"Culture" Minister demands arts make money before subsidisation

[amateur51]

Polly Toynbee has a go ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/02/arts-funding-makes-money-so-why-cut-it

... but doesn't mention Bartok

[Tapiola]

expand one's perception of beauty

Some thoughts on beauty [in an attempt to lighten the mood]

Beauty is only skin deep (I don't agree with this).

"Beauty" is culture- and conditioning-specific.

Some people have an inner beauty; some people become more (or less) beautiful the more one looks at them. A beautiful man or woman may have a nasty personality, which makes them less beautiful as a person (to me).

Rohan de Saram has said that the music of Xenakis has beauty but that beauty is not its primary function. It is beautiful in the way a natural object such as driftwood has beauty.

My old boss used to say that beauty was in the eye of the beer-holder. :ale:

[Ian]

indeed
but in this particular context (Western Art Music) it would be difficult to describe Bartok as "tuneless"

It depends to what extent you are clinging on to the idea that questions of 'tunefulness' or 'tuneless' are matters of fact - rather than opinion.

[MrGongGong]

It depends to what extent you are clinging on to the idea that questions of 'tunefulness' or 'tuneless' are matters of fact - rather than opinion.

NO it doesn't
because within the context we are discussing
Bartok is very much "tune based music"
there are other contexts where it's more a matter of "opinion" indeed
but that seems a bit of a simple "get out" to me ?

I find Metal Machine Music rather "tuneful" BUT within the context of the Western Classical Tradition it might be something else

[Ian]

NO it doesn't
because within the context we are discussing
Bartok is very much "tune based music"
there are other contexts where it's more a matter of "opinion" indeed
but that seems a bit of a simple "get out" to me ?

I find Metal Machine Music rather "tuneful" BUT within the context of the Western Classical Tradition it might be something else

We are at cross purposes. I agree as a matter of (more-or-less) fact that Bartok's music is 'tune based'.
But when someone describes something as 'tuneful' or 'tuneless' they are really expressing an opinion about the perceived merit of that tune - not commenting on the absence or otherwise of melodic elements.

[Tapiola]

NO it doesn't
because within the context we are discussing
Bartok is very much "tune based music"
there are other contexts where it's more a matter of "opinion" indeed
but that seems a bit of a simple "get out" to me ?

I find Metal Machine Music rather "tuneful" BUT within the context of the Western Classical Tradition it might be something else

No tunes to speak of in Ligeti's Atmospheres, but that's part of the point. Doesn't make it rubbish though. Or maybe, Mr GG, you can dig out the tunes in it? :winkeye: :biggrin:

[Richard Barrett]

Rohan de Saram has said that the music of Xenakis has beauty but that beauty is not its primary function.

It would be interesting to know what he means by "primary function" in that regard, because it would seem to indicate that maybe his definition of "beauty" is narrower than it could be. Xenakis himself generally referred to music he approved of as "interesting", using the word "beautiful" more often for things like mathematical concepts, which have an abstraction and timelessness that something like a piece of music can't have, although it might be able to use its situatedness in time and place to point at something more "universal". What is the "primary function" (by which I suspect Rohan means "intention" in the context of Xenakis) of a mathematical concept? Is it something that's invented, or discovered? Could the same kind of question be asked about music?

Bartók's music is indeed not just fundamentally based on "tunes" but on the folk traditions of his homeland and surrounding regions. To regard it as "tuneless" is not very far from saying Central European folk music is itself tuneless, though I guess a xenophobe would have no problem holding such an opinion.

[Richard Barrett]

No tunes to speak of in Ligeti's Atmospheres

Well, there are no tunes in the Western sense to speak of in much of the music of most of the continents on Earth, so anyone who relies on that kind of criterion is being rather insular, in several senses.

[Simon]

Well, if nothing else, my comments have led to an outbreak of rationality and civil posts - some from unexpected quarters.

I find myself compelled, with some pleasure, to respond civilly to a logical contribution from Mr GG.

Surely the point of subsidy is to create opportunities for things to exist that couldn't exist without it ?

That's a well-made point that's undoubtedly true, but it should not, IMO, thereby become a licence for the frivolous, the fraudulent, the unappealling and the extreme minority interest group to make hay with public money, producing stuff that hardly anybody wants to hear/see and that few people outside of the inner crowd of hangers-on and sycophants value.

Didn't some twit once say something along the lines of "if people don't walk out of my concerts, then I've failed" ? It's precisely that attitude that is so undeserving of public subsidy.

there are some things that simply wont exist without funding
now you can take a view (as many do) that that's tough we can live without Opera , HCMF etc etc
But many of us feel that these things are vital parts of our society.

Indeed. Few would disagree. And there are, I would suggest, enough people who are prepared to pay to see opera to justify some subsidy - especially for the productions of the ones that crowds for generations have clearly valued and enjoyed.

These productions, because they are accessible, open doors to areas of interest for thousands each year, and have an obvious social value. Once the interest is engaged - via taxpayers' funds, used properly - then some may go on to be prepared to allocate some of their disposable income to other forms of art. Some may take an interest in far less accessible art, for whatever reason. That is excellent and IMV how it should be.

It is for this reason, therefore, that I argue that any public money should be aimed at attracting a reasonably wide section of the community, and certainly not facilitating navel-gazing of some odd pseudo-artist who has little talent and no general appeal.

If you subscribe to the view that only things one uses oneself should get funding ...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

[Ian]

I
Bartók's music is indeed not just fundamentally based on "tunes" but on the folk traditions of his homeland and surrounding regions. To regard it as "tuneless" is not very far from saying Central European folk music is itself tuneless, though I guess a xenophobe would have no problem holding such an opinion.

Lots of composers have based their tunes on local folk traditions. I don’t think it is unreasonable, let alone xenophobic, to think that some of those composers have written better tunes than others.

[ahinton]

Lots of composers have based their tunes on local folk traditions. I don’t think it is unreasonable, let alone xenophobic, to think that some of those composers have written better tunes than others.

Perhaps not, but we're in danger of straying from the point about individuals claiming that, as certain music is "ugly", or "tuneless", or what you will, it is therefore "rubbish", won't "last", won't appeal to more than the tiniest minority of people and therefore unworthy of financial support; the suggestion that a composer as widely performed, enjoyed, written about, admired and respected as Bartók has been for well over three quarters of a century perhaps serves to illustrate well the sheer absurdity of such notions.

I can almost hear Margaret Thatcher roundly denouncing Simon for attempting to pour scorn on Bartók, but let's not dwell on that...

[Richard Barrett]

Lots of composers have based their tunes on local folk traditions. I don’t think it is unreasonable, let alone xenophobic, to think that some of those composers have written better tunes than others.

That wasn't of course the point I was making, but this intrusion of whether Bartók was or wasn't a top-drawer tunesmith is eroding my will to live. I guess nobody has anything else to say about the thread topic...

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Perhaps not, but we're in danger of straying from the point about individuals claiming that, as certain music is "ugly", or "tuneless", or what you will, it is therefore "rubbish", won't "last", won't appeal to more than the tiniest minority of people and therefore unworthy of financial support; the suggestion that a composer as widely performed, enjoyed, written about, admired and respected as Bartók has been for well over three quarters of a century perhaps serves to illustrate well the sheer absurdity of such notions.

You think it's absurd; Simon doesn't. Maybe Simon's thoughts are absurd? Maybe yours are? No one seems to care apart from you.

[MrGongGong]

You think it's absurd; Simon doesn't. Maybe Simon's thoughts are absurd? Maybe yours are? No one seems to care apart from you.

If only Simon embraced Ionescu then we would all be much happier IMV

[Ian]

Perhaps not, but we're in danger of straying from the point about individuals claiming that, as certain music is "ugly", or "tuneless", or what you will, it is therefore "rubbish", won't "last", won't appeal to more than the tiniest minority of people and therefore unworthy of financial support; the suggestion that a composer as widely performed, enjoyed, written about, admired and respected as Bartók has been for well over three quarters of a century perhaps serves to illustrate well the sheer absurdity of such notions.

I can almost hear Margaret Thatcher roundly denouncing Simon for attempting to pour scorn on Bartók, but let's not dwell on that...

I really don't understand the problem. This is one guy's opinion. Mine and your will be different. What bothers me is this tendency to see opinion regarding artistic value as 'right' or 'wrong'.