On 30 Jan 2005 at 23:20, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
Omigawd, there's a giant leap between Dvorak and Stockhausen! And this
crawling thing has always troubled me. Nobody has to crawl through old
films to get to new films, old books to get to new books, old jazz to
get to new jazz, old dance to get to new dance, old plays to get to
new plays, old paintings to get to new paintings. The only artistic
field that has proselytized the crawling theory for the past century
has been classical nonpop. But I think you know my p.o.v. as we're
arguing about it over on O-list right now. :)
Your analogy points out *why* new music has problems: they lost their
audience.
The conventions of film are taught to everyone who watches TV, so
someone who'd never seen a single film (but who grew up on TV
programs) would have no difficulties understanding the conventions of
modern file precisely because they've already been tacitly trained in
them.
Certain kinds of "modern" music have received the same benefit,
because non-tonal music has been used for a long time in film, and
people respond to it. It's why Stravinsky's "Rite" is no longer
problematic for the ear of your ordinary consumer.
But a lot of new music that I encounter is incomprehensible to me on
first hearing. I don't say that to say it's incomprehensible music or
that there's something wrong with it. It's just to say that I don't
have the preparation to be able to absorb the music on first hearing.
I don't know how to choose between chicken and egg here. Personally,
I feel that composers would be better off writing music that people
are more able to comprehend on first hearing than in assuming that
people can just listen to the piece 10 times, until they begin to
comprehend it.
Obviously, both things have to happen -- even in the 1820s, an
Italian music lover returned to the publisher an edition of Mozart's
"Dissonant Quartet" because the music lover looked at the first few
measures and declared it filled with numerous engraving errors.
So, these things take time, yes. But we must recognize that the 1820s
Italian music lover was definitely in the minority at the time,
showing a very conservative ear.
In our times there's been a complete disconnect between composers and
audiences that wasn't caused by the content of the music being
written so much as by political stances that hardened before the
music was given a chance to be heard. That is, they closed their ears
before giving the music a chance.
Nonetheless, there was a time in the mid-century when many composers,
in my opinion, went wildly off track and abandoned even their willing
potential audiences. That has not been the case for an extremely long
time (at least 30 years now), but the audience for serious music in
the US (at least) has not returned. Other audiences may be coming to
the music, but the natural audience for serious music retains
(especially including conservatory-trained performers) a certain
degree of hostility to new music.
I'm not placing blame here -- indeed, I believe there's plenty to go
around, about equally between composers, critics, performers and
audiences. I'm just observing what seems to me to be a fact of modern
musical life.
And in the context of the aging audiences for traditional serious
music, I don't know what future there is for serious music at all,
especially when composers like Dennis express such hostility to
performers.
Each summer I work coaching young musicians and it seems to me that
very few of them are getting much in the way of real training in
making music. Indeed, I despair over the fact that most of them seem
to not even be all that excited about what they are doing in the
first place.
Maybe we are in the twilight of our art form.
I really don't know.
--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc
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