - but 'twas ever so, 'twasn't it? (In that people could say this of any Music written in any year from the time of Hildegard onwards). But a piece written thirty years ago, and recorded twice, cannot be called "new" by any definition other than in the Hummel sense I mentioned above

[jayne lee wilson]

What we seem to need here is a definition of "New Music". Is it confined the those composers who are still alive? How recently should it have been composed to qualify? Are there any stylistic features that rule it in, or rule it out? Or is it individualistic - The Curator's Choice?

There is a great deal of "recently composed music" (whether you take that to mean last year, or during the last decade, or since the 2nd World War) that is neglected, performed very occasionally if at all, often not well; often known only through its sole recording.
Much of it does indeed sound "new" or "New" in a variety of senses. We all have our nominees in that category. I can think of several compositions "written thirty years ago" or similarly dated, recorded once, and hardly ever played live, which could (and in my view, should) be included in a New Music season. It should be as broad as possible in its curation. Doesn't most New Music have a precedent, a background, even a tradition, of some identifiable kind?

Of course we'd rather hear - or see the inclusion of - such works more often in what is usually termed "mainstream programming", whether broadcast or not, if only to raise its profile. But the way we listen has changed too, and for many of us the 19:30 hrs slot doesn't really carry such a charge of priority, or precedence, any more.

[Quarky]

Sara Mohr-Pietsch's Open Ear gave a good idea of what is "New Music", imv - these definitions are never going to be water-tight.

As regards Esa-Pekka Salonen, I assume his Cello Concerto (Afternoon Concert yesterday) was listened to? Some nice Cello sounds, but little in the way of Grand Gestures.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As regards Esa-Pekka Salonen, I assume his Cello Concerto (Afternoon Concert yesterday) was listened to? Some nice Cello sounds, but little in the way of Grand Gestures.

- quite a lot of "scrubby" bowing required, too.

[oddoneout]

"Offers" to whom? Couldn't this suggestion imply that a week of Hummel can be defined as "New" because most listeners haven't heard it?

Not in the context of this exercise, no. I meant in the sense of new ideas, so something written 30 years ago might have more to offer in pushing musical ideas forward than something written 30 days ago. And no I wouldn't include music not familiar to the masses as new music just because it would be new to them.

But a piece written thirty years ago, and recorded twice, cannot be called "new" by any definition other than in the Hummel sense I mentioned above

Well I could define it thus perhaps,bearing in mind my previous comment, but I fully accept that your knowledge, perspective and experience will give you a different take on it.(and no, I'm not being sarcastic)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, I totally agree that Le Grande Macabre contains more New Music than ... well, quite a few recently-written operas broadcast last year, shall we say. I think the basis of my objection to its inclusion is not probably nothing to do with the work itself, but with the way that R3 has so neglected developments in Musical expression since the 1980s that for many in the wider audience, Ligeti's generation is still considered what they think of as "New Music". The opportunity to become aware of and experience what composers from Europe and the Americas in their 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s have been doing since those composers born c1920-35 is how I would wish the term to be used.

(By the way, I notice that no contemporary work from Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Russia, Poland, Hungary [apart from ... ], Australia, etc is being featured during this first week - not having access to Radio Times, I'm presuming that there will something to repair these omissions in the second week ... if there is one?)

[Bryn]

The Five Seismic Moments in New Music feature linked to on the "New Year New Music" page says much about the perspective adopted by those behind the project. Two of these 'Seismic Moment' I can just about identify with, the Cage and the Reich, the latter of which I took to like a duck to water when I heard it in a Maida Vale bedsit to which its composer had brought tapes to play to a few regular attendees of Cardew's Experimental Music Class at Morley College in, IIRC, 1970. Not so sure the fall of the Berlin Wall revealed that much in the way of New Music. The composers mentioned were already known to New Music enthusiasts by then. As to Eno and co., they were a good half a century behind Satie.