Well heck, just ask Garth Brooks, or look at any Hollywood movie about any musician--music is only as important as the amount of money it generates! We should all know that, shouldn't we?
ajr not an academic, and always finding it more difficult to reach an audience than to please one > Dear John, > > I'm not going to bite on this one! Especially as I am also an academic. > > Other to say that you will note I put " " around "important", for > reasons that may in fact relate in some way to what you have expounded. > > Matthew > > John Howell wrote: >> At 3:09 PM +1100 10/27/09, Matthew Hindson wrote: >>> Any listers know of a list of 20C works that use the Dies Irae in some >>> form >>> or another? >>> >>> (Particularly "important" works?) >> >> Oh, my goodness, Matthew! You've certainly left yourself wide open on >> this one!!! "Important," as in "self-important," as in "pretentious," >> as in self-declared "art music"????? >> >> A great deal of the most "important" music of the 20th century (defining >> "important," just for fun, as "music that has been heard and enjoyed by >> the largest number of people and has influenced the lives of the largest >> number of people") has been written for movie scores, and more recently >> for TV drama scores, specials, or series. It is, in other words, >> functional music written for immediate use, written to be appealing to >> large numbers of people, and written with understanding of the huge >> emotional dimension that music can bring to any drama. >> >> I think that if you were to take an open and honest look at 20th century >> music, you would find that those composers whose music is written to >> satisfy their own egos, and who SAY that they don't care whether people >> like it or not, say that simply because their music is NOT music that >> people like--academic music written by academics for other academics. >> And also music that is influential, but only influential within that >> tightly-bound sub-culture of academics and the students who >> unfortunately have to write to please their professors. >> >> OK, I might be exaggerating just a teeny bit, but I DO think it's >> significant that while academic composers blithely declared the end of >> functional harmony, jazz, pop, and musical theater composers and >> songwriters ignored them as irrelevant and continue to write tonal music >> using functional harmony. Could there be a lesson there? >> >> John >> >> P.S. As to the Dies irae chant melody, it's been used over and over by >> composers in ALL styles who managed to stay awake in their music history >> classes and who know the strong association it has, for those in >> liturgical churches, with the Mass for the Dead. After all, it's there >> to be used freely by any composer with a decent undergraduate knowledge >> of music history. >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
