"I'm a little Alma, not a little Mozart!"

[greenilex]

The comparison with literature doesn't really work, does it?

Any single-digit writer who aped Dickens or the Brontes or even Kipling would be doing just that, pretending to write with an adult sensibility.

But music can be delightful and meaningful and skilful without demonstrating emotional maturity...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The comparison with literature doesn't really work, does it?
Any single-digit writer who aped Dickens or the Brontes or even Kipling would be doing just that, pretending to write with an adult sensibility.
But music can be delightful and meaningful and skilful without demonstrating emotional maturity...

I think you may have put your finger on why I find so much of the Music of the second half of the Nineteenth Century unappealing, greenilex: a lot sounds like it could have been written by a gifted nine-year-old. But I do wonder - if it isn't "emotionally mature", in what way can it be described as "meaningful"?

[Richard Barrett]

Any single-digit writer who aped Dickens or the Brontes or even Kipling would be doing just that, pretending to write with an adult sensibility.

Which is exactly what the young composer under discussion is doing, I think.

[MrGongGong]

I guess that if such a very young person were to be writing novels in the style of Dickens, or poetry in the style of Wordsworth, or painting pictures in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites this would be thought remarkable but rather eccentric and odd, whereas writing music in the style of the mid-19th century is regarded as just remarkable. Of course this kind of phenomenon is not limited to children!

Indeed

I've met several similar children in my time
What strikes me is that, while they come across as charming and articulate they are often very intelligent youngsters who have been somewhat "encouraged" (I was going to say "indoctrinated" but that's a bit strong?) by "devoted" parents.
Creating very accomplished pastiche is entertaining but not (IMV) a very healthy way for a young composer to be encouraged and nurtured.

A bit of a freak show IMV even though she is probably delightful.
I wonder what will happen when she discovers Xenakis ? (or Richard's music ?)

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder what will happen when she discovers Xenakis ? (or Richard's music ?)

I thought you were going to say Richard Strauss's music!

Coming from another age as she seems to, I wonder if she might make a good Alice in Wonderland.

[doversoul1]

Coming from another age as she seems to, I wonder if she might make a good Alice in Wonderland.

That's a good point, since Alice was (still is) a literary creation that entertained (still does) adults.

[Cornet IV]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;570076]I think it would be regarded as both "remarkable" and "odd" if a nine-year-old could produce such pastiche work of literature/painting - but it is bananas that it might be considered uncharitable to wonder why anyone would want to write in the style of Bruch![QUOTE]

Bananas?

It would be a large tropical fruit salad to consider why anyone would want to write in the style of, say, Hindemith; even more bananas to suppose that others might wish to listen to it. And what is wrong with pastiche, anyway? Not all original thought necessarily is of merit as myriad never-to-be-heard-again "world premiers" have demonstrated.

[Richard Barrett]

Not all original thought necessarily is of merit

And that certainly isn't an original thought. Of course there is nothing wrong with pastiche (and it is of course a tried and tested way for young artists to begin); it's just indicative of the general conservatism surrounding "classical" music, as opposed to visual or literary art, that the model taken by this young composer, who clearly has some exceptional abilities, is a century and a half old, and that this isn't thought of as in itself weird.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And what is wrong with pastiche, anyway?

Pastiche of Bruch/Wieniawski/Vieuxtemps??!! That's like nostalgia for TB!

Not all original thought necessarily is of merit as myriad never-to-be-heard-again "world premiers" have demonstrated.

And to the contrary, too - not a single work of any merit has been produced in any art form that has been based on a 150-yr-old "style" (and a second-rate one at that). Mozart aged Nine produces work (which could hardly be described as exhibiting "original thought") in the style of his older contemporaries; so did the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn (of his older contemporaries, not Mozart's!); so did the twelve-year-old Korngold. It's a further reflection of the second-class status with which Music is regarded in contemporary culture that this talented girl has probably never even been exposed to the various Musics in the Western Classical traditions that her older contemporaries are writing.

[Richard Barrett]

That's like nostalgia for TB!

Damning with faint praise there, Prof Geliebte.

[Cornet IV]

Pastiche of Bruch/Wieniawski/Vieuxtemps??!! That's like nostalgia for TB!


And to the contrary, too - not a single work of any merit has been produced in any art form that has been based on a 150-yr-old "style" (and a second-rate one at that). Mozart aged Nine produces work (which could hardly be described as exhibiting "original thought") in the style of his older contemporaries; so did the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn (of his older contemporaries, not Mozart's!); so did the twelve-year-old Korngold. It's a further reflection of the second-class status with which Music is regarded in contemporary culture that this talented girl has probably never even been exposed to the various Musics in the Western Classical traditions that her older contemporaries are writing.

Well, this is an interesting viewpoint. But regardless of the (somewhat alarming) precocity of this girl, she and others like her have to start from accepted foundations of musical construction and harmony, in just the same way as did those you have mentioned. I suggest that a visual artist should have a grounding in the disciplines of the genre in order to progress to something like a pile of bricks at the Tate. I imagine that It's a further reflection of the second-class status with which Music is regarded in contemporary culture refers to contemporary compositions and if so, it hardly is surprising that such music is not held in higher regard for in my judgment, the bulk of it indeed is "second class". Just listen to Radio 3 on most mornings to hear what I mean. This, of course, is a criticism of self-indulgent programming as much as anything else.

I gather that Alma also is a pianist. As part of her imagined shielding from anything written in the last 150 years, she surely must have been made familiar with that arch-conservative, J S Bach. By coincidence, I have just finished playing the b minor fugue from Book 1. I don't care for it greatly; I was just working my way through the pages but it occurred to me to wonder if the child in question had been made aware that this almost certainly was the first 12-tone composition and as near as dammit atonal to boot.

So perhaps there was life before bricks and Schoenberg which is relevant to our times and "New Complexities".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think that I shall leave fellow Forumista Gabriel Jackson (the only "contemporary composer" whose work I have heard on R3 in recent mornings) to comment on CornetIV's "judgement" of it as "second class". As Bach is referred to as an "arch-conservative" (? a slightly camp Tory?) in #26, I don't think that there's a point of contact I can make to even begin to respond to it.

[Richard Barrett]

I imagine that It's a further reflection of the second-class status with which Music is regarded in contemporary culture refers to contemporary compositions and if so, it hardly is surprising that such music is not held in higher regard for in my judgment, the bulk of it indeed is "second class".

Are you claiming to have heard "the bulk of it"? That would require some serious commitment to be sure, which I don't detect in the rest of your post.

[ahinton]

As Bach is referred to as an "arch-conservative" (? a slightly camp Tory?) in #26, I don't think that there's a point of contact I can make to even begin to respond to it.

That must have been the kind of Conservative that might have gotten stuck under Admiralty arch during this afternoon's Prime Ministerial to-ing and fro-ing between Buck Cottage and 10 Downton Abbey Street, I suppose; that said, it would be way beyond the resources of my imagination to reply to so an empty and cavalier a dismissal of Giovanni Sebastiano...

[Conchis]

She writes in a highly conservative/approachable (delete as appropriate) style. Music sounds very pleasant and accomplished: I feel churlish saying it's not at all striking or original. An amazing achievement and a bit of a triumph for home-schooling!

And what a charming and articulate person. :)