Primitive music, if Leonard Bernstein and others are to be believed, came out of the tones mothers used to soothe their kids (read his lectures on "The unanswered question), and it is likely that while not necessarily familiar to us, would more than likely be tonal and soothing, not atonal and generating negative images, so while probably out of key, I doubt it would sound like a ‘modern’ composition. People like Daniel Lativin have done a lot of work on music and how it affects people, and one of the reasons that ‘modern’ composition, with its emphasis on atonality, on irregular rythms and such is that it generates very different reactions in the brain, the reaction is often physical in nature. Horror movies play on our emotions, as does much of music, and things like prize fighting or bull fighting or boxing hits certain emotions, but it is a very different response from what I have read.
And yes, people do concentrate on 12 tone and minimalism as the representation of ‘modern classical music’ because that quite frankly is what you see orchestras commissioning for the most part, the jazz inflected, rock inflected, folk inflected, other forms don’t generally get played all that often, at least not yet (and it is a shame, because there is a lot of wonderful music like that out there), and that is where people get exposed. In the other thread, when we mentioned the NYYS and its commissioned pieces, I have gone to many of their concerts over the years, both before and during my son’s tenure there, and most of them were either atonal/12 tone based pieces or minimalism (not surprising, the group at NYYS that chose pieces were mostly in that genre, Corigliano was a member of that committee for a long time), and the same with concerts where I have gone. The NY Phil when it decided to have a composer in residence, didn’t choose someone writing jazz inflected pieces, or rock inflected pieces, or tonal, they chose Magnus Lindberg, who might not be totally ‘out there’ or ‘avant garde’, but he still is very much in that atonal world. When I went with my son to see the LA phil a couple of years ago, they had a new music program, and other than a wonderful piece by John Adams, it was all very, very atonal/12 tone.
Does this mean none of this is music? No, but I think it represents the fact that until very recently, that is what most ‘modern music’ has been. Composers like Lowell Lieberman, who writes absolutely gorgeous tonal pieces, are simply not heard as much. I know a number of people who are roughly my peers in age, who studies composition, and they said that at most of the music schools, if you weren’t doing the 12 tone or minimalism, you are derided and called ‘derivative’ and worse, and I think that has formed people’s impression of new music. I think that a lot of music directors were steeped in that orthodoxy and it shows what they perform and commission as well.
Is all of this music? Yes, much the same way as much as I might not like visual art, if it represents the artists vision, then it is art. And yes, familiarity does change people’s views of things, but there is a caveat to that. With much of modern music, which went so far beyond the bounds of traditional tonal music, it is very possible that, like some forms of visual art, it will never catch on. In his day Picasso was a rebel, but it did catch on, as did impressionist paintings, but as weird as some of that is (in comparison to let’s say a landscape done in the 18th century), it was still enough to give people some root of understanding, basis. When people talk about the Rite of Spring and the riots (which btw were likely staged by Diaghliev, as well as the heckling from the audience), what they forget is within 10 years of its premiere, it was in the standard reperatory, and with Beethoven, his works, especially the later ones, were considered works of genius within 20 years of his death, whereas at least with the atonal/12 tone music, it has been around over 100 years and still has problems with audience, and I think it is because it has run so far from people’s common experience it won’t gain a lot of devotees…Minimalism has achieved IMO a lot more in the way of popularity, and to be honest I think it is because people like John Adams and Phillip glass have moved away from orthodoxy (I saw a very humorous interview with John Adams, when he described himself as a young composer and the foibles of being a young artist).
And basically all an artist can do is follow their muse and do what they feel they need to. On the other hand, I find it objectionable when I hear audiences dismissed, how ‘they don’t want to do the work’, 'if they understood the piece they would see how great it is" and the like, it basically trivializes anyone who doesn’t like or understand a particular piece, which is arrogance to the nth degree, because in effect it is saying my art should be your art. Quite frankly, a lot of high art all the through the ages has not achieved a wide audience, and that is understandable. Someone asked if modern music in its myriad forms are music, and the answer is yes, but but on the other hand, the fact that it is music doesn’t mean that people hearing it and not appreciating it are inauthentic or philistines and the like, and the fact that a lot of modern music does not achieve wide audience approval doesn’t mean all those people don’t ‘get it’, it means they don’t like the pieces enough to try and understand them. A lot of modern music IMO is Ars Gratia Artis, music designed to appeal to those ‘in the know’ about music theory and music structure, and that is fine, but it also means it is going to limit its audience to those who care to try and figure out what the particular tone row is and what it means. Some of the genius of people like Mozart and Beethoven and even Bartok (who can be difficult as heck) and Stravinsky and Prokofiev and so forth, is that they managed to stretch people without breaking the relationship with the audience, with more than a bit of modern music it has stretched things with the audience to where it breaks for many and I think that describes why a lot of the music doesn’t get big audiences or become ‘audience favorites’.
That is certainly true in art galleries and dance studios as well. We aren’t always talking about big business music, so audience-pleasing is often a matter of debate!
