Prom 71 - 4.09.13: Górecki, Vaughan Williams & Tchaikovsky

[edashtav]

My standard for what it's worth would be music that recognised or incoprporated advances in the vocabulary of music which have added to music's form and expressivity, as all the greats from the 15th to the 20th century have done, as opposed to those who seem concerned to compose music which acts as though some of the - to me at any rate - greatest enrichments to musical vocabulary have not, or maybe should have not, taken place.

Your definition has merit, S_A, but it assumes a linear growth model with each "generation" incorporating the sum of the advances made earlier. I would see the real model as a branched tree with many composers using a subset of available knowledge, selecting, if you like, those advances of most relevance to their immediate concerns and needs.

Gorecki is an example of a composer whose interests varied greatly from period to period. Stravinsky was another. Ignoring part of the rich musical heritage doesn't invalidate or make a piece redundant. Sometimes, the discipline of working within a subset of possibilities ignites a composer's creativity. Erik Satie's "Socrate" is written using a reduced set of tools and techniques, but that doesn't lessen either its impact or its originality.

[jayne lee wilson]

But why shouldn't they be compared with one another? I won't speak for FG but personally I have a problem with almost all of the "tradition" you attach Górecki to. Why did it happen when and where it did? well, these were mostly places and times in which more "modernist" means of musical expression were discouraged, so that composers with a wish not to be subsumed by the dictates of officially-sanctioned style found another way to make a "different" music, maybe, I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff. Of course this excludes Górecki, given that Poland had been fertile ground for musical experimentation from the late 1950s onwards. I imagine he would have said hat he adopted this new stylistic direction in order to escape what he saw as restrictions in his previous music, although exchanging one set of restrictions for another (as many composers have done in retreating from a more challenging style, Penderecki being another example), especially when the "new" set of restrictions is actually not that different from a very old one, seems to me a somewhat defeatist direction to take.

Compared, yes, why not; judged and chucked aside with a sneer (not by you, RB)... maybe not. That's my problem with the eurocentric and serialist-centric approach which always seems to search for its next Innovative Masterpiece, to be admitted to its select canon. It excludes too much valuable and beautiful music by means of a value system those creations don't adhere to. Gorecki, Gubaidulina and others grew up in the shadow of the Russian communist state, which virtually outlawed religion. Their simplified style was a protest and a celebration - a means of singing of the survival of their faith and culture. Even Schnittke's 2nd Symphony could be viewed in the same context.
But as with aleatorics, electronics and minimalism generally, it was also a reaction against the serialism that seemed stale & restrictive by the early sixties.

Now we see Pussy Riot, imprisoned after using Punk Rock as a protest during a Russian Orthodox service...

In the Age of Recordings, it often seems as though All Music is Eternally and Instantaneously Present; how do you choose, or exclude? By your own desire, whatever its elevated basis.
I guess I'm trying to find a way of being open to, enjoying and thinking about a wide range of music; to find an approach which doesn't tend toward a harshly critical attitude to anything deemed, often from a post-Schoenbergian, post-serialist point of view, not complex or challenging or technically innovative enough; but which may still offer a new experience and have a vision of its own.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm trying to [...] find an approach which doesn't tend toward a harshly critical attitude to anything deemed, often from a post-Schoenbergian, post-serialist point of view, not complex or challenging or technically innovative enough; but which may still offer a new experience and have a vision of its own.

Aren't you knocking down a straw person there?

Returning to edashtav's point: there's the counterexample of Vivaldi, whose music indeed expands on a "subset" of the structural and expressive range available to a composer in his time and place, while suppressing other aspects; but it's always clear (as with Satie) that this has nothing to do with nostalgia for a non-existent past where, as S_A says, various enrichments of musical potential hadn't taken place. With all the "instantaneous presence" Jayne alludes to, there's plenty of real old music to investigate, in the face of which all this "pretend" old music seems to me somewhat clumsy and superfluous.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I guess I'm trying to find a way of being open to, enjoying and thinking about a wide range of music; to find an approach which doesn't tend toward a harshly critical attitude to anything deemed, often from a post-Schoenbergian, post-serialist point of view, not complex or challenging or technically innovative enough; but which may still offer a new experience and have a vision of its own.

And what "new experience(s)" have you found in the Gorecki? What is "valuable and beautiful" about it? You've mentioned the use of the Aeolian mode and ... erm ... well, "a singing of the survival of their Faith and culture" (not specifically Gorecki, though, this). Is that it? Your response (no matter how impassioned) tends rather to confirm, not contradict, my opinion that the work is vacuous if this is the most you can say about it. The tendency towards using vocabulary that suggests a somewhat Zhdanovian sense of inadequacy doesn't help: "chucked aside", "sneering", "eurocentric" (in what sense is admiring works from the Balkans not another aspect of a Eurocentric mindset?) "serialist-centric", "select canon", "excludes".

And now we see the resurgent Religious Faiths in the former Soviet Union freely expressing its hatred of homosexuality ...

(No; I don't quite see the relevance, either, but such phrases are apparently part of the argument that the Gorecki isn't worth spending time on.)

Up your game, Jayne: what is in the Music of the Gorecki Third Symphony (not its texts, not its attitude towards Soviet oppresssion, not its rejection of serial methodology - what's in the Music [by which I mean such features as the harmony, the thematicism, the orchestration, the texture, the structure, the klang]) that makes it "valuable (and I'm emphasizing this word, because you chose to use it) and beautiful"?

[Roehre]

Compared, yes, why not; judged and chucked aside with a sneer (not by you, RB)... maybe not. That's my problem with the eurocentric and serialist-centric approach which always seems to search for its next Innovative Masterpiece, to be admitted to its select canon. It excludes too much valuable and beautiful music by means of a value system those creations don't adhere to. Gorecki, Gubaidulina and others grew up in the shadow of the Russian communist state, which virtually outlawed religion. Their simplified style was a protest and a celebration - a means of singing of the survival of their faith and culture. Even Schnittke's 2nd Symphony could be viewed in the same context.
But as with aleatorics, electronics and minimalism generally, it was also a reaction against the serialism that seemed stale & restrictive by the early sixties.

Now we see Pussy Riot, imprisoned after using Punk Rock as a protest during a Russian Orthodox service...

In the Age of Recordings, it often seems as though All Music is Eternally and Instantaneously Present; how do you choose, or exclude? By your own desire, whatever its elevated basis.
I guess I'm trying to find a way of being open to, enjoying and thinking about a wide range of music; to find an approach which doesn't tend toward a harshly critical attitude to anything deemed, often from a post-Schoenbergian, post-serialist point of view, not complex or challenging or technically innovative enough; but which may still offer a new experience and have a vision of its own.

Short: like I myself you're just listening with an open ear and neither of us does orthodoxies

[Sir Velo]

Short: like I myself you're just listening with an open ear and neither of us does orthodoxies

Grosso modo I would agree with this POV, which is why Britten is as great composer, for example, as say Ligeti. However, Gorecki 3 is too blatant in its manipulation of the emotions, too obviously a "tearjercker", relying on too many cliches to make its effect.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

neither of us does orthodoxies

That's so typical of you, Roehre - but isn't "Orthodoxy" exactly what Gubaidulina "does"?

[Richard Barrett]

Britten is as great composer, for example, as say Ligeti.

Well let's not get carried away!

[Roehre]

That's so typical of you, Roehre - but isn't "Orthodoxy" exactly what Gubaidulina "does"?

It is FHG , it undeniably is

[Sir Velo]

Well let's not get carried away!

Ever heard Billy Budd, or the 3rd String Qt? Or the Abraham and Isaac Canticle? Violin Con? Sinfonia da Requiem? Serenade for T, H &S? Our Hunting Fathers? Bridge Variations? I could go on...

[Richard Barrett]

Ever heard Billy Budd, or the 3rd String Qt? Or the Abraham and Isaac Canticle? Violin Con? Sinfonia da Requiem? Serenade for T, H &S? Our Hunting Fathers? Bridge Variations? I could go on...

I can honestly say I've never heard anything by Britten that has appealed to me in the least, so no need for that!

[edashtav]

A South Poland Bubble ?

{...}

Returning to edashtav's point: there's the counterexample of Vivaldi, whose music indeed expands on a "subset" of the structural and expressive range available to a composer in his time and place, while suppressing other aspects; but it's always clear (as with Satie) that this has nothing to do with nostalgia for a non-existent past where, as S_A says, various enrichments of musical potential hadn't taken place. With all the "instantaneous presence" Jayne alludes to, there's plenty of real old music to investigate, in the face of which all this "pretend" old music seems to me somewhat clumsy and superfluous.

[my emboldening]

Are you certain that you wanted 'non-existent' in that sentence, Mr Barrett? If these composers are whoring after the past, it was a real past that existed BEFORE the various enrichments of musical potential came along.

I'm trying not to defend Gorecki too strongly, although there a defence to be made. IMHO, we have to accept that stocks in Gorecki's 3rd were like a South Sea Bubble. They became inflated beyond reason and true value. Is it an accident that I've been able to buy over the last year a full score in mint condition (cover price £31+) for £3, and a secondhand copy of the "Dawn Upshaw" CD for £1?

No, Ferney is not the only person to have lost respect for the score. With CDs aplenty, we get to know, and, I'm afraid, "see-through" scores more quickly than was true 100 years ago. Gorecki was an IHF, a petit maitre, of passing importance, but he may be a mere footnote when Adrian Thomas's grandson comes to write his New History of Polish Music in the 20th century. Harsh critics may give Gorecki no value, I'm more generous. For quicksilver brains, Gorecki's 3rd must seem a long, slow grind, a slow boat to frustration.

Sometimes, I'm glad that I'm second-rate, too!

[Serial_Apologist]

[my emboldening]

Are you certain that you wanted 'non-existent' in that sentence, Mr Barrett? If these composers are whoring after the past, it was a real past that existed BEFORE the various enrichments of musical potential came along.

Well to my way of listening enrichments were already coming along long before the 20th century. Where to start?

[edashtav]

Well to my way of listening enrichments were already coming along long before the 20th century. Where to start?

I've not made myself understood, but... plumbing problems that must be fixed, & the need to attend VPO Prom inhibit a proper response. These composing folk are not trying to go back to square 1, but to the position as it obtained in, say 1850, 1900, 1950... .

[Richard Barrett]

Are you certain that you wanted 'non-existent' in that sentence

Yes I am, because I think folkishness and mediaevalism in music are generally used to point implicitly to some kind of golden age when music and life were simpler and happier, as opposed to being characterised by hereditary inequality, illiteracy and gruelling manual labour for the majority, frequent war, plague and so on.