Dennis,
unfortunately I haven't got time to go into too many details - going on
tour tomorrow morning, incidentally to play what is called Bach's
reconstructed St Mark's Passion. That would be an interesting piece to
discuss in this context (and imo a rather questionable piece to perform,
but that's another story).
On 11.04.2006 Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
I don't agree with that -- and I'm not including pop in this, though
Albinoni and Vivaldi might be poppy enough. :)
So where is the line between pop and non-pop? Is Gershwin pop or non-pop
(admitedly one can't really call Gershwin contemporary, nor Bernstein
for that matter, but what were they then?)
Film has a shorter history, but even so, there's not much clamoring for
reshowings of Potemkin or The Great Dictator or Birth of a Nation or
Metropolis or even Nosferatu in preference to recent independent films. And
in English-language literature, excellent authors Annie Proulx or Salman
Rushdie or Robertson Davies or T.C. Boyle, for example, are hardly pop, and
are far better known among the arts-oriented general public than even the
greatest living concert composers. That public can talk about contemporary
literature or art film, but rarely about new nonpop. Just look at your
average artsy magazine (such as the New Yorker), even a virtual one like
Salon. It covers many topics in depth in the arts, but new nonpop has
appeared in but one discussion over the past several years.
I think you are actually making this a little too simple. It almost
sounds (and I know you don't intend it to sound like this) as though you
want to say, "everyone goes to the cinema to watch the newest film, but
noone listens to my music", to which one would have to reply,
unfortunately, because obviously you don't compose music which the
general public finds attractive enough. From a commercial point of view
your music is simply a complete failure.
Unfortunately we have to accept that contemporary art-music of the kind
which you are involved in has a very small audience. Even though as an
artist I find it absolutely necessary to support contemporary composers
in any way I can, and I have some interest in discovering other forms of
music and try to understand them, I also have to admit that I would
definitely not want to listen to music "from your world" (excuse me for
simplifying in such a way) more than once in a while, and I would
definitely prefer some Albinoni while driving home from a gig (I don't
actually listen to music very often in the car anyway).
Re-mounting or exhuming old works contributes to an atmosphere of ignorance
of present-day compositional genius that eats away at the creative
foundation of the very artform that gives music its life and renewal. By
default, more Albinoni = less Anderson (any of them!).
The much I appreciate your praise for present day compositional genius,
but in reality this compositional genius is, at least for the most part,
so far removed from the general public's taste that I am afraid it can
only help itself. Albinoni composed music for a living, and no doubt he
had to go with contemporary taste. I do not want to offend anyone here,
but contemporary composers have other ideals. That may be good in many
senses, but the consequence is non-access to the general public, as much
as the general public has non-access to this kind of music, by complete
lack of the knowledge necessary to even begin to understand it. That is
not ignorance, or rather, if anything it is ignorance by the composers.
That's a problem, and every nonpop musician knows it's there -- that great
contemporary elephant in the room. It's a conscious choice to ignore it,
not an accident of circumstance. I think that's what I'm trying to
underscore -- that disinterring Albinoni is a considered decision to say
"yes" to the past and "no" to the present.
Who said it's either or? But I have to admit that I don't blame a
musically more or less uneducated person for not like anything after
Debussy, for the lack of general accessibility.
As I wrote previously, my reaction was amplified by the release of Julius
Eastman's surviving work a few months ago. This fine composer (whom we all
probably know only as the vocalist in Maxwell-Davies's "Eight Songs for a
Mad King") had fallen into poverty, was evicted, and had his scores and
recordings dumped onto the street, where they were carted away to the
landfill. At age 50, he died in 1990 -- without even an obituary.
Haven't there always been composers who died in poverty? One of the
greatest German poets, Heinrich Heine, died in poverty. Boccherini died
pretty much in poverty (Mozart's poverty, on the other hand, is mostly a
myth).
(I have to add that because I am going away for a few days, any
controversial replies will reach me late, so if you want to shout at me
and are waiting for a reaction it might take a while).
Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de
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