"Modernism", "Elitism", and "The Working Classes"

[Richard Barrett]

Is the Rite still modern 105 years on?

It's a lot more modern, in the sense of free from constraints of tradition, than a lot of what people are writing 105 years later, that's for sure. NB I'm not saying that establishing a relationship with tradition necessarily needs to bring constraints in its wake - Stravinsky of course took musical tradition very seriously indeed (even when he was parodying it), but he never composed according to someone else's idea of what ought and ought not to be done in music.

As for "elitism", it could be said that music which exists within a tradition is actually more elitist than a "modernist" music that breaks with tradition, in that the former divides audiences into those who are also steeped in the tradition and those who aren't, whereas the latter doesn't require such specialist knowledge, because those with it and those without it are on an equal footing. To appreciate a 21st century composer's take on (for example) a symphony, you need to know what a symphony is (supposed to be), in terms of its structure, its history, its cultural status; to appreciate a 21st century composer's freely formed (for example) electronic composition, you don't need to know any such thing in advance. At least (as a musically self-educated person) I've always found the latter kind of thing more "accessible" than the former.

[ahinton]

It's a lot more modern, in the sense of free from constraints of tradition, than a lot of what people are writing 105 years later, that's for sure. NB I'm not saying that establishing a relationship with tradition necessarily needs to bring constraints in its wake - Stravinsky of course took musical tradition very seriously indeed (even when he was parodying it), but he never composed according to someone else's idea of what ought and ought not to be done in music.

As for "elitism", it could be said that music which exists within a tradition is actually more elitist than a "modernist" music that breaks with tradition, in that the former divides audiences into those who are also steeped in the tradition and those who aren't, whereas the latter doesn't require such specialist knowledge, because those with it and those without it are on an equal footing. To appreciate a 21st century composer's take on (for example) a symphony, you need to know what a symphony is (supposed to be), in terms of its structure, its history, its cultural status; to appreciate a 21st century composer's freely formed (for example) electronic composition, you don't need to know any such thing in advance. At least (as a musically self-educated person) I've always found the latter kind of thing more "accessible" than the former.

That's pretty much understandable but do you think that your very status as a (largely) "musically self-educated person" might have some impact on how you see these things? Education and traditions may be thought up to a point to go hand in hand, albeit not necessarily to the ultimate benefit of either.

That said, I'm not entirely sure to what extent it is the case that "to appreciate a 21st century composer's take on (for example) a symphony, you need to know what a symphony is (supposed to be), in terms of its structure, its history, its cultural status", even if only because the next question would be "what is a symphony and/or what is it supposed to be?"; the commonalities notwithstanding in terms of that "tradition" and the ways in which it's understood are all very well, but the differences between a mature Haydn symphony, a Bruckner symphony, a Tchaikovsky symphony, a Mahler symphony, a Krenek/Sessions/Henze symphony, a Milhaud symphony or a symphony by Maxwell Davies or David Matthews identify the "symphonic canon" as so broad a church that "knowing what a symphony is" or is supposed to be is to embrace a very wide knowledge and familiarity.

Then again, to what extent does Le Sacre depart from "tradition"; how far is it really from the big three Tchaikovsky ballets or the composer's own l'Oiseau de Feu? Yes, of course there are many "new" things in it but it tool little time to catch on, perhaps inpart because of those links to the past.

I wonder also how many composers whom some might consider to be "conservative" or at least "non-radical" actually "compose according to someone else's idea of what ought and ought not to be done in music"? And whose idea? I'm not for one moment suggesting that such composers do not exist - they probably do - but their work isn't what I'd call "composition" as I understand it; indeed, the very procedures that such composers might adopt would seem to have rather more in common with "I was only following orders"...

[Serial_Apologist]

Then again, to what extent does Le Sacre depart from "tradition"; how far is it really from the big three Tchaikovsky ballets or the composer's own l'Oiseau de Feu? Yes, of course there are many "new" things in it but it tool little time to catch on, perhaps inpart because of those links to the past.

Harmonically and in terms of orchestral timbres it departs less so than rhythmically, I would say. Yes there are startling instrumental combinations and "effects", but these, as with the examples in Le sacre of bi- and polytonality, exist in more muted forms in many earlier works, particularly by French composers (Satie, Koechlin, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel). What is rhythmically innovative consists in the overt disjunction between the rhythmic and metrical, on one side, and the music's harmonic sequencing. Previously, from approximately Lully to Mahler, these had proceeded in tandem - the unity of diatonic processes of tension and release replicated in rhythmic periodicy, phrasing and fulfilment. This had only begun to separate, bringing about a questioning of assumptions underlying music at least since the beginning of the 17th century when in the hands of Monteverdi the definitive characteristic co-ordination of rhythm, melody and harmony began to be embossed into "western" classical music response conditioning, with the "loosening" of foursquare time organisation and enharmonic predictability that arguably started taking place in works by the Russian "Five", especially Moussorgsky, to be taken up by Debussy, in particular. The languid passage of layered thematic materials that takes place halfway through "Iberia", from 1909, can be rightly considered polymodal and in part polymetrical, and clearly presages some of the quieter passages in "Le Sacre". Debussy's "permissive" looseing of rhythmic defintion gave Stravinsky carte blanche to fill the resultant vacuum with new rhythmic co-oordinates, paving the way for Messiaen's later innovations leading to serialism beyond pitch organisation; and we should not overlook the extraordinarily violent rhythmic choking off that takes place right at the end of Florent Schmitt's "Le tragédie de Salome', of 1907, of which Stravinsky was aware. The point that renders "Le Sacre" a qualitative advance in parallel significance with Schoenberg's harmonic advances of 3 or so years earlier was their wholesale application predominating over other received musical procedures in one work.

[ahinton]

Harmonically and in terms of orchestral timbres it departs less so than rhythmically, I would say. Yes there are startling instrumental combinations and "effects", but these, as with the examples in Le sacre of bi- and polytonality, exist in more muted forms in many earlier works, particularly by French composers (Satie, Koechlin, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel). What is rhythmically innovative consists in the overt disjunction between the rhythmic and metrical, on one side, and the music's harmonic sequencing. Previously, from approximately Lully to Mahler, these had proceeded in tandem - the unity of diatonic processes of tension and release replicated in rhythmic periodicy, phrasing and fulfilment. This had only begun to separate, bringing about a questioning of assumptions underlying music at least since the beginning of the 17th century when in the hands of Monteverdi the definitive characteristic co-ordination of rhythm, melody and harmony began to be embossed into "western" classical music response conditioning, with the "loosening" of foursquare time organisation and enharmonic predictability that arguably started taking place in works by the Russian "Five", especially Moussorgsky, to be taken up by Debussy, in particular. The languid passage of layered thematic materials that takes place halfway through "Iberia", from 1909, can be rightly considered polymodal and in part polymetrical, and clearly presages some of the quieter passages in "Le Sacre". Debussy's "permissive" looseing of rhythmic defintion gave Stravinsky carte blanche to fill the resultant vacuum with new rhythmic co-oordinates, paving the way for Messiaen's later innovations leading to serialism beyond pitch organisation; and we should not overlook the extraordinarily violent rhythmic choking off that takes place right at the end of Florent Schmitt's "Le tragédie de Salome', of 1907, of which Stravinsky was aware. The point that renders "Le Sacre" a qualitative advance in parallel significance with Schoenberg's harmonic advances of 3 or so years earlier was their wholesale application predominating over other received musical procedures in one work.

Brilliantly expressed, if I may say so, the point about the Schmitt being of especial significance given Stravinsky's admiration for the work and even acknowledgement of its impact upon him (although he reneged on all of this later, doubtless mindful of Schmitt's disgraceful conduct of which he'd moe recently become aware). One frustrating mystery here relates to the impact of Le Sacre on Varèse's Amériques. Varèse's Bourgogne received what I believe was its only performance a couple of years before the emergence of Le Sacre and this event was evidently encouraged by Richard Strauss and Busoni (the latter of whom, with typical prescience, nicknamed Varèse "l'Illustro Futuro") and the performance apparently caused a riot, as was Le Sacre's première to do. The frustration is, of course, in the fact that the composer seems to have destroyed the score in a fit of depression some half a century later and we therefore know nothing of what the work was like. I've read nothing that Busoni, Strauss or anyone else wrote about the piece and its performance and it would be intriguing to know if Schmitt or Stravinsky has been present (although I doubt that either was so as I've seen nothing from them about it either). One might wonder whether Bourgogne might have contained music that presaged Le Sacre as Le Sacre appears to have presaged Amériques. I've long harboured thehope that the orchestral parts might one day turn up but I have no idea what might hav happened to them following the performance and, in any case, they're hardly likely to turn up 107 years later, sadly...

[cloughie]

I'm willing to bet a whole English pound that it will be more "modern" than any of the commissions performed at this year's Proms.

But the "-ist" suffix implies something different: a box of sugar cubes isn't "Cubist"; if I make a good impression, I'm not (necessarily) and Impressionist etc etc.

I get the gist and g that ain’t!

[Richard Barrett]

What is rhythmically innovative consists in the overt disjunction between the rhythmic and metrical, on one side, and the music's harmonic sequencing.

Indeed, a characteristic of many twentieth century musical innovations is the disjuncture between musical elements that had previously proceeded more or less in parallel: Le Sacre is one example; another which you also mention is Messiaen's move towards "integral serialism" (whose division of music into separate "parameters" lies behind the design of the first electronic music studios and commercial synthesizers and in that sense could be said to have entered the musical mainstream); another is the disengagement between material and scale in Webern at one extreme and Feldman (or the minimalists) at the other. Later, towards the turn of the century, there's also the phenomenon of disengagement between the different actions that go into instrumental or vocal performance, of which the 1970s works of Brian Ferneyhough like Time and Motion Study II and Unity Capsule are early examples. I think there's still much to explore and to structure in myriad ways, now all of those "pre-modernist" assumptions have been laid open, and that this whole phenomenon might turn out to be a more general and more far-reaching historical turn in musical thinking than for example twelve-tone composition.

[greenilex]

Sorry to startle you, SA.

I can only say in my defence that we are in the middle of exam season.

In my book, non-worker equates to ne’er do well and is likely to saddle me with an F

[Richard Barrett]

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas."

Marx & Engels, The German Ideology (1846)

[vinteuil]

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas."

Marx & Engels, The German Ideology (1846)

... do you think that's still true?

I feel that any 'ruling ideas' which influence this Zeitgeist are more the product of the Fourth Estate, and the advertising folk and other clercs supporting Capital. Yes, this may be the 'class which has the means of material production at its disposal', but they seem to me to be a different set of people from the Ruling Class if understood as government/administration/judiciary/'establishment'. Of course there are overlaps and noxious connexions - but I think often the 'establishment' ruling class and Capital have very different 'ideas' in the sense of the quote.

.

[Serial_Apologist]

... do you think that's still true?

I feel that any 'ruling ideas' which influence this Zeitgeist are more the product of the Fourth Estate, and the advertising folk and other clercs supporting Capital. Yes, this may be the 'class which has the means of material production at its disposal', but they seem to me to be a different set of people from the Ruling Class if understood as government/administration/judiciary/'establishment'. Of course there are overlaps and noxious connexions - but I think often the 'establishment' ruling class and Capital have very different 'ideas' in the sense of the quote.

.

If you mean in the sense of expansion or retrenchment I would agree. Given that Capital now resorts almost more to the latter - viz economic nationalism - than to the former - viz successfully inter-trading EU type economic blocs - it illustrates a sense of desperation about its own future. Listening to a leading representative this morning, the ceo of M&S, answering questions as to the costs of branch closures opposed to sauntering along on the present operating basis with merely diminishing returns, saying with as much "confidence" as a Brexit apologist that his company was going to have to adjust to the realities of retail, brought this home to anyone who'd not seen it coming. Remember how post-industrial Britain was supposedly going to depend for careers on "the service sector"?

[Richard Barrett]

... do you think that's still true?

Yes I do. After all, as Chomsky and Herman pointed out some time ago, the state and the mass media are in political lockstep with one another because their interests are congruent. The ruling class is defined by its relation to the means of production, and includes both state apparatus and capital; the state exists in its current form in order to protect and promote the interests of capital. But my reason for posting the quote was its direct relevance to the discussion of "modernism" and "elitism". In this connection, but by no means only in this connection, I think M&E's explicit connection of how material power and intellectual power are wielded (what Gramsci almost a century later would characterise as "hegemony") is at least as relevant now as it was when they wrote it.

[Mal]

Yes I do. After all, as Chomsky and Herman pointed out some time ago, the state and the mass media are in political lockstep ...

Do you really think the Guardian and the Tory government are in lockstep?

[Richard Barrett]

Do you really think the Guardian and the Tory government are in lockstep?

I was thinking more of the Murdoch-owned media. But you won't often find anything in the Guardian that fundamentally questions the basic tenets of capitalism, and those few mainstream politicians who do question it are generally given fairly short shrift there, as witness the generally negative treatment given to Jeremy Corbyn, who is generally cited in headlines as "failing" in some way or another, rather than his opinions and policies being reported on, as opposed to the numerous occasions on which Tony Blair is wheeled on to dispense sage advice about Brexit or whatever. This is a criticism which of course has been regularly levelled at BBC News in the last couple of years, but it applies at least as much to the "liberal" press.

[vinteuil]

... the state and the mass media are in political lockstep with one another because their interests are congruent.

Not sure about 'political lockstep'. Perhaps bicoz my working life was inside the 'state', the 'establishment', it felt different. Yes, the state and capital are in a sense a dyadic cluster, a gruesome two-headed hydra - but for those inside there was a real sense of 'them and us' - we the goodies (with a wider sense of responsibility than just "protecting and promoting the interests of capital" (thank you very much ) ) often in opposition to observed capital interests of which we were well aware.

.

[Joseph K]

I was thinking more of the Murdoch-owned media. But you won't often find anything in the Guardian that fundamentally questions the basic tenets of capitalism, and those few mainstream politicians who do question it are generally given fairly short shrift there, as witness the generally negative treatment given to Jeremy Corbyn, who is generally cited in headlines as "failing" in some way or another, rather than his opinions and policies being reported on, as opposed to the numerous occasions on which Tony Blair is wheeled on to dispense sage advice about Brexit or whatever. This is a criticism which of course has been regularly levelled at BBC News in the last couple of years, but it applies at least as much to the "liberal" press.

I'd add to this a Chomsky quote - “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."