Proms 2015: Today's the day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... more concerned about impressing each other rather than informing the audience. It was probably a mistaken impression on my part, but I can't help feeling that something of the same kind operates with some contemporary composers.

Human nature being what it is, there may well be "some" individuals who behave like this in every profession, Ferret. But, unless you name names and/or works that give you this "impression", I can't really comment on how "mistaken" (or not) you are. I've not encountered it myself - the sheer levels of work needed to simply produce a "score" (or other means of communicating what a composer wants the performer to do) means that anyone who isn't fully committed to such work quickly realizes that there are much easier ways of earning a living (and, indeed, impressing his/her colleagues).

I'm still willing to be challenged by the new, but much of what we hear is so abstruse that it's impossible to gain an entry.

Again, if you name names, I'd try and help if I could.

There's also the fact that many of the techniques employed today are beginning to seem like old hat. Banging cymbals and dipping them in a bucket of water, or playing them with a violin bow to make a gentle squeak were with us in the 1960s and haven't changed, likewise the writing that always centres on the extremes of an instrument's range.

Richard Barrett has already responded to this - I would only add that, if you were to name a couple of works written recently (say, within the last five years) that use such "old hat" techniques, I'll comment on them.

If this sort of stuff still captures an audience, I'm reminded of Beecham's comment that British people don't like music, but they like the sound that it makes.

So you are suggesting that potential audiences who are "captured" by "this sort of [unspecified] stuff" "don't like Music" just "the sound it makes"? Perhaps Barbi might explain to me how that is "hitting the nail on the head" and not at all "abuse".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There are two extremes here that are being seized upon. One is an unwillingness to be open; the other is the Emperor's New Clothes.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm still not clear how modern art is provably more popular than modern music. Lots of questions.

for example, would modern music encompass everything, or just some loosely defined "categories".
Example: lots of people would consider Radiohead modern, contemporary, cutting edge,or whatever. But they are/were enormously popular, and I would think that many people would equate their quality with that of work on display in major galleries in London.

and, to return to an aspect of the conversation that didn't get developed yesterday, does this "popularity" of modern art extend to a real marketplace, ( for better or worse), which is at least one indicator of popularity. some modern "classical" composers do actually find a decent Market for their work.

I think MrGG got the main reason, ts - with a work of visual Art, the viewer has greater control of how they take in the work. They can spend five seconds, five minutes, five hours or however long they wish on it. They can go away, have a coffee and come back to see it. They can go and look over day after day if they want. They can choose where in the room to look, and change that viewpoint (or remain in it) for as long as they want. They can look at the whole work, or concentrate on a single area of it. They can start at the top left, shift down to bottom right, move up to the middle, return to the top left and then move leftwards - there's a whole aleatoric choice of possibilities which the viewer decides as they wish.

(There are similar(-ish) reader-controlled issues with Literature, in that although the "plot" of a poem or novel generally has to be followed as the writer presents it, nonetheless the reader can choose how much time to spend reading, and can turn back and read passages again and again. - Limits of time and other commitments always permitting, of course.)

With a work of Music, the listener is dependent on performers to present the work; they have to experience it as it happens - they cannot ask the performers to stop and go back and play a passage over and over again. If there is no recording, they are dependent on the performers whether or not they ever hear the work again - and when they hear it again (next day/four or forty years later). And they're committed to hearing the whole work all the way through (whether the performance is adequate or not) - they cannot "pop in" for ten minutes and get the whole (twenty/seventy minute) work. And they have to stay in the same seat. (And that's leaving aside Krystal's delicate sensitivities between works!) And, as a result, they have to concentrate throughout in ways that aren't required in other Arts, where a human lapse in concentration can be corrected by picking up where the viewer/reader "left off".

And there isn't the same amount of education devoted from a very young age to developing listening skills (not just Music) as there is devoted to developing skills for reading and seeing.

Which is why more people crowd to see such works of Modern Art as the Mona Lisa than queue to hear such noisy Modern "Music" as Beethoven's Op 135.

[Ferretfancy]

FF you have hit the nail on the head - no doubt that it why the abuse has started .

Thanks for that! As I obviously need to placate the critics, I should say that I've attended quite a few avant garde premieres in my time, so I do still listen to quite a lot of contemporary music.
What does strike me, though, is how few of those first performances led on to second performances and entered the repertory, perhaps a dozen or so in nearly seventy years. Obviously I'm not trying hard enough, as the carthorse said in Animal Farm!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for that! As I obviously need to placate the critics, I should say that I've attended quite a few avant garde premieres in my time, so I do still listen to quite a lot of contemporary music.

Such as (he abusively suggested)?

What does strike me, though, is how few of those first performances led on to second performances and entered the repertory, perhaps a dozen or so in nearly seventy years. Obviously I'm not trying hard enough, as the carthorse said in Animal Farm!

And how many "second performances" did (to be specific) Bach's BWV 48 or Haydn's Symphony #27 receive in the seventy years after their first performances, Ferretf?

Still, very good to hear that you've followed the performance history of every new work you've heard in the last seventy years. I'm greatly and humbly impressed.

[doversoul1]

I'm still not clear how modern art is provably more popular than modern music. Lots of questions.

for example, would modern music encompass everything, or just some loosely defined "categories".
Example: lots of people would consider Radiohead modern, contemporary, cutting edge,or whatever. But they are/were enormously popular, and I would think that many people would equate their quality with that of work on display in major galleries in London.

and, to return to an aspect of the conversation that didn't get developed yesterday, does this "popularity" of modern art extend to a real mass marketplace, ( for better or worse), which is at least one indicator of popularity. some modern "classical" composers do actually find a decent Market for their work.

This is the cynic in me:

To ‘appreciate’ art, you only need a minute to glance the work, or half an hour to walk through the gallery, and if I go even further, you only need to have money to ‘acquire’ works of modern art. Whereas music demands you to spend time to listen, and worse, you can’t show off to others what you have acquired. Waving CDs doesn’t impress others all that much.

I know nothing about Radiohead or their music but their popularity may have something to do with the perception that their music is popular music (not pop music) for which, it is perceived, you don’t have to have any ‘knowledge’ to ‘understand’.

(Sorry about all those ‘..’s)

[ed.] ferney’s got in first with more learned thoughts.

[teamsaint]

Ferney, All that you say is no doubt relevant and interesting, but I'm really not convinced that modern art really is more "popular" than modern music. see my last post .

you might equate a busy Tate modern exhibition for an artist from nearly 100 years ago with a sold out prom for RVW.

( the idea that in literature the plot needs to be followed as the writer presents was pretty comprehensively challenged by some authors in the 1960's, I think? )

[MrGongGong]

There are two extremes here that are being seized upon. One is an unwillingness to be open; the other is the Emperor's New Clothes.

BINGO

Epic fail.....go to the start, do not pass go, do not collect £50

[ahinton]

There's also the fact that many of the techniques employed today are beginning to seem like old hat. Banging cymbals and dipping them in a bucket of water

"Old hat"? Hi-hat, surely?...

[MrGongGong]

And there isn't the same amount of education devoted from a very young age to developing listening skills (not just Music) as there is devoted to developing skills for reading and seeing.

.

Exactly (i've banged on about this far too much already though)

And how many "second performances" did (to be specific) Bach's BWV 48 or Haydn's Symphony #27 receive in the seventy years after their first performances, Ferretf?

Indeed


And (again) the "success" or otherwise of a piece isn't directly related to the number of times it gets played, how many radio broadcasts it gets, or how many years it "lasts"

Some people seem to want music to only have one function, which is a bit sad IMV

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

BINGO

Epic fail.....go to the start, do not pass go, do not collect £50

You collect £200 when you pass Go.

[MrGongGong]

You collect £200 when you pass Go.

You a retired teacher
The other £150 has been stolen to pay for Trident

[Beef Oven!]

Curiosity. Intellectual and artistic curiosity is the life-blood of art. The past master composers had it in spades and used it.

Of equal importance, listeners must also be curious, lest it becomes moribund (as I and a few others in here (I think), believe it has become). The Proms being a manifestation of this.'

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ferney, All that you say is no doubt relevant and interesting, but I'm really not convinced that modern art really is more "popular" than modern music. see my last post .

Depends what you mean by "modern". I've been pondering this very topic since last August when I went to the Mattisse "cut-outs" exhibition at Tate modern. The space was completely full for the eight hours it was open - and this was true for every day of the months it was exhibited. The range of the people there in terms of age, sex, class and "ethnicity" was far more varied than I'd ever seen at a Prom, for example - and I started to wonder why it is that a series of concerts of Stravinsky's last works almost certainly wouldn't attract this number and range of people.

But I don't think it's just "modern" work - if the Artist had been Turner, I think there'd've been the same numbers and variety of people. And I don't think that all of them would have chosen to go along in the evening to a Beethoven evening (let alone a Haydn or Alkan concert). And look at the number of books on Art in any Waterstone's and compare it with the shelves devoted to Music.

( the idea that in literature the plot needs to be followed as the writer presents was pretty comprehensively challenged by some authors in the 1960's, I think? )

Yes. (As was the very idea of an "author", of course ) But (I would imagine) that most readers choose to read novels starting at the first page and continuing (even with "recaps") to the last. They still have the option, which they don't have in a concert performance of a piece of Music presented to them (even if the performers have chosen not to start at page one and continue to the end in sequence).

[ahinton]

Depends what you mean by "modern". I've been pondering this very topic since last August when I went to the Mattisse "cut-outs" exhibition at Tate modern. The space was completely full for the eight hours it was open - and this was true for every day of the months it was exhibited. The range of the people there in terms of age, sex, class and "ethnicity" was far more varied than I'd ever seen at a Prom, for example - and I started to wonder why it is that a series of concerts of Stravinsky's last works almost certainly wouldn't attract this number and range of people.

But I don't think it's just "modern" work - if the Artist had been Turner, I think there'd've been the same numbers and variety of people.

Indeed; the last time I attended a Turner exhibition in London, it was so crowded I couldn't see much at all and what promised to be an enticing and thrilling experience of a broad conspectus of his work turned (sorry!) out to be a disspiriting one, for all that it was good to see that so many different people had been so keen to attend (that said, aren't Turner's last works - say from around the mid-1840s - quite "modern"?)...