John Tavener on Hear and Now

[Boilk]

Getting back on thread topic, I heard only The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I don't have a problem with directness and simplicity of expression, but I found it structurally meandering and lacking in homogeneity - unlike other vaguely 'spiritually minimalist' pieces I could mention from as far back as the 1960s. I wouldn't lay such accusations against, for example, Panufnik's Sinfonia Sacra or Hovhaness's virtually unknown Fra Angelico...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

...but a welcome change from 50 years ago?

You didn't like the War Requiem, then, ardy? <butterwouldn'tmeltemoticon>

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Are we in a period of consolidation or alloying, following the fiery furnace of the 20th century?

I'm not sure that the entire century can be so described; the period 1890 - 1920 was followed by a thirty-year period more characterized by cosolidation than invention (even Serialism, a genuinely new way of thinking in Musical terms, was introduced in terms of earlier Renaissance, Baroque and Classical ideals by Schoenberg and Webern) and then another thirty or so years where the furnace was reheated. Then thirty years when the various types of Minimalism held sway, before the Neo-Modernists that started to emerge after the turn of the Century. We don't know their work (Billione, Cassidy, Saunders, Cento, McCormick, Harrison, Furrer, Johnson, Lim, Glover et al) because their work isn't broadcast regularly enough, nor are the news media as interested in this part of our culture as their "equivalents" were in the 1910s, 1940s, 1960s etc etc.

But there are other histories that the "angular/dissonant" (and I presume we don't mean West Side Story?) monorama that has been suggested here - Feldman, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Clementi - a body of work as far removed from those of, say, Barraque or Xenakis as is Tavener's or Part's - but, although quite frequently performed (even in the UK) rarely reaching the airwaves. And even at the height of Minimalism and the success of The Protecting Veil, composers and performers continued and expanded the horizons of the post-Second World War Modernists: Finnissy, Ferneyhough, Lachenmann, Dench, Barrett, Lang, Maierhof, Rijnvos, Sorensen. White hot Music, reforging the expressive and communicative possibilities offered by the Art. "[P]erhaps not for a general audience" - how will we know if it isn't programmed for that audience?

And can't the description "a period of intense innovation and exploration, followed by another of reflection and reconciliation, before a final ressurgence of innovative activity" apply as readily to the Nineteenth Century as to the Twentieth?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, and though Boulez is still alive, he hasn't been kicking since an airport accident about five years ago.

[ardcarp]

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick (well, my stick anyway) Ferney. I'm a child of the mid-20th cent and I think we walked with giants. War Requiem

I'm less enthusiastic about the 21st cent which seems to lack any sort of Zeitgeist. Post-minimalist stuff which consists of a few chords with the odd dissonant note added, lasting for ever and repeated endlessly leaves me cold I'm afraid.

(I can do gross generalisations as well.)

edit: I wrote this before I saw posts #19 and 20

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes; #17 "my intent was nat for but to pleye". But I've moved well off-topic, and maybe I should start a new devoted Thread on which Forumistas can highlight the work of the living composers who don't get the attention they deserve from 21st Century media?

[Quarky]

Yes; #17 "my intent was nat for but to pleye". But I've moved well off-topic, and maybe I should start a new devoted Thread on which Forumistas can highlight the work of the living composers who don't get the attention they deserve from 21st Century media?

That is a jolly good idea, ferney.

[teamsaint]

That is a jolly good idea, ferney.

Yes it is.
Beef Oven's " The Rest is Noise "thread is great, but it would be great to have a little direction from those with expertise or knowledge of C21 music.
One problem that I find when looking at new areas of music is where to start. To be brutally frank, there is so much available, and of interest, that its easy to use time perhaps less well than one might.(which is not to say that exploration , finding things by chance and so on aren't part of the learning mix).

So, some short cuts would be good. No, great.
What we need is a sort of " Executive Officer of the week".........

[Boilk]

...it would be great to have a little direction from those with expertise or knowledge of C21 music.

Just 12 years into the century, it's troubling for me to see the term "C21 music" ...other than to mean simply music composed between 2001 and now. I won't hold my breath waiting to see if music of 2001-20013 is broadly markedly different from music of the 1990s...composers don't evolve in sync with the decades.

There might be expertise/knowledge of our pet-composers' developments in the noughties, but that falls short of qualified generic statements about C21 broader musical directions (assuming there are any yet), if that's what's being asked for. For who here is following even a couple of hundred of the thousands of composers currently working? We'll have to wait a few decades yet to see who the 'important' and influential figures are, and much of that attributed 'importance' may come primarily from their work having chimed with the prevailing prejudices of the broadcasting and musicological establishments.

[Quarky]

Well OK Boilk. I think fhg was suggesting a thread on which under-represented living composers would be featured, which seems to me a good idea.

maybe I should start a new devoted Thread on which Forumistas can highlight the work of the living composers who don't get the attention they deserve from 21st Century media?

My particular problem is that whilst I am interested in current and recent works, I just don't know enough about them, and I am not able to devote a great deal of time to researching them. Certainly very few of the composers already mentioned ring a bell. But much of their work may not be publicised by the media. So what to do, short of giving up altogether?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oddy (#25) is correct - I hope to start a new Thread about composers working today who have "emerged" since c1990 and whose work Forumistas find exciting and deserves to be better known. (In other words, doing what R3 used to do up until about 1990 - there is still Hear & Now, but from general comments on the Forum this seems to "preach to the converted" - and is ghettoed at the "well past my bedtime" slot.)

Relatives visiting sparodically (the price of a quiet Christmas!) so it may take a little time before I start - so, if anyone else thinks this is a good idea, and would like to bring Richard Rijnvos to greater attention, please feel free ...

[Pianoman]

I seem to recall lots of Rijnvos at the HCMF a few years ago (2004?); I really like the energy of his music - just listening to 'Uptown/Downtown/ as I write, invigorating stuff..

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I seem to recall lots of Rijnvos at the HCMF a few years ago (2004?); I really like the energy of his music - just listening to 'Uptown/Downtown/ as I write, invigorating stuff..

The "Block Beuys" cycle in the Town Hall? Yes; I was there, too: the birch twigs splinters flying across the stage (and wasn't that the concert which began inauspiciously with a long pause because the taped sounds weren't switched on? - You don't get this on CD )

[teamsaint]

Just 12 years into the century, it's troubling for me to see the term "C21 music" ...other than to mean simply music composed between 2001 and now. I won't hold my breath waiting to see if music of 2001-20013 is broadly markedly different from music of the 1990s...composers don't evolve in sync with the decades.

There might be expertise/knowledge of our pet-composers' developments in the noughties, but that falls short of qualified generic statements about C21 broader musical directions (assuming there are any yet), if that's what's being asked for. For who here is following even a couple of hundred of the thousands of composers currently working? We'll have to wait a few decades yet to see who the 'important' and influential figures are, and much of that attributed 'importance' may come primarily from their work having chimed with the prevailing prejudices of the broadcasting and musicological establishments.

Boilers, I was probably using "C21" as a rather lazy short hand for , "contemporary", "work of living composers"," late C20/early C21" , or whatever. Or in other words looking at the music of the last 20/30 years as opposed to mid and early C20.
Apologies for not posting what I really meant !!

[kea]

No, but the the 20th century was in many respects pretty angular, horrible, aggressive and discordant

As opposed to the epic, heroic, triumphal 19th century and the beautiful classical balance of the 18th?

As we're in the realm of sweeping generalisations [about 20th cent music] would anyone be so bold as to put a tag on 21st century composition...so far?

Neoconservative.

edit: at least the "mainstream". People like to talk about a mainstream of pluralism, but that's actually much less true than it was, say, 40 years ago; every genre of music has become much more homogeneous since then. There's a tendency towards sameness and an avoidance of strong feelings about things that I think is a mirror of the rightward shift in society since Reagan/Thatcher -- not only in political views, but in attitudes: "if I don't care about anything, nothing can hurt me."