Thanks to everyone for this conversation. It's very revealing and helpful. At 01:57 AM 1/30/05 -0800, Lon Price wrote: [referring to my post] >This is the attitude of the modern composer, who feels that the players >are incapable of ever getting his/her composition right.
I didn't say 'ever' -- enough rehearsals do make for well-rendered, correct recordings or performances. But 'getting his/her composition right' is not commonplace for new work. The amount of time, energy, knowledge, dedication and money given to newer pieces remains small -- in large part because orchestras are all out reworking the DWEMs in their own image. Les Marsden brought the classics to the countryside, but where were the new pieces on his list? He named Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Dvorak. I do not care if the audience can't tell Vivaldi from Mozart, but I do care if the audience can John Adams from John Luther Adams. If one can't bring new music to new audiences *first* -- especially to audiences that don't have any expectations to start with! -- then where does that leave the culture? (Maybe Les did focus on newly composed material, but he didn't mention it, so I'll pound on him a little to make my point. I'm sure he won't mind.) I've watched my wife's development. She'd been a rock/blues/jazz listener with a little classical chestnut listening that was unavoidable on public radio. But she didn't like classical. Over the years of knowing me, she's not only gained an enthusiasm but a listening acuity for new nonpop from a whole panoply of composers, and is incredibly articulate about what she hears -- even if she dislikes "classical music". I think the nonpop world has made a big mistake -- practically and psychologically -- in dedicating itself to museum culture. (The term I use for DWEM lovers is "necrosones".) I think it's bought into the performer cult doing the Gradus ad Parnassus rift with the same old music, thus becoming ritualistically disinclined to embrace newer technologies -- which, of course, is the topic of this discussion. :) >For this >composer the virtual orchestra is the perfect solution, because he gets >absolute control over every part--gone is the worry over the violas >getting lost, the horns missing high notes, the clarinets squeaking, >the tuba player getting stuck in traffic on the way to the hall, etc. Or, to take a more general perspective: Gone is the worry over people who hate (or at the very least are suspicious of) the music, who don't bother practicing for the one or two rehearsals they'll get for it, who take hours to get the Schubert phrase 'right' while skipping an equally important phrase in the new piece, who don't want to work hard on a piece that might never be a masterwork, who don't want to invest time in something they won't ever play again. That's the psychology we've got to deal with that is much more difficult than that tuba stuck in traffic (in my case it was the 2nd bassoon). You can't deny that virtual orchestras are a lot more accommodating! >The modern >composer does not want his music tainted by any display of emotion, >either by a player or the audience. His music is purely an >intellectual piece of work, and is not meant to make anyone "feel" any >certain way. That's an argument from another time, and not mine. I'm happy to have an audience or performer feel any way they want to. It's just not the music that's actually doing that, or there would be no need, as Les's post makes makes abundantly clear, to educate them in the first place. We are acculturated to what musical techniques or styles or gestures do to us -- and a really good virtual orchestra can do the same emotional thing (and will only get better at it over the next few years). >But I would never play my sequenced >version for anyone, because, as a performance, it has no real life. Nor do most of mine (though my electroacoustic pieces do, because they don't live in a performer's world). Mine are mostly demos. But for those musicians whose instrument is indeed the virtual orchestra, the results are brilliant already. Not only can't you tell them from the "real thing" (if that's the guessing game), they also open up possibilities that human players don't allow -- for lack of interest, money, practice, etc., or simply because an orchestral effect (such as a true morph) might be impossible. (The latter is a much more important point, but one which hasn't made its way into this discussion yet. Anybody?) Your experiences with performances are positive. Many of mine are as well (I've told the horror stories before on this list, so they can rest). But the performances don't always represent what I wrote. Performers work enormously hard to research, learn and present Beethoven, say, in a way that they want to believe is representative of his intent -- plus they have a century of record and two centuries of experience to build upon. That's not true with new compositions. So is there any reason we *wouldn't* be anxious to have our work heard correctly? And feel that more recordings to supplement the thousands of recordings of past music are superfluous, and drain attention from new work? To go back to Les again, why did he choose the same names of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Dvorak? The audience could still have an exciting, immersive, subjective, emotional experience with newer creations rather than being doomed to relive the past like some exterminating angel had come to visit the concert hall. Here's an example of the dilemma of a wonderful performance. I wrote a 25-minute piano piece on commission. The player is extraordinarily gifted in both musicality and technique, as well as analysis. This was a tough piece, too. He worked very hard on it, and gave it quite a few performances, one of which actually converted this state's major classical music critic into a committed new music lover. (This critic will no longer miss a concert that has a premiere -- unless there are *two* premieres that night!) The audience jumped to its feet and cheered. Other performers heard the piece. Those hearings, together with collaborative promotional work by a composers group, got our rural state to be one of the places where new music is heard on nearly every program of every ensemble. Players greet it with enthusiasm. The Vermont Youth Orchestra under composer-conductor Troy Peters dared to perform an all-new, all-Vermont music program at Carnegie Hall to considerable acclaim (yeah, we do have a high proportion of composers in this state, and Les, we have running water, too!). But back to the pianist. His interpretation, however hailed by everyone, was so at variance with my music that it was simply *not* the piece I wrote in all but the order of pitches. Naturally, when I'd like to encourage a pianist to play it, or when I want a layperson to be interested, I share a recording of his brilliant and pianistically exciting performance (and that's the one on my website). But when I play it for other composers, I play my sample version to lay the actual piece bare. The performed version obscures that and, should there ever be a future performer doing research on it, they will find my sample version as the document of record. (Correct isn't everything, even if it seems like I'm saying that. It just tends to be an either-or choice. A fellow composer had one of his pieces commissioned & performed here a decade ago -- an acceptable, well-received, flawed performance. He just used his savings to hire one of the pay-for-play orchestras in eastern Europe to record it. He said it was correct, a good example of his composition, but he was disappointed it didn't have the life of the local performance.) I love having my music played in the 'real air', but I love even more having it played well -- and well starts with right. And right tends to be recorded. And (as the museum culture continues) right will be virtual. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
