Modern music

music is subject to taste...

and one man's meat is another man's poison.

"Intellectuals complicate, genius simplify, mediocres oversimplify";)

Christopher Dunn-Rankin said:

What's wrong with Ives? He only ever wrote melodic, non-chaotic music.

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Come to think of it, what's wrong with Hindemith? He's about as tonal as can be in the 20th century!

And Schostakowitch? Pretty tonal and lyrical stuff there too! The cello concerti! The piano concerti! The 5th symphony (not my favourite of his, but certainly a REALLY tonal and lyrical piece)!

I just don't get really excited about the music. I don't really like it. It is like saying that you like tonal and meaningful music. You also love Grieg, Debussy, Ravel, Barber, Bernstein, Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven. But still you don't like Brahms, Mahler, Elgar, Richard Strauss, etc. It is just a personal preference. Personally I think the works of Mahler and Elgar and the others I mentioned are a little to "inflated" so to speak and they just get a little to much to deal with - kind of boring.

One needs to devote too much time and attention to a piece of "Modern" music in order to familiarize oneself with it.

Right. You have to learn the composer's "language" for any kind of communication to take place beyond aural wallpaper. As you rightly imply - one sometimes wonders whether it was worth the trouble.

What about Janacek and Bartok ?

Janacek is interesting. When I first heard his Sinfonietta, it came with a tutorial comment that his orchestration was weird (and it is too) and that he "couldn't orchestrate well". Being me, I then listened to a few earlier works and he could orchestrate perfectly well, so I concluded he was aiming for weird effects in the Sinfonietta and knew exactly what he was doing.

M

Anybody notice that most of the composers that people cite as modern are actually dead? How can they be modern if they're not alive and composing right now?

I realize that there is a period around the 30s/50s called the "modernist movement" but does anybody here listen to music that's "modern" in the literal sense of the word?

Yes. Jennifer Higdon is still alive. Ligeti only died recently. I listen to music by my composition teachers quite often. Harrison Birtwhistle, Brian Ferneyhough, and William Bolcom are all alive.

And as far as language:

You really don't need to learn the composer's language. Much modernist music is meant to communicate nothing. And it's a fundamental post-modernist viewpoint that anything can be understood with thought. You don't need to know the composer's language to understand a piece - you need to be able to describe what you hear, and how you're affected by it.

What you're doing, RRR, instead of declaring your feelings on all modern music, is telling us your feelings on a certain type of modern music, which is not the whole story, which is why people don't understand you. In essence, you don't understand us moreso. Notice most of the composers that we named as our favorites - none of them Xenakis, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Berg, Webern, Ligeti, etc., etc., etc. Yet those are the people you seem to be referring to when you describe 'modern' music.

The problem is that you are not as well versed in modern music as we are, therefore, you hear and comment on only the big names of composers who society has thrown up in infamy for writing ugly music. With a more open mind, you can find plenty of modern or contemporary composers who write the music you like. I cited John Adams as one of my favorite composers. His music is romantic in every sense! He writes the most lyrical music I've heard in this century! You should check him out, I'm sure you'd like at least his Harmonielehre. You should really seek out recordings of all the composers we have listed as our favorites, those you are not too familiar with, before you start a rant on 'modern' music, because I'm sure that your range of information is limited.

Well, Ligeti's one of my favorite composers, along with Elliot Carter and Brian Ferneyhough.

But they're not my top-level favorites: those spots are reserved for people like Arvo P

You ain' alone. I prefer (and compose) modern music - not necessarily atonal though I tend to avoid serialism as being too constricting.

I believe the classicists and early romanticists are still played because they make money for the record magnates. As soon as Mozart stops bolstering the share prices, his "fame" will recede. The most popular works are those plugged by the classical radio stations who get their listeners to vote....etc...

I do have great admiration for Beethoven, however. His instrumentation shows extraordinary foresight, seen in context.

M

Y'know, Mozart's been uber-famous and popular since about ten years after his death...

Yes. Jennifer Higdon is still alive. Ligeti only died recently. I listen to music by my composition teachers quite often. Harrison Birtwhistle, Brian Ferneyhough, and William Bolcom are all alive.

I wasn't picking on you Chris. I was picking on some other people. I've never heard Higdon.

However, I did hear Thomas Ades's Asyla recently and had the opportunity to check out the score as well. WOWWOWWOWWOWWOW!

Definitely a new breed of orchestrator.

GOod shite.

I know you weren't picking on me. I was just listing people who are fairly widely listened to who are still alive.

Yes. Jennifer Higdon is still alive.

And as far as language:

You really don't need to learn the composer's language. Much modernist music is meant to communicate nothing.

Fine, then aural wallpaper it is.

I'd be pleased to be enlightened as to what modernist music is, therefore. Do you mean prepostmodern? Modern? Today's?

And it's a fundamental post-modernist viewpoint that anything can be understood with thought. You don't need to know the composer's language to understand a piece - you need to be able to describe what you hear, and how you're affected by it.

I love this term "postmodernist". Comes up quite often but no one can tell us what it actually means. People usually throw it in to sound...never mind... As I'm inclined to the neopostmodernist view, I'm not sure where I sit on this one.

:o

Um, I was using the word 'language' in an information-theory sense. The fact that a group of sound making persons/objects organise themselves to make sounds (even if the only organisation is their combined presence at a point in time to make said noises) entails an attempt at communicating, providing a receiver is present with the spectacle of performance being part of the process of communicating.

It's perfectly possible to listen to someone speaking an unfamiliar foreign language on the radio where no other semiotic clues are given to 'meaning', and react. Fine, once in a while and possible fascination for some but not me, really.

:D

It's perfectly possible to listen to someone speaking an unfamiliar foreign language on the radio where no other semiotic clues are given to 'meaning', and react. Fine, once in a while and possible fascination for some but not me, really.

:o

I can't believe you said this, because I brought up the exact thing in my Cage seminar the other day. The response I got from my teacher was that it's internal, and not a part of the language or music. We're conditioned from an early age to look for meaning, unity, what have you. I totally disagree with what he said - I think that unities of artistic/sound elements exist, no matter what the communicative purpose is. It's how we can tell the difference between Spanish and French, and Chinese and Japanese, and Tibetan and Thai. Even if John Cage, in his I Ching pieces, meant to communicate nothing, he still created an artistic unity by setting out a method for using the I-Ching to create pitch or time material. Christian Wolff, by setting out the way performers were to respond to each other in "For 1, 2, or 3," created an artistic unity.

As far as definitions: Philosophically, Modernism is an offshoot of existentialism - where people create their own meanings for things, and there IS no REAL meaning, and by looking for meaning, people simply delude themselves to the truth.

Postmodernism is similar - there is no implicit meaning but that which a person gleans. People may create their own meanings for things, but those meanings are then valid, rather than delusional.

shostakovich, shostakovich, shostakovich

Shostakovich isn't modern. He hasn't written anything for years(Suffering from a severe case of death).

I can't believe you said this, because I brought up the exact thing in my Cage seminar the other day. The response I got from my teacher was that it's internal, and not a part of the language or music. We're conditioned from an early age to look for meaning, unity, what have you. I totally disagree with what he said - I think that unities of artistic/sound elements exist, no matter what the communicative purpose is. It's how we can tell the difference between Spanish and French, and Chinese and Japanese, and Tibetan and Thai. Even if John Cage, in his I Ching pieces, meant to communicate nothing, he still created an artistic unity by setting out a method for using the I-Ching to create pitch or time material. Christian Wolff, by setting out the way performers were to respond to each other in "For 1, 2, or 3," created an artistic unity.

I see your point. However, your examples suggest a certain familiarity with the tone and delivery of a language. To someone newly arriving from Pluto or neighbourhood, differences in regional timbre mught be apparent but sounds emitted from the human mouth would seem no more than bleatings...until they get down to some ethnomethodology. They may be happy enough to listen and be pleased or otherwise with the sound...as I am to the song of blackbirds in May (whereas George Banks in Mary Poppins would probably get a headache), regardless of whether and what individual blackbirds are communicating.

As far as definitions: Philosophically, Modernism is an offshoot of existentialism - where people create their own meanings for things, and there IS no REAL meaning, and by looking for meaning, people simply delude themselves to the truth.

Postmodernism is similar - there is no implicit meaning but that which a person gleans. People may create their own meanings for things, but those meanings are then valid, rather than delusional.

.

Ah, right, thanks... 'Fraid I'm more of a street philosopher, such were the demands of my education...all these -isms that creative endeavours tend to nullify...? The meaning of meaning has always puzzled me. As Baudrillard points out, the making of reality has got a bit inverted. But then...do meaning and reality matter? Well, it would be easy to fall into a discussion of solipsism here, at least an -ism I'm comfortable with!

Cheers.

:P

Ok, let's put a stop to the shouts of "such and such isn't modern because he's dead!" (although I give points for whoever said "suffering from a severe cause of death ;) ). When I said modern music, I ment anything from 1900 on. Perhaps I used the term incorrectly. Sorry.

And, Steve Reich isn't dead. He's still got a web sight.

John Adams isn't dead. He wrote a piece for 9/11.

Libby Larson isn't dead.

Actually, there are plenty of composers now who are more tonal than guys back in the 1900s (John Adams, for instance.).

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that there are so many other people who enjoy experimental-ish music. Everybody I know tends to shun anything that isn't Baroque, Classical, or Romantic. How dull ;).

And finally, on a somewhat related note, check this guy out

Albert Glinsky-- Homepage

Another modern composer.

And for those railing against Ligeti - you've all probably only heard his sound-mass music. Listen to the Concert rom

You I was wondering if anyone liked modern music. But by modern I mean-came out in the last year. Is it that most people here think today's music is boring or unintelligent, or is it that they just don't mention it? Most things I listen to came out in the past 10 years. mostly Deerhoof.

Oberlin routinely brings composers to its campus to premiere works - we're performing the extra-European premiere of an opera by Olga Neuwirth - Lost Highway - based on the film. It's huge - makes use of film, electronic music, live music, singers, speech actors...