(Continued)
I forgot something in my last post. I set up some questions I didn't
answer: "But if in some hermetically sealed state, if it were possible, or
at least if there were such positions advanced, what would it sound like?
Or if there were analysis done of that culture, what would it say?"
I'll still skip that last part and address only the first.
For the past decade, I've created my own "hermetically sealed state". Being
a composer, doing a radio show, and attending concerts of music by
colleagues has meant I've listened to thousands of hours of new nonpop, and
almost exclusively new nonpop as time constraints have squeezed out the
older pieces.
Rather than wear me out or trouble me, it's instead given me a hunger for
more, increased my critical skills, expanded the scope of my listening
facility, opened my mind to new ideas, and warmed my heart with the power
and beauty that composers bring to bear upon their work (keep in mind, of
course, that I cried when I first heard Stockhausen's "Gesang der
Junglinge" as a teenager).
And at the same time, it dramatically lowered my tolerance for older
classical nonpop to the point that for the most part I listen to it with
impatience (even the music of my own earlier days!), chafing at its reek of
the past -- a past that I would not want to live in. Walking into Jack
Finney's "The Third Level" holds no enticement for me. I *like* the modern
world. I *hunger* for the future and, to my wife's continued chargin, still
look longingly at the sky in hopes that one day I might be able to travel
out of the atmosphere, even just for a few moments.
At 11:16 AM 1/31/05 -0800, you wrote:
>I would never hope to close myself off to something based
>strictly upon age. As I previously stated, I make no such
>parameter judgment -- as I also previously stated, I base
>my MSO programming inclusion upon factors both blithe
>and concrete; aesthetic and cost-responsible -- but also
>practical for my specific organization and its limitations.
These guidelines are all legitimate, and with which I have no "surface"
argument. But let's say my proposed international fascisto-musical state
was founded in 1980 and required that all music be composed within the time
of its existence. Accept that as your reality for a moment, and consider
what kind of situation you'd find yourself in, and how you'd deal with it
imaginatively and in ways that would satisfy you and your audience.
As a member of O-list, you're aware of the style, length, quality and
difficulty level of the myriad pieces being written for orchestra today.
Not even including the diversity of the living famous within our niche
(Torke, Tower, Glass, Walker, Del Tredici, Higdon, Adams-the-both,
Reich...), you'd have a choice that would be enormously variegated and, for
purposes of a part-time orchestra's programming, virtually unlimited.
What would be lost in the sort of programming? You and your musicians would
be familiar with the musical history as students of the artform. Scores and
recordings would be available from the historical library, and you'd have
sufficient musical imagination that the interposition of a playback format
would be an ephemeral challenge. You'd work directly with composers. You'd
encourage your own musicians and audience to create new work, and they'd
participate with the enthusiasm of any community that hangs its own art,
reads its own poetry, sings its own songs, or cooks its own meals. Indeed,
nothing would be lost but the occasional old chestnut -- and you could beg
the authorities to permit you the occasional old piece! That would be your
challenge instead!
Sure, this is some sort of odd & twisted mirror image of recent orchestral
history. But were I any given conductor/programmer, for each concert I
would imagine myself living in that totalitarian state, having to work
creatively under the oppressive "yoke of the present," and with no choice
but to do it. And suddenly those pieces that before were marginal would
become the centerpieces of my presentation, the core of my daily work.
Music that before opened a program or closed the first half, or perhaps
fanfared in the second half, would be the closing masterpiece. It would be
surrounded by more pieces in many diverse styles -- yet *all* plucked from
the present and near-present.
The practical problem (other than budgets, as the pieces could be chosen to
match the ensembles technical abilities) would be finding the larger works,
those which could span half a concert. Because of the effective ban on
longer symphonic work for several generations (those "American
Commissions": 10 minutes, low-cost, audience-friendly), the number of such
pieces written commonly as Haydn might have done is reduced. Few composers
even write the Ludwig/Dvorak/Mahler nine anymore (yes, then there is
Hovhaness), much less multi-movement symphonies. So you'd have that problem
of continuity and judgment, investing in music without a nest of critical
understanding. If everyone were doing this, however, that critical
word-of-mouth professionally evaluated support structure would inform you.
The market would be there, too.
(The symphonic ban has seriously damaged the nonpop repertoire, and is the
topic for an essay I'm working on, tentatively entitled, "If We Could Write
for the Symphony". Another day [week, month, year] for that.)
>And to play right into your waiting hands, Dennis, I'll confide
>a little secret: I really don't enjoy the Baroque as much as I
>do later periods with far more tonally and rhythmically complex
>language -- as well as challenging form and intellectual
>provocation. But: there is a place, I feel, even for such older,
>'simpler' music -- and so I program it; and you know what?
>I find that in so doing, I learn and grow and enjoy and respect
>and sometimes, sometimes....even come to love works I've
>written off, simply because in studying them as a performer
>and not merely as a listener I begin to see worth beneath the
>surface....and never so much more so than when I see the
>works of a later composer who clearly and intentionally built
>upon something which came before.
You are in the field, and it's what you do. So am I. I'm suggesting we
restrain certain of those conservative impulses as being, for now,
counter-productive to the task of keeping the artistic ship afloat in that
sea on which it in fact always floats, which is musical composition.
But see, you're doing it. Our own amateur Montpelier Chamber Orchestra
(which commissioned three works from me, including a half-hour flute
concerto) and our Vermont Youth Orchestra are doing it.
However, a glance at most orchestral programming shows little growth. Our
professional Vermont Symphony Orchestra pats itself on the back for
awarding a single commission each year (though to their credit they take it
on a ten-concert tour, albeit with Handel and Dvorak). Do you think it will
matter that my piece got more applause and comment on every concert than
any of the antiquarian music? Probably not. It will be considered an
exception, some anomaly of audience and weather, and the open door will
likely be closed. (I say "likely" because I've been working with them to
rethink their programming and have had to face every argument that I've
ever heard before: technical, audience, budget, education... )
>Once all the practical criteria have been met, my kajillions of
>possible choices have been whittled down to a few hundred or
>thousand; as my conditions of operation change through the
>years (i.e. if I do get a reliable bassoonist or two -- and a larger
>stage allowing for more players -- a bigger budget -- and
>increased proficiency, but I can't complain there as they have
>come along remarkably in the past two years...) so grows my
>potential programming pond. But for now, I'm not too badly
>off; which takes us then into that wonderful land of subjectivity!
Aaah! Marvelous! And I see there's more of that topic below, but onward now
for a topical yaw...
>Next point (backwards:) Are we Americans really too self-effacing?
>In my personal case, perhaps so.... [...]
Thanks for that bit. I enjoyed it enormously!
>I've found the greater artists I've been fortunate to know
>personally within the many disciplines to be those who are the more
>self-effacing, perhaps because there is a sense of security and
>contentment within their own talent which conversely allows them
>the freedom to utilize that talent a little more fully.
But what if you asked? Now admittedly, the comments about Americans being
too self-effacing were made in Germany and the Netherlands, the latter
being particularly given to plain talk. I was asked by a well-known
composer about a particular piece of mine. He thought it was good, to which
I responded with a typical sort of "thanks, it wasn't so bad." I can't
recall the details, but what followed was something like "I'm not
interested in 'not bad'. I'm interested in 'good'. Why can't you Americans
ever tell the truth? It was good, and you know it." I thought it was a
misunderstanding of the idiom, but it came up again several times with
others. The criticism came down to, "If you're good, say so." And I
discovered that, in Europe at least, saying "This is a fine piece that you
should play" works well, but in America it's "You might want to look at
this piece because it might fit what you're doing".
When asked, though, I no longer use the American humility model, a model
which I guess comes out of the egalitarian too-big-for-yer-britches notion
that no matter how famous or intelligent or brilliant someone is, there's
an American right to take 'em down a peg or two. All that rejoicing over
Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart, for example, especially because they're
women who weren't satisfactorily self-effacing over their positions of
power, whereas we were horrified when the just-folks Oprah was dragged into
court over some trademark row (I may be remembering that wrong). We hated
Donald Trump until he went slumming with hormone-soaked business-school
yaps. Hugh Grant got a goodly share of grins over his paid automotive
tryst, but was forgiven for coming out oh-so-humbly on the tv talk shows.
And the iconic image that Garrison Keillor latched onto, that egocentric
bucket of fakery, was the community of egalitarian, humble, angry Lutherans
in Lake Woebegon ("where the women are strong, the men are good-looking,
and the children are above average").
I know what I can do and how well I can do it, and also that my interest in
breaking new ground sometimes overtakes my technical attention (i.e., I can
get sloppy). But I'll still put my "Mantra Canon" up against anything Reich
or Glass or Adams has written, for example, and much of my work in other
nonpop subgenres is riveting (such as the spectral "Softening Cries" for
orchestra, the atonal-minimalist "Rough Edges" for piano, the intense
"RatGeyser" for MalletKAT and playback, the neo-impressionist "Quince & Fog
Falls" for chamber ensemble, and "Detritus of Mating", a six-channel
installation piece that would run 28 years if played fully with its
companion "Zonule Glaes II" that includes live string quartet). Some of it
is even important in the history on new work (such as "In Bocca al Lupo" in
the mid-1980s, which created a changing soundscape environment through
interactive quasi-intelligent computer technology, or "Construction on nix
rest... in china" for 2 trombones and tape that was a landmark early
sampling piece in 1972, premiered in Amsterdam 31 years after its
composition).
On the other hand, I'm pretty aware of what are mainly showpieces
("Csardas" for piano), what are studies ("Seven Chocolate Eclems" for
violin and cello), what are trifles ("bellyloops" for playback), what are
exercises (the just-finished "Shortnin" for chamber ensemble), and what are
junk ("Bouzavox" for playback).
>Just a silly little
>theorem on my part based upon many years of contact with others,
>but who knows? I do know that the self-aggrandizing artistes with
>whom I've worked are those with whom I'd not care (usually) to work
>again, despite any potential creative award -- and not only because
>their personalities may have made the experiences a bitter one, but
>because in not freeing their own talent, they self-crippled their own
>resources; there was also a subliminal need to shoot down the talent
>of others around them.
That, I hope, is infrequent. Though I have a good laugh over mine and
others' work, it's pretty democratic. Artists are silly. Heck, humans are
silly with all that walking-upright opposable-thumb business. And don't get
me started on genitals.
>I'm just uncomfortable literally blowing my own horn, which is why it's
>difficult for me to push my brilliant compositions, such as my 'American'
>Symphony on New and Old Tunes which had not one but two performances
>last year and was an astonishing revelation, ground-breaking landmark
>of 21st-century art which changed for the better the lives of everyone
>not only who heard it in concert but merely heard ABOUT it or read the
>title or breathed the air which passed through the great-aunt of the
>cousin of the head custodian of the theatre who, while he wasn't actually
>at any of the performances, experienced the aura......
See? You did it again, but masked in humor. What is the *truth* -- your
truth -- about this piece? Is it brilliant? Why? Dare you say?
Maybe it's too soon -- I know that I am so wrapped up in pieces that I go
through many stages:
1. Idea swamp
2. Moody annoying overeating period of refrigerator wear working it out
3. Avoiding it (hey, that's what I'm doing right now!)
4. Writing it down or electronically fixating it
5. The almost-done reluctance-to-finish stage
6. Milliseconds of elation on it being finished
7. Post-partum depression
8. Lack of interest while I go on to something else
9. Reawakening of interest in a kind of what-is-that-creature
pre-performance lip-curling
10. Frustration
11. Milliseconds of elation on it being played
12. Post-partum depression
13. Self-loathing, -deprecation, -hate
14. Distancing
15. Evaluation
By the time I get to that 15th stage, I know if I've done well. Depending
on the intervening work or how I'm changing, that stage may come from a few
days to even a few years later. As I gain experience and confidence (all
relative -- I'm horrendously self-critical), I can recognize sooner the
bouquet, fragrance, aroma, smell or stench exuding from the piece.
>Moving up your post: how do I decide what to program? Easy; if
>I haven't already stamp-pressed that one into nothingness:
>I program that which I enjoy hearing. What communicates with me,
>my head, my heart.
I don't see those as necessarily coincident, though. I'll quote some of the
rest of what you said first:
>And yes, you mentioned that you set 'personal
>taste aside' -- well, in my personal case, it would be disingenuous and
>in some ways even dishonest of me to program and/or pass on music
>which is incompatible in some way with my own personal taste: how
>can I make a good, convincing argument for a piece if I don't believe in
>it myself? How can I be an advocate for something I don't like? And
>do I give up on something at first blush if my head says, 'no good!'
To the second question, the answer is simple: Because you must. I have sat
across the microphone from 250 composers and played their music for our
audiences. You can imagine that it is simply not possible for the work of
250 composers to be coincident with one other composer's taste. Yet I will
advocate for (and pester for commissions & performances for) almost every
one of them at some musical level. I say 'almost' because we have had some
guests whose music is weakly conceived or poorly wrought (by measure of
craft alone).
Among the rest, however, is a panoply of musical style from noise artists
(Pritsker, Schrock) through tough electroacousticians (Szymanski,
Duckworth-the-younger) through orchestral professionals (Hagen, Del
Tredici) through romantics (Deussen, Torke) and political composers (Ho,
Weinbaum), soundscape artists (Radigue, Borghi), avant-gardists (Appleton,
Hutchinson) post-classicists (Byron, Reynolds), international
groundbreakers (Saariaho, Behrman), and on and on.
As I type each name, I remember their music, and however I find it
appealing or not to my taste, it still enriches my experience and
challenges my intellect.
To agree with your second comment, then, I'll tell this story: In the early
1990s, I heard a piece for two high clarinets. I couldn't remember the name
of the piece, but it enraged me. I paced around and mumbled about it,
endlessly annoying my wife. The next day I woke up and thought, "It was
brilliant!" I had hated it because I had not opened up to its own world, it
was so alien to head, heart and taste. But I grew. It forced me to grow.
Overnight. And then I set out to find the composer, and finally, 13 years
later she too sat across the microphone in her Amsterdam flat: the
toweringly intense Margriet Hoenderdos.
I have an abiding trust in composers. Do I like their all their work? Hell,
no. But I take seriously the work of presenting what they do in their own
sounds and in their own words. And I have an abiding trust in the listening
public. Presented with conviction, composers and their works will be
accepted, adopted, and loved.
>I do try to give myself repeated hearings of music which I initially
>don't get; sometimes I do find value and change my first impression;
>other times, I merely confirm my initial reaction. And I may simply
>feel I'm not yet ready for a particular work and will then keep it on the
>shelf to come back to and try again in the future. Have I changed?
>Has -- somehow -- it? But I would like to think that I have a very broad
>range of flexibility within what might be called my own personal taste.
>And so therefore what do I program? Most usually -- but not always --
>tonal music. With -- more often than not -- rich use of harmonic
>resources, intelligent structuring, perhaps - but not always -- an emotional
>component
You have me there.
>-- and there's the rub, Dennis, there's why we continue to
>program and play and listen to and enjoy and experience the composers
>of today AND yesterday AND the day before AND the day before that.....
>because....on a personal level....they still communicate with us today.
And you lose me there.
I don't believe that. The further we move from a composer's time and
society and mores and techniques, the more we invest our own acculturation
into what we hear. It's an argument I'm not going to take on -- the
universal-language, objective-standards, nature-not-nurture point of view.
I have no sympathy with it because my experience tells me that such
"communcation" from past to present is a fiction. I'm far from alone in the
point of view, but it is unprovable (from both sides) and the
"communcation" standpoint has everything going for it in our society that I
feel is desperately searching for a belief system which it has not been
able to maintain in the face of human and natural disaster. But that's
cheerful little me.
>Right outta them dead dudes to our ears. When Beethoven gives out
>angst, I still feel it. When Mozart radiates joy, I get happy. When
>Shakespeare kills off someone he's made me care about, I am upset.
>When Moliere makes a bon mot, I get it! I don't care when it was
>created; good art is timeless and communicates just as well today
>as it did no matter when it was initially created.
Beethoven and Mozart are working in abstract languages. What you gather may
or may not be there, even despite what words they might have written. As
for Shakespeare, it was you who cared; his part in it was vehicular,
although a nicely outfitted vehicle it is. And Moliere? Even if you don't
speak French? How about Chekov? In the original, I mean. This is all too
mixed up in our peculiar modern human inconsequence that breeds the desire
to validate ourselves by applying what we feel as a plastic veneer on a
decaying elm.
>So if Dennis Bathory-
>Kitsz communicates to me today, I respond! It appears you've just
>been therefore validated as a great artist, Dennis....
Maybe I should go kill myself now.
Okay, I'm done here. :) Thanks to everyone who's read through. I've
learned I'm a little less inclined to smash things up, but that's probably
because I'd end up breaking my aging self in the process.
Dennis
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