I wonder what the thoughts of performers and their parents might be on this article. And I wonder what kinds of exposure musicians are getting to contemporary composers, whether at a conservatory or college- and which composers…
Despite popular perceptions, musicians do get exposure to contemporary music, the idea that music schools are these hidebound places where all they play is the standards, is wrong. While it is true that with violin rep that they use in teaching does not use much modern/contemporary music from what I have seen, the students themselves do play contemporary stuff, students participate in lab orchestras where student pieces are played, and they also are exposed to it in musicology classes and theory classes.Youth orchestras also tend to have a lot more contemporary pieces (New York Youth Symphony has one every cycle)…so yes, young musicians are exposed to contemporary music.
The article itself is something that has been written time and again, that new music in the classical world is not getting a fair shake (when the guy in the article compares for example Beethoven to modern composers, what he is basically saying is Beethoven was once controversial and revolutionary, and his music became standard rep), that people need to broaden their horizons and listen to contemporary pieces, that they need to be played and commissioned and so forth. This has been a cry for along time, that orchestras are hidebound, that audiences are afraid of new music and want their ‘comfort food’ pieces, and so forth, which there is truth to. And you see this in how orchestras play new music, it is always in the first part of the concert, because they fear that 90% of the audience will leave at intermission (whether they will or not is debateable).
The problem is that new music has gotten into people’s heads, those who go to orchestra concerts and the like, as being “weird” or “unlistenable”. I think this came out of the movement towards music of the second viennese school and its descendents, where it seemed like the only new music being produced was of this genre, and it created a bad reaction. There was an interesting article written by a member of the Chicago Symphony on the subject, it was about Pierre Boulez passing, and said that Boulez and other people like him were part of the problem, that they acted like the music they were promoting was the only real music, he and Babbitt and the like were arrogant beyond belief and they basically replaces one orthodoxy with another, and audiences reacted to it. One of the NY Times Music critic, on his retirement a while ago, said the Boulez and those like him helped create a rush out of the concert halls (said critic was not a philistine or ni Kulturni, he championed new music). It is telling that Juilliard not long ago had a big symposium hosted by the head of it, that talked about the ‘forgotten composers’, people like Ned Rorem, William Schumann and even Copeland (who after WWII found it increasingly hard to get commissions), that the orthodoxy that replaced the old orthodoxy made them forgotten people. There are wonderful composers today who work in more traditional music, and you don’t see their pieces played much either, in part because when new music is commissioned, it is likely not going to be tonal or more traditional, while new music has become more varied, it still has a kind of code on it as to what is commissioned, those doing the commissioning still have this idea that new music has to be of new horizons, revolutionary, etc (it varies, but for example, the NY Phil’s first composer in residence was Magnus Lindberg, who is pretty close to straight 12 tone as you can get). I think one of the mistakes with new music is that revolutions are great, and doing things new ways is part of being human, but if things are all out there, people won’t react well.
The battle between pleasing an audience and forwarding art as it were, it has been going on probably since people wrote music. Mozart faced it, if he had had the freedom to compose music as he wanted it, a lot of the things said about him would not have been written. Beethoven to a certain extent found a way around that, while he had patrons, he became successful enough to experiment, but he also had his foot firmly in the music of the time (the movie “Copying Beethoven”, which is one of the my favorites both for the music and for good old chewing up the scenery, highlights this with Beethoven writing the 9th symphony which was immensely popular and his Grossa Fuga, one of his late string quartets, which was not (actually, critics being what they were, weren’t too happy with Beethoven, when the Eroica premiered the critics panned it, while giving glowing reviews to Clement, the violinist, who was playing a piece he composed where he played the violin upside down on one string). The Chicago symphony, back around the turn of the 20th century, was one of the first orchestras to turn to the endowment model so the orchestra wasn’t as dependent on ticket sales (that became the predominant mode for orchestras, still is), to allow for more freedom.
I think part of the problem with new music is that most of it, with some exceptions, exists on one level, and that is in the audience digging down and finding the meaning in it. Many pieces of the modern sort are tone poems, where the tonal structure (or atonality for that matter) is what makes the meaning in the piece. Talk to a young composer writing in 12 tone, and they will go on about this cool new tone row they created based on some variation of an augmented x chord or what not, which excites them, but also when played can take someone familiar with the structure to appreciate it. Aaron Copeland wrote a book back in the 1940’s, and he talked about music existing on many planes, there is the more sensual one, which is how you react to it viscerally, and there is the deeper level of understanding what a composer does (which is what the book was about, it is called “How to Listen to Music” I believe). Mozart was quoted as saying that with his music, he hoped to create music that could take someone with no knowledge of music, and lead them into a deeper journey where they started appreciating deeper levels of music. New music that I have listened to (and yes, folks, I do listen to Q2 on QXR and have heard plenty of new compositions), has the problem that it does’t have that upper level of appreciation, what Copeland called the sensual level, that much of the music can be jarring to the senses, written in ways that are both dissonant and uncomfortable, to appreciate those pieces takes that deeper understanding, and it may not be easy to do so. It is interesting, I have heard people talk about The Rite of Spring, how it was treated the same way, but that isn’t true. The Rite was new for its time, and revolutionary, but the reaction to it people are talking about may have been hyped up. First of all, some of the reaction was to the ballet (which to be honest, when I saw a recreation of the original performance, I might have rioted, it was aweful), and some of it was done by Diaghliev , including the famous riot, for publicity. Yes, some people didn’t like the music, but it hooked people, more and more, and within 10 years was in the reparatory.
I think this battle, so to speak, was highlighted in Ken Burns marvelous “Jazz series”. They quoted Cecil Taylor, the avant garde jazz pianist, as saying he expected his audience to do their homework (to which Branford Marselis, one of my idols after seeing that, said "That’s BS- that is like telling me I have to take infield practice to watch a Yankees game). It is the artist saying their music or art speaks for itself, and saying the audience has to learn to understand their art, and in some ways that is pretty arrogant, it is basically saying the audience in this case is the supplicant and if they don’t understand the art, they are philistines or whatever. Babbitt expressed that, when he said he didn’t care if anyone heard his music, while that sounds all great and good, it also leads to the idea that artists live in this bubble where all that matters is their art and expression, but it is also then kind of duplicious to complain they can’t get an audience for their art. I think that attitude has hurt young composers, there are young composers who get it and write wonderful, different music that I think audiences would enjoy, but there is still an old guard, especially at the professional orchestra level and among those doing new music in the chamber realm, who are still promoting the old, this is what I give you and you better enjoy it or you are an idiot school of things.
I’ll give a contrasting story that may give enlightenment of how I feel. Walter Damrosch the conductor of the old NY Orchestra Society (that became the NY Phil), in the late 19th century used to take the orchestra on the road, they would travel the US, and not just the big cities that had orchestras, but to small towns and cities, out west, down south, midwest. When they played, they would do something interesting, they would play a popular piece like “The Arkansas Traveller” and other audience favorites, and then would play Bach or Beethoven or whatnot. In the wake of these trips, orchestras sprang up all over the country (not just because of him, of course, other orchestras did similar things, but I believe he was the first), some of which still exist today, and I think it is a model on new music. While orchestras do tend to play traditional rep when having new commissions, maybe they should also be a lot more careful with new compositions and not have them all in the mode of ‘contemporary’ music, there is nothing wrong with commissioning a Lowell Lieberman and other guys working in more traditional forms, or someone who is mixing Jazz and Hip Hop and such with classical traditional, it doesn’t all have to be what is usually commissioned.
I hate to say this, but because of so many decades of what “new music” was, classical music is the one form of music where “new music” is looked on with dread by a lot of their audience, whether fair or unfair, and I think that the Chicago Symphony guy was right, that Boulez and his ilk did tremendous damage, and left a bad legacy for new music. Ars Gratia Artis is all great and good, but it also can leave audiences confused and cold and left out, which isn’t a good thing, and I think the problem is that artists in some way or form have to understand their vision may not be everyone elses. That doesn’t mean that they should bend their art to be popular, but maybe it means they might have to work a bit more, along with the groups presenting it, to gain people’s understanding and appreciation. Put it this way, for almost 100 years proponents of 12 tone and other modern forms have claimed that it just takes audiences time to adjust and learn, yet those forms have been out there more than 100 years, and still has not captured a broad audience, and that says something I think, about the way the music was introduced and yes, to a certain extent, to its fundamental nature. In the end, art has to come from someone’s heart, but it is also true that art is in the eyes and ears of the beholder, and telling people they are philistines if they don’t appreciate something is not the way to do it.
The other problem is that these days, because many kids are growing up without much if anything in the way of music appreciation or music classes, it is even harder. People from the time they are kids are introduced to classical forms of music, as well as pop music and hip hip and so forth, by commercials and movies and the like, not many of them will hear what new composers are producing, they won’t be taught about it, and given the nature of the music we are talking about it leaves a huge learning curve.
I’m going to have to agree to disagree with @musicprnt. The problem is not with New Music, the problem is that not all new music is great just because it’s new. We also don’t listen to 90% of music from the past, which has gone by the wayside, for good or ill. However, without the opportunities for new music to be performed and heard, the great pieces are not going to have a chance to surface. And I do not agree that in the conservatories that performance students are taught to play contemporary music with the same fervor they are taught, and practice, the pieces for their competitions and auditions. If any performer practiced a piece by a 21st century composer for the hours, days, weeks, months that young players practice their Mozart concertos they would never again think of those pieces as ‘difficult’ and ‘unplayable.’
As a complete opposite reaction than @musicprnt’s - here is a wonderful interview with a violinist about how the concert experience should be turned upside down, and the old warhorses should be the exception rather than the rule: https://van-us.atavist.com/interview-patricia-kopatchinskaja
As for Magnus Lindberg - no, that’s not 12 tone. Just because something isn’t melodic or completely tonal - doesn’t mean it follows the rules of serialism.
I think the long posts above have a narrow focus on some older orthodoxies and that the composition world is very different now, more diverse and more open. Also, the perception that new music is ugly does not always apply. Try listening to this wide range of composers: John Corigliano, David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion, Judd Greenstein’s The Night Gatherers, Jurgen Frey’s The Fragile Balance, Marco Stroppa, Dylan Mattingly…I could go on and on. These are contemporary, “new music” and I cannot believe any audience would leave any of these. Really, “new music” is a term for contemporary concert music and is not limited to serialism or 12 tone or even atonal works. The term includes tonal pieces, and stirring pieces, as well as pieces that may seem static or dissonant or too complex to some listeners. I don’t see things as this polarized.
Two points. There is a time lag between composers’ creation and achievement of the kinds of connections or status that allows their work more than one performance. Many emerging composers in grad programs are only beginning to find ways to have work played. Orchestras, naturally, take even longer to play new works, even a great orchestra like Boston Modern Orchestra Project, which focuses on living composers- who are established. Many composers write for small ensembles for that reason, and pieces are played in small venues. So even music students who practice new works, are playing works that have been around long enough to make it to their repertoire (and sometimes student works).
The other thing I think about is music versus art. I am an art lover and go to museums, galleries, all kinds of shows. I have developed a love of abstract art in my old age. I am not going to make generalizations about different schools of art or different aesthetics or anything like that. I just want to say that by its very nature, contemporary art has a little easier time getting out there to the public than contemporary classical music. Why? Well, concerts take time and money. Art can be hung in all kinds of venues, and no performers are needed, and the audience can spend minutes looking at the art. I am not saying it is easier to make a living, but it is easier to get exposure.
Composers need musicians, a venue, and enough people willing to spend a longer amount of time in the venue, and there is only one shot at hearing it (though the Internet helps with this). How much more could we appreciate new works if we hear them a few times, just as we can go back to look at a painting in the gallery? Absorption of a piece of new music rarely happens with one listening. I think that is another reason for the standard repertoire: familiarity means a piece can really be heard.
The best reason to be in a PhD program is a few years to have pieces actually played. Academia provides a funded refuge for a time. Whether dance, music, art or theater, this country does not fund the arts the way it should, and money is a problem for all artists.
I would hope that more new music festivals and concert series will spring up. The traditional sandwich of a well- known piece, a newer piece, then a well-known piece, is at least progress. I think it is truly fun to hear innovative, individualistic pieces from composers in the same way I have that wonderful aha moment in an art gallery. It’s fun and interesting and I wish more people could enjoy…
Musicprnt, I would love to know what 21st century composers you do enjoy.
I think it is really hard to talk about modern music if you do not listen to much of it.
Well said SpiritManager and Compmom.
Just as you cannot discuss the modern technical age using dictum from the early industrial age, modern music is simply not throwing around words like 12 tone and minimalism as if these are sine qua non to the music being composed today. The language is much broader now. BTW modern music lives at Oberlin along side Baroque, Classical, the Romantics and the avant garde. This will not change with a change in head of the composition department. Hartke is also modern music just as is the experimental composition student.
Today listened to Nina Young. So many great pieces being composed by so many contemporary composers, and I have so far only named those that would be easily accessible for most music lovers. The trend toward lectures before concerts now makes many different types of works more accessible if people are willing to come an hour early.
In answer to comp mom’s question, I have heard more than a bit of ‘modern’ pieces I liked (and obviously, not all music by any composer is going to move me or I like, but that is true for any music). I have heard music by SpirtManager’s son, for example, and I liked it, I have heard pieces by young composers who currently are in school I liked, Jonas Tarm at NEC comes to mind (and who was treated shamefully by New York Youth Symphony IMO, I stopped supporting them financially when they dropped his piece because someone complained), NEC played a symphonic piece by him I liked a great deal, and I have heard other pieces by him that I found interesting. Someone mentioned Arvo Paart, I have heard pieces by him I liked, I also love music that Tan Dun and Bright Sheng have been putting out. I heard a violin concerto played live a couple of years ago by Esa Peka Salonen that I liked, it was definitely “modern”, yet I really enjoyed it. Among the older generation of ‘modern’ composers (who is now dead), Stephen Stucky moved me to tears with his piece celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring” being published, it was very strongly dissonent and a true tone poem, yet I enjoyed it. John Corrigliano has written some neat music, I liked what he did with his score from the “Red Violin”.Chris Theofanidis of Yale SOM has written some pieces I liked as well, besides being a really nice guy (my son used his violin concerto as his modern piece at Juilliard auditions,).
I think the guy writing the article has a point, but the problem with it is it seems more aimed at audiences rather than those who program the music. The gatekeepers, the people who commission new pieces, are probbaly the prime mover, and I suspect part of the problem is that as people are saying, that modern music has moved beyond the rigidity that was definitely a factor in the post world war II world, that the gatekeepers may not have caught up, and what they are commissioning may be locked in the past, not to mention, of course, that there always will be a bias towards established composers (John Adams, Phillip Glass, Jennifer Higdon, John Tower and John Corrigliano will have an easier time getting a commision then a young composer early in his career), and like any music field they may tend to be a bit too conservative with taking chances on new voices, but the problem is that the established artists, like myself, are getting long in the tooth and maybe there needs to be more given to new blood:)
Glad you enjoyed my son’s work, @musicprnt! Sounds like, instead of the impression from your first post, that you actually enjoy quite a lot of New Music!
@spiritmanager: I do, I just don’t like a lot of the stuff I have heard, especially in the past, when there was a crazy orthodoxy floating around. John Adams, who I love, wrote a great piece about when he got out of music school and was writing, how earnest he was, how he was all into orthodoxy, and it was only later on he realized that is the hallmark of youth lol. I also have heard pieces where the composer was busy telling my son (and myself) about how this used a new form of tone row that used some sort of construct (that to be honest, I don’t remember, if I understood it), and that bothers me, it is confusing the tool with the art, it is like a sculptor telling me about the unique chisel he used to create a piece or the kind of strokes he used to create the piece, while I can appreciate the craftmanship, it is what the piece says to me or doesn’t that matters (to me). The other thing to keep in mind is that I am uncomfortable when people blame audiences for not appreciating a new piece of music, while there are people who knee jerk reject anything new (the way that the orthodoxy that not all that long ago claimed anything before Schonberg ‘was junk’ and ‘the past’), one thing all artists have to realize is not everyone will dig what they do, but if people refuse to listen to it before making up their minds that is a problem. Another living composer who is very modernist (who isn’t young, except in his mind) is Kurtag, I was fortunate to see him play in NYC several years ago at Zankel, I think it was one of the few times he ever played here, and I was blown away by his music, it was definitely ‘modernist’, but it had something to it that grabbed me. I think the way I approach it, or try to, is when someone asked me about Bartok. A lot of his music can be very, very difficult to embrace, to understand, but even the pieces I find difficult to listen to (or play, for that matter, when I was in wind ensembles back in the day, using arranged works), but I could still respect it, as I can respect more than a bit of new music because i can see what the artist has put into it, even if I don’t embrace it or really want to listen to it again, and the rest, as Alex Ross says, is noise:).