Who Killed Classical Music?

[Bryn]

Yes full stops can be overwhelming for a first-timer . . . But do struggle on! Nil desperandum! The rewards will come . . . eventually. Not to feel left out is the great good thing.

cummings ist der dichter or as Schott Music would have it, BOULEZ CUMMINGS IST DER DICHTER

[Sydney Grew]

For a different view we could turn to one of our members at another place. He recently wrote this on the subject, and he has a point does he not:

what is the real legacy of this stuff? None, as far as I can see.

Twelve-tone composition is simply an intellectual diversion, rather like doing sudoku puzzles. And performing it is rather like giving a public display of sudokus which you have solved.

The actual continuum of twentieth-century composition - Janacek, Strauss, Lutoslawski, Ives, Britten, Tippett, Shostakovich, Prokofiev - has no space for the intellectual affectation of twelve-note composition. Its influence is a complete 0.

Of course, it's placed on a pedestal by the self-appointed priesthood of 'modern' composers.

I don't know sudoku - is it that business where blocks fall down from the ceiling and have to be stacked up in a certain order?

But I think the conclusion we are coming to in this thread is that a distinction may - indeed must - be drawn between music written for the sake of the sound, and music written as an intellectual exercise. The bulk of the common people love the first because the sound is the point! But the juggling of patterns will never attract them; "dry" and "arid" are the adjectives most often encountered in that regard. Dare I use the phrase "expression of feeling"? I suppose this fits in with Moses und Aron which is all about liquids of one kind and another. Let's be devils and have more milk and honey!

[MrGongGong]

For a different view we could turn to one of our members at another place. He recently wrote this on the subject, and he has a point does he not:

no
The

continuum of twentieth-century composition

would seem to be an opinion based on personal taste (and there's no problem with liking things!) rather than an understanding of the music of the world.

I don't know sudoku - is it that business where blocks fall down from the ceiling and have to be stacked up in a certain order?

You appear not to know my friend Jack as well
(no it's not, that, my friend is TETRIS)

But I think the conclusion we are coming to in this thread is that a distinction may - indeed must - be drawn between music written for the sake of the sound, and music written as an intellectual exercise. The bulk of the common people love the first because the sound is the point! But the juggling of patterns will never attract them; "dry" and "arid" are the adjectives most often encountered in that regard. Dare I use the phrase "expression of feeling"? I suppose this fits in with Moses und Aron which is all about liquids of one kind and another. Let's be devils and have more milk and honey!

That's YOUR conclusion which is plainly ridiculous
The bulk of the "common people" (as you so quaintly put it! though I didn't have you down as a Pulp enthusiast?) don't give a toss about any of it!
You make the oft made mistake of thinking that because something has been created with a great deal of rigour that it is somehow lacking in emotional content!

So maybe you should stick to Mantovani ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Liquids of one kind or another"? Has someone used google translate on cummings ist der dichter?

[ahinton]

For a different view we could turn to one of our members at another place. He recently wrote this on the subject, and he has a point does he not:

No.

I don't know sudoku - is it that business where blocks fall down from the ceiling and have to be stacked up in a certain order?

Look it up.

But I think the conclusion we are coming to in this thread

"We" in the sense of you and your alter ego, perhaps, but...

is that a distinction may - indeed must - be drawn between music written for the sake of the sound, and music written as an intellectual exercise. The bulk of the common people love the first because the sound is the point! But the juggling of patterns will never attract them; "dry" and "arid" are the adjectives most often encountered in that regard.

There's so much wrong with this that I hardly know where to start! Compositional activity involves problem solving to a greater or lesser degree from time to time; it did so for Bach as much as for Schönberg - for Byrd as much as for Ferneyhough. Where what you write misses the point is (a) in the notion that an "intellectual exercise" presumes the need to abandon matters of sound (since it is impossible to separate the exrcise from the sound of the result, given that the exercise deals primarily with sounds) and (b) that all "intellectual exercises" undertaken by composers for the express purpose of finding out how best to do something are indistinguishable from the works that they then go on to write. No less a figure than Schönberg remarked about things that are - meaning should be - "of the composer's workshop".

Dare I use the phrase "expression of feeling"?

You can use any expression you like as long as it is relevant to the discussion and does not invite the ire of FF! - but in using this particular one you need to take care of what you mean by it in the present context.

[ahinton]

You make the oft made mistake of thinking that because something has been created with a great deal of rigour that it is somehow lacking in emotional content!

It certainly seems as though he does just that; at the risk of sounding like him, I cannot imagine Brahms taking kindly to any such notion!

So maybe you should stick to Mantovani ?

Annunzio or Bruno?

[ahinton]

"Liquids of one kind or another"? Has someone used google translate on cummings ist der dichter?

!!! And the spelling of "dichter" needs especial care, methinks...

[Richard Barrett]

a distinction may - indeed must - be drawn between music written for the sake of the sound, and music written as an intellectual exercise

And how exactly is that distinction to be made, given that (a) it's in principle not possible to know how a piece of music was "written" (or indeed if it was written) just from hearing it, and (b) that these two categories are in any case not mutually exclusive?

Regarding your little quote from someone obviously as blinkered as yourself (or as you affect to be): how is it that something can simultaneously have an influence of zero and be placed on a pedestal? And if the music you're complaining about really has an influence of zero why are you and some other members of this forum so exercised about it? It certainly seems to have a strong influence on you. Why don't you just ignore it rather than parading ill-informed opinions about it?

But I'm sure you have slippery answers to these things.

What you and your fellow fogeys seem to want is for the expansion of musical possibilities which blossomed in the twentieth century to somehow go into reverse, for everything to be stuffed back into a box and forgotten about. So: how is that supposed to happen? because it would certainly be unprecedented in human history, let alone musical history, for such an expansion to be reversed.

[Thropplenoggin]

Perhaps a distinction should be made between music where melody and harmony play their part and what is often more akin to sonic experimentation?

Does Lachemann's dropped violin bows, scrapings, tappings, etc. really fit the standard definition of MUSIC: 'vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion'?

The history of music seems to follow the traditional pattern of Hegelian dialectic, which has brought us to what to me feels like an impasse for orchestral music, chamber music, etc., with other genres (electronic, dubstep, etc.) seeming to offer more innovation musically, rather than simple sonic experimentation.

Just a thought.

[ahinton]

And how exactly is that distinction to be made, given that (a) it's in principle not possible to know how a piece of music was "written" (or indeed if it was written) just from hearing it, and (b) that these two categories are in any case not mutually exclusive?

Regarding your little quote from someone obviously as blinkered as yourself (or as you affect to be): how is it that something can simultaneously have an influence of zero and be placed on a pedestal? And if the music you're complaining about really has an influence of zero why are you and some other members of this forum so exercised about it? It certainly seems to have a strong influence on you. Why don't you just ignore it rather than parading ill-informed opinions about it?

But I'm sure you have slippery answers to these things.

What you and your fellow fogeys seem to want is for the expansion of musical possibilities which blossomed in the twentieth century to somehow go into reverse, for everything to be stuffed back into a box and forgotten about. So: how is that supposed to happen? because it would certainly be unprecedented in human history, let alone musical history, for such an expansion to be reversed.

Excellent sense here - and most especially notable (at least for SG) are the references to "expansion" - not the "overthrowing" of the past but the "expansion" of possibilities, the broadening, not cramping, of musical expression and the means thereof.

If it's sufficiently acceptable to the likes of SG for the design and manufacture instruments to have developed in order to render them capable of more than would have been expected of them in earlier times that they'd have no wish or expectation that these would "somehow go into reverse", why would the same be expected of music itself?

[jean]

And how exactly is that distinction to be made, given that (a) it's in principle not possible to know how a piece of music was "written" (or indeed if it was written) just from hearing it, and (b) that these two categories are in any case not mutually exclusive?

Medieval and early Renaissance music is full of the juggling of patterns, so dry and arid to Sid.

I have just sung a wonderful Ave Maria by Jean Mouton - it's a double canon at the fifth, but I doubt if I'd have known if someone hadn't told me.

[ahinton]

Perhaps a distinction should be made between music where melody and harmony play their part and what is often more akin to sonic experimentation?

Does Lachemann's dropped violin bows, scrapings, tappings, etc. really fit the standard definition of MUSIC: 'vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion'?

The history of music seems to follow the traditional pattern of Hegelian dialectic, which has brought us to what to me feels like an impasse for orchestral music, chamber music, etc., with other genres (electronic, dubstep, etc.) seeming to offer more innovation musically, rather than simple sonic experimentation.

Just a thought.

...which you might care to address to Lachenmann, Hespos and others...

[Bryn]

Try Googling, using "Hobbs" and "sudoku music" as your search criteria.

[Richard Barrett]

the standard definition of MUSIC: 'vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion'?

Sorry but in what sense is that a "standard definition"?

And which Lachenmann composition involves dropping a violin bow? I haven't come across this, and it would be very unlike him to write anything that would potentially damage an instrument or bow. I suspect you're talking off the top of your head there.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Does Lachemann's dropped violin bows, scrapings, tappings, etc. really fit the standard definition of MUSIC: 'vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion'?

Yes, it does. "[V]ocal and/or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to provide beauty of form, harmony and expressive [surely this should be "evocative"?] of emotion [surely this should be "thoughts and feelings"?]" is a pretty precise definition of Lachenmann's work. That's probably why so many Musicians take the trouble to master the difficulty of actually playing it in order to perform it - much less time and effort needed to present a piece of (for example) Einaudi; they just believe that the Musical rewards (for themselves and their audiences) repay their efforts so much more.