Prom 5 - 15.07.13: Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

[jayne lee wilson]

What happens when we listen to a piece of "new music" (either new to the individual or a premiere)? At least two things: we try to "follow" it, to find shape and continuity, to make emotional and musical sense of sound. But a classical listener of any experience will try to categorise it too: to identify it, stylistically, with something they have already heard. Suppose this listener can do none of these things?

Then they are thrown back on irrational response - fight or flight or... let it happen?
They may feel anxious, frowning, shaking the head, needing to find a way in, or more probably out; if they try to remain open to a new experience, it can still seem to threaten them with a loss of control - inferiority, a lack of understanding or any gratifying response. Easier then to reject, to cry "rubbish" and restore a superiority, an egocentric sense of the self. And all this will be largely unconscious.

It is not easy to "let it happen"; you may have no idea how to submit, passively, to something unknown, potentially a threat (to yourself or your world view). Yet this can be a way in to the most intense experiences, artistic or otherwise. Isn't this what occurred when you first heard - or were overwhelmed by - a Mahler, or a Brahms Symphony? Or were you too "well-prepared" for it ever to happen? Maybe it happened despite your preparation; why was that?

The "world of classical music" can be a very narrow, enclosed perspective of "core repertoire" (and maybe getting narrower, if both Lachenmann and David Matthews are now rejected by Television). So moving from Beethoven, Brahms, or (even - "even"!) Bartok to Lachenmann can seem far more disorientating than going from Constable or Turner to Picasso, to Rothko, or Pollock. (Picasso is now Official Modern Art, offering an easier bridge to Abstraction, even IF you reject it; and "Art and Design" and pop-cultural BritArt, is everywhere, smoothing the path - and diluting the impact).

To trade with the enemy: we need to ask those who rejected Lachenmann without consideration or elaboration - which postwar music do you enjoy? Or where, for you, does meaningful musical history cut off? Did you listen to the David Matthews premiere, or avoid it? What musical premieres have you responded to?

[Arcades Project]

As I am someone who self-evidently does not have your level of appreciation for contemporary music that entitles you to be personally offensive. It is your attitude and that of Bryn above which in fact enables Radio 3 to label those who are concerned about its dumbing down as elitist .

Don't think so. You didn't say - 'maybe it's just me, I haven't heard much of this sort of thing, but it made no sense to me. Still, I'm glad it was broadcast, & good on the Proms for broadcasting it & maybe, with more on Radio 3 & some useful programmes contextualising music of the past 30 years, say, I might get more from it. How about it R3.' You said: ''This is garbage, Emperor's New Clothes con, utter rubbish, etc.'

Please explain what vitriol has been directed at you. Apart from saying your assumption that because you know something is rubbish it is is arrogant I've not said anything about you.

If my post was a promulgation of a self-evident truth then I'd like to see how. I think Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied is a remarkable work of art & for short cut provided a link to a review which indicated why I think that. I don't think it self-evident. I don't think because I think it - lo, it is so! I know people who are enthusiasts for / work in new music who are not enthusiastic about Lachenmann (the point being, it's like any time in music: people's responses differ) & in a way Lachenmann's music is about not being self-evidently anything.

No, nothing's hit home. Except I find the reiteration of 'this sort of ENC nonsense' the very few times the BBC actually broadcasts anything vaguely contemporary that doesn't sound more or less like Benjamin Britten or earlier in a mainstream slot depressing &, as I said, undermining of FoR3's remit: that R3 should promote more contemporary music &, certainly, more discussion & information concerning that music. I can think of several people who would do a brilliant job.

[Arcades Project]

There's certainly a point to be made about how much more contemporary forms of visual culture are embedded in general culture - to the extent that a frightening vacuousness of the image (er IMO) is disturbingly widespread: but that's also a wider political point about the image.

I think it would be the case that at most stages in musical histories (& I do think the plural is important rather than merely correct) a difference is so wide such that there's nothing to fall back on (but Lachenmann's music is tied up with questions of nostalgia, nostalgia as political-cultural tool, & the ghostly reappearance of the past: that's why I though the Mahler coupling apart from the splendour of the work / performance was an interesting one). But - isn't it exciting to be plunged into new experiences, sound worlds, ideas? I think that's what I don't get. The everything must remain the same immediate response. Perotin hardly sounds like Mozart & Bill Evans hardly sounds like Evan Parker.

[Bryn]

Totally OT, Arcades, but did you catch the John Tilbury in posthumous duet with the late Derek Bailey on last Thursday's Late Junction? If not, I suggest you access the iPlayer offering while you can. A tweet which might easily have come from a contributor to this thread is read out at one point in the proceedings:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036j5sy

[cloughie]

PERHAPS THERE SHOULD BE AN ...OMETER FOR NEW MUSIC

1-5 Nice Tune....................Nasty Noise
1-5 A good listen................What on earth was that
1-5 Kind to the ears............An assault on the ears

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

PERHAPS THERE SHOULD BE AN ...OMETER FOR NEW MUSIC

1-5 Nice Tune....................Nasty Noise
1-5 A good listen................What on earth was that
1-5 Kind to the ears............An assault on the ears

... except that, for each of us, the distance between a "Nice Tune" and a "Nasty Noise" is a moveable feast (there isn't even agreement on the Finale of Beethoven's Ninth!) - and my own reaction to all the Music that grabs me by the wotsits tends to be a simultaneous "A good listen: what on earth was that!" - whether it's Perotin or Aaron Cassidy.

[Arcades Project]

Totally OT, Arcades, but did you catch the John Tilbury in posthumous duet with the late Derek Bailey on last Thursday's Late Junction? If not, I suggest you access the iPlayer offering while you can. A tweet which might easily have come from a contributor to this thread is read out at one point in the proceedings:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036j5sy

Thanks Bryn - I did not, I wasn't around last week. I shall remedy the situation immediately.

[edashtav]

What happens when we listen to a piece of "new music" (either new to the individual or a premiere)? At least two things: we try to "follow" it, to find shape and continuity, to make emotional and musical sense of sound. But a classical listener of any experience will try to categorise it too: to identify it, stylistically, with something they have already heard. Suppose this listener can do none of these things?

Pertinent questions and your answers are helpful. I take heart from an observation made by Ivan Hewett in his Lachenmann review - to the effect that the Bamberg players looked as if they were enjoying themselves.
Once the executants "get it", it's a small step to audience appreciation. What does a newcomer to "new music" make of a performance where players are united by gritted teeth?

New music must sell itself. Boulez and the BBC S.O. did this years ago - they were enjoying themselves. Nott and his Bambergers do the same. But, put a mechanical-doll conductor in front of a conservative orchestra of "non-believers" and the damage they do to music is profound and, often, long-lasting.

Fun is infectious & it is foolish of the BBC not to broadcast on TV outstanding examples of musicians having a ball in (near contemporary) scores. Duty to educate... etc.

[cloughie]

... except that, for each of us, the distance between a "Nice Tune" and a "Nasty Noise" is a moveable feast (there isn't even agreement on the Finale of Beethoven's Ninth!) - and my own reaction to all the Music that grabs me by the wotsits tends to be a simultaneous "A good listen: what on earth was that!" - whether its Perotin or Aaron Cassidy.

The Beethoven 9:4 debate is not really in the Nice Tune/Nasty Noise area - there are many nice tunes in there but....
Most boarders are probably prepared to try any piece once even if at times they are pleased when its finished and sometimes premature termination becomes the preferred option.

[cloughie]

And of course, there is no personal insult against Helmut Lachenmann, or those who have the nous to appreciate it, in your rant against the work in question. 'Mote and beam', Rubber Brolly fan.

A fairly nasty reply, Bryn, not least for trivialising of the name of a great conductor. It carries with it the implication that those Barbirolli admirers, of which there are many aboard the boards, are lesser mortals than those who champion new music.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A fairly nasty reply, Bryn, not least for trivialising of the name of a great conductor. It carries with it the implication that those Barbirolli admirers, of which there are many aboard the boards, are lesser mortals than those who champion new music.

Oh, no, cloughie - "Rubber Brolly Fan" is a residue of a period when there was a spate of playings-around with each other's noms-de-web. And there are some of us who are both "admirers of Barbirolli" and "champion[s] of New Music" - the implication in Barbie's post that the latter group of Forumistas were being conned by a swindler was the "lesser" comment.

Best Wishes.
Firmlyhiccup.

[cloughie]

Oh, no, cloughie - "Rubber Brolly Fan" is a residue of a period when there was a spate of playings-around with each other's noms-de-web. And there are some of us who are both "admirers of Barbirolli" and "champion[s] of New Music" - the implication in Barbie's post that the latter group of Forumistas were being conned by a swindler was the "lesser" comment.

Best Wishes.
Firmlyhiccup.

As you know ferney I enjoy the fun and banter but I think it an un-clever name which insults the memory of a great conductor who was very much part of my formative years of music listening. The post had a nasty sneer to it!

[Bryn]

Oh, no, cloughie - "Rubber Brolly Fan" is a residue of a period when there was a spate of playings-around with each other's noms-de-web. And there are some of us who are both "admirers of Barbirolli" and "champion[s] of New Music" - the implication in Barbie's post that the latter group of Forumistas were being conned by a swindler was the "lesser" comment.

Best Wishes.
Firmlyhiccup.

Quite. As it happens I hold Glorious John in the very highest regard, even when he could not quite cajole the Berliners into playing Mahler as well as they might have. 'Rubber Brolly' was ever a term of affection for the great man.

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.genealogy.britain/2005-08/msg00573.html

[mercia]

please, how much of the Bamberg SO was onstage for the Lachenmann ? - I wasn't particularly aware of anything being blown (for instance)

having listened all the way through and far more attentively second-time round, I realise now that was a daft comment, plenty of brass and woodwind was audible - there was only really one sound I couldn't identity, a sort of brush-sweeping sound, not sure what was making that

shame it won't be on the telly, if ever there was a time when it would help me appreciate a piece by seeing as well as hearing, this would be it

[Nick Armstrong]

shame it won't be on the telly, if ever there was a time when it would help me appreciate a piece by seeing as well as hearing, this would be it

And you will have remembered the numbskull comment in the Radio Times, compiled way before the concert:

"BBC4 is omitting Helmut Lachenmann’s musique concrète piece – it sounds like someone bouncing on rusty bedsprings, thwacking at rats with a saw."