Re: Classical Composers
Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 5:45 pm
Oh my this is real.
No, I didn't mean Eastman. There have of course been many modernist and jazz composers, but I don't intend to cover them, due to my own lack of knowledge - though certainly some are of interest to classical fans... particularly Duke Ellington and Leo Brouwer.Nortaneous wrote:Surely you are referring to Julius Eastman, a minimalist and noted gay black guy who was purged from music for annoying John Cage, ended up a homeless crack addict, and, ironically, independently invented both black metal and 4chan in 1979, with a piece called "Evil Nigger", frequently performed as the second in a three-piece set of which the other two pieces are "Gay Guerrilla" and "Crazy Nigger". This is realSalmoneus wrote:A diversion!
Since we've finished the trinity and haven't gotten on to the second rank yet, I thought now might be time for something different. Since it's Black History Month*, I thought it might make sense to write a little about one of the greatest black classical composers.
More on this please! I never though that there was going to be a fusion, so I would like to hear why it will happen.Salmoneus wrote:I suspect that the inevitable future fusion of classical and popular traditions will lean very heavily on the bridge of minimalism.
...well, OK, I can't actually tell the future. 'Inevitable' was a little tongue in cheek. But here's four reasons:mèþru wrote:More on this please! I never though that there was going to be a fusion, so I would like to hear why it will happen.Salmoneus wrote:I suspect that the inevitable future fusion of classical and popular traditions will lean very heavily on the bridge of minimalism.
I didn't say "gyped". I've never heard anyone say that, since it's weird and obviously racist.mèþru wrote:Not criticising Sal here
Just reminding everyone that "gypsy" is considered a slur when us gadjo use it. Outside of discussions of history like here, don't use it. Just don't. And don't say "gyped". It's a derivation and once you know that it is based off the Romani it's obvious that it is a slur even if you don't know "gypsy" is one.
I wrote:Not criticising Sal here
Minimalism isn't accessible?Salmoneus wrote:Holy minimalism tends to be more accessible than minimalism proper - it's more consonant, and it tries to connect minimalism with mediaeval religious music, rather than with the avant garde.
Is innovation slowing down, or does the music industry just no longer reward it? Maybe the impression of slowed innovation exists for the same reasons that all movies are superhero movies now (except for the even worse Star Wars cargo cult, of course), and that the Democrats recently responded to their belated realization that pushing for a Clinton dynasty won't work by first churning out puff pieces on a different Clinton and then shrugging and digging up a Kennedy.Salmoneus wrote:Look at the history of pop music. To this layman, it doesn't look healthy - at least, it doesn't look like it did. Between, say, 1955 and 1985, popular music experienced not only an astonishing explosion of popularity, but also an explosion of creativity. There was always something new, major genres being innovated and individual groups carving out stylistic variations within those genres. It looked like a tradition that was strong and vibrant and forward-looking, a tradition in the grip of a permanent revolution.
But now, most of the new music I overhear today sounds very much like the new music I overheard ten or twenty years ago. The increased use of rap and rap-derived styles was maybe the last big thing, but even that I get the impression has past its peak. Indeed, a lot of new music seems to be intentionally evoking the music of the 1980s, or the 1960s, or even sometimes the 1950s.
That's not inherently a bad thing. In a way, it's healthy for society, to digest what has been accomplished rather than insist that everyone be chasing the ever-fleeting now. But it's a change in the nature of musical popularity, and it's a change away from a vital, independent, constantly innovating culture toward a culture that reuses, quotes, reframes, borrows, and looks back. That's the sort of musical culture that seems like it would eventually turn back to the hundreds of years of music it has at its back - a tradition of music still kept vital and available by its continued dominance of film, TV and video game incidental music, and by its prominence in instrumental paedagogy.
OK, so if you don't think anyone said anything offensive, and you don't think anyone was offended, why did you take over the conversation? To warn imaginary offensive people against saying things no-one said that might perhaps offend imaginary offended people? I mean, great, sure, you're wonderful and SO enlightened, it's nice that you told us that, good to know, but not every thread has to be about that, OK? This isn't the "how virtuous is methru?" thread. And while I know tangents and hijacks are inevitable and not wholly unwelcome, it's really tiring to not be able to have any conversation without having to detour into third-party virtuous language-policing debates, particularly ones like this that only hypothetical.mèþru wrote:Well I learned something new. Yay learning!
@Sal
I'm not accusing you or saying you did anything wrong:I wrote:Not criticising Sal here
Not particularly. Glass and Adams sell well, but mostly their later, less minimalist work. Certainly if you look at a classic like It's Gonna Rain - well, it's fascinating, but it's not going to hit the bestseller charts. Likewise Trio for Strings, or The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. Even something like Persian Surgery Dervishes or Piano Phase... well, sure, it's magnetic and hyponotic and it does have a considerable niche audience, but you don't hear it on ClassicFM every day. Even In C itself isn't really immediately accesible, though it's great fun. Sure, there are exceptions, pieces that have an immediate appeal, like Music for a Large Ensemble or, in a darker mood, glass' violin concerto (I just love that saxophone version) but these are exceptions.Nortaneous wrote:Minimalism isn't accessible?Salmoneus wrote:Holy minimalism tends to be more accessible than minimalism proper - it's more consonant, and it tries to connect minimalism with mediaeval religious music, rather than with the avant garde.
I wasn't really talking about the reasons for the stagnation, just the results.Is innovation slowing down, or does the music industry just no longer reward it? Maybe the impression of slowed innovation exists for the same reasons that all movies are superhero movies now (except for the even worse Star Wars cargo cult, of course), and that the Democrats recently responded to their belated realization that pushing for a Clinton dynasty won't work by first churning out puff pieces on a different Clinton and then shrugging and digging up a Kennedy.Salmoneus wrote:Look at the history of pop music. To this layman, it doesn't look healthy - at least, it doesn't look like it did. Between, say, 1955 and 1985, popular music experienced not only an astonishing explosion of popularity, but also an explosion of creativity. There was always something new, major genres being innovated and individual groups carving out stylistic variations within those genres. It looked like a tradition that was strong and vibrant and forward-looking, a tradition in the grip of a permanent revolution.
But now, most of the new music I overhear today sounds very much like the new music I overheard ten or twenty years ago. The increased use of rap and rap-derived styles was maybe the last big thing, but even that I get the impression has past its peak. Indeed, a lot of new music seems to be intentionally evoking the music of the 1980s, or the 1960s, or even sometimes the 1950s.
That's not inherently a bad thing. In a way, it's healthy for society, to digest what has been accomplished rather than insist that everyone be chasing the ever-fleeting now. But it's a change in the nature of musical popularity, and it's a change away from a vital, independent, constantly innovating culture toward a culture that reuses, quotes, reframes, borrows, and looks back. That's the sort of musical culture that seems like it would eventually turn back to the hundreds of years of music it has at its back - a tradition of music still kept vital and available by its continued dominance of film, TV and video game incidental music, and by its prominence in instrumental paedagogy.
I don't really understand what dubstep is (back to the pop genre thread, I guess), but it doesn't sound particularly radical to me - likewise grime, which is apparently the most revolutionary thing in music since the war...It seems like innovation mostly gets spun off into ephemeral electronic microgenres. A few Eurovisions ago, half the songs had dubstep drops. Then dubstep was memory holed and witch house started coming in. I don't know what came after that. Nothing, probably.
They did, after all, call a song "Baba O'Riley".Salmoneus wrote:The Who were outright impersonating Terry Riley at times.
If you're joking (maybe you're not), then: they weren't. "Baba O'Riley" is specifically a Riley homage; compare the intro section with the intro to A Rainbow in Curved Air.Ryusenshi wrote:They did, after all, call a song "Baba O'Riley".Salmoneus wrote:The Who were outright impersonating Terry Riley at times.
That's a nice term for it, though it's interesting to see Pärt and Tavener together in the same "genre", because Tavener feels to me to be much less minimalistic than Pärt (though tbf my Tavener experience is mostly The Protecting Veil, which I love to bits, so that may be a bit of an anomaly).Salmoneus wrote:- Arvo Part belongs to a genre known as 'holy minimalism' or the like; there, he's joined by Henryk Gorecki and John Tavener (not to be confused with John Taverner, another composer born hundreds of years earlier), as well as a host of less known composers, many from eastern europe and the baltic - the movement is closely connected to religion, and particularly orthodoxy (although I did once hear some latvian neopagan minimalism at a concert). Holy minimalism tends to be more accessible than minimalism proper - it's more consonant, and it tries to connect minimalism with mediaeval religious music, rather than with the avant garde.
Ah Sheku! That lad had done so much to popularise the cello in recent times (along with Two Cellos). He also won BBC Young Musician of the Year 2016 with his performance of Shostakovich's (first) cello concerto (another piece I love to bits, in fact I consider it one of Shostakovich's best).Salmoneus wrote:At the Baftas last year, for instance, there was a live performance by a young black cellist performing a classical rearrangement of Cohen's "Hallelujah", and the popular response was immense [he's a member of the (mostly) all-black Chineke! orchestra, and cites his musical heroes as Bob Marley and Mstislav Rostropovich]. He just released his debut album, and it's reached the top 20 in the overall UK album charts. Crucially, unlike many earlier crossover classical hits, his album isn't mostly being bought by older people nostalgic for the music they grew up hearing but never quite got into - it's being bought by young people being exposed to music they're interested in but not really familiar with. [his album has cello versions of songs by Cohen and Marley, alongside populist classical hits like The Swan, some less famous but still accessible music like a movement from The Gadfly, but then also Shostakovich's cello concerto, which is seriously heavy stuff.]
The problem with all the minimalists is that they don't like to be called minimalists, and most of them have experimented in other directions, particularly later in their careers. And within minimalism - Reich, for instance, has actually moved toward holy minimalism with his later embrace of Jewish religious music, iirc.Frislander wrote:That's a nice term for it, though it's interesting to see Pärt and Tavener together in the same "genre", because Tavener feels to me to be much less minimalistic than Pärt (though tbf my Tavener experience is mostly The Protecting Veil, which I love to bits, so that may be a bit of an anomaly).Salmoneus wrote:- Arvo Part belongs to a genre known as 'holy minimalism' or the like; there, he's joined by Henryk Gorecki and John Tavener (not to be confused with John Taverner, another composer born hundreds of years earlier), as well as a host of less known composers, many from eastern europe and the baltic - the movement is closely connected to religion, and particularly orthodoxy (although I did once hear some latvian neopagan minimalism at a concert). Holy minimalism tends to be more accessible than minimalism proper - it's more consonant, and it tries to connect minimalism with mediaeval religious music, rather than with the avant garde.
I've only heard it once myself (actually, did I hear the second? No idea). In New College Chapel, as it happens, along with, coincidentally, a work by Arvo Part. I found it very moving, whichever it was, but also rather harrowing. I should probably check it (/them) out again.Ah Sheku! That lad had done so much to popularise the cello in recent times (along with Two Cellos). He also won BBC Young Musician of the Year 2016 with his performance of Shostakovich's (first) cello concerto (another piece I love to bits, in fact I consider it one of Shostakovich's best).
This would scare the living hell out of Proletarian Musicians. I love it.Salmoneus wrote:But honestly, I've always loved this)
I'm not sure what you mean?Raholeun wrote:This would scare the living hell out of Proletarian Musicians. I love it.Salmoneus wrote:But honestly, I've always loved this)
I'd like to see your citation there, but in general you are correct. Although attitudes changed over time, the RAPM was initially vehemently opposed to jazz, since they regarded it as, like you state, a vehicle of Western decadence. For instance, M.A. Gorkij famously contemplated on the jazz ensemble that disturbed his evening meditations: "an orchestra of lunatics, driven mad by sex, and conducted by a human stallion wielding an enormous phallus". As you will know, Gorkij was quite an influential guy in the Soviet cultural sphere of that time and his opinion mattered. The fact that jazz was associated with Afro-Americans also didn't necessarily create sympathy for the genre. To them, they thought, jazz was like opium and certainly not a marching tune. Jazz thus did not fit the ideal of utopian music and I can imagine Shostakovich giving the RAPM quite a shock.Salmoneus wrote:I'm not sure what you mean? [snap]Raholeun wrote:This would scare the living hell out of Proletarian Musicians. I love it.Salmoneus wrote:But honestly, I've always loved this)
I had an idea earlier today: I have no problem with classical pieces in film soundtracks. Instead of trying to "understand" a piece, I should try to listen to it as if it were the soundtrack to a nonexistent film. Maybe that will do the trick.Salmoneus wrote:I think you have to bear in mind that classical music isn't really very intellectual - it's much more to do with raw emotion. You don't have to analyse "what things mean" or where the modulations are - you don't have to be "confused". You just listen, and feel.
As I said before, this can be very counterproductive for beginners.Frislander wrote:Not like you describe it. There is however a strong current of reviewing different recordings of works (because these can vary immensely, in the same way a pop song can sound completely different when another artist covers it), and BBC Radio 3 has an entire program devoted to that on Saturday mornings.
I wish I had heard this years ago.Salmoneus wrote:Just ignore all that. Sure, if you really like a piece, it can be fun finding a version you like the most. But for the most part, it doesn't really matter.
Yes, absolutely!Ryusenshi wrote:Some belated thoughts on the conversation we had a month ago...
I had an idea earlier today: I have no problem with classical pieces in film soundtracks. Instead of trying to "understand" a piece, I should try to listen to it as if it were the soundtrack to a nonexistent film. Maybe that will do the trick.Salmoneus wrote:I think you have to bear in mind that classical music isn't really very intellectual - it's much more to do with raw emotion. You don't have to analyse "what things mean" or where the modulations are - you don't have to be "confused". You just listen, and feel.
I see your point. It's not as extreme as you make out - if you listen to reviews of a new release of Beethoven's 5th then yeah, they're going to assume you know it pretty well; but if you listen to reviews of a new release of Onslow string quartets, they're going to have to tell you a bit about it. Likewise there are a lot of "if you liked that you might like this" things, and "composer of the week" things (where they may follow the life of a less-famous composer and tell you about the development of their work).As I said before, this can be very counterproductive for beginners.Frislander wrote:Not like you describe it. There is however a strong current of reviewing different recordings of works (because these can vary immensely, in the same way a pop song can sound completely different when another artist covers it), and BBC Radio 3 has an entire program devoted to that on Saturday mornings.
- First, because these reviews only talk about the recording while taking the work itself for granted, as if the listener already knew it (that was the point of my sarcastic "anyway you already know all of Mozart's sonatas and operas, don't you?").
- Second, because finding a precise version can be difficult. Should I go to a third store to find the one I heard about? Should I buy the brand new, $20 CD they have? Or the no-name $2 CD from the bargain bin?
I wish I had heard this years ago.[/quote]Salmoneus wrote:Just ignore all that. Sure, if you really like a piece, it can be fun finding a version you like the most. But for the most part, it doesn't really matter.
Hoo boy yes! Anton Reicha remembered acting as a page-turner for an early Beethoven concert: "I was mostly occupied in wrenching the strings of the piano which snapped, while the hammers stuck among the broken strings. Back and forth I leaped, jerking out a string, disentangling a hammer, turning a page — I worked harder than Beethoven." When Beethoven went deaf, he just stopped having his piano repaired - an observer saw it with "its strings broken and tangled, like a thorn bush whipped by a storm".[re-reads Salmoneus's stuf]
Man, Beethoven was a real rock star. Unstable moods, numerous affairs, too much alcohol, messy hair, hearing loss... almost everything's here. Did he destroy a few musical instruments?
Serious answer: a combination of changes in politics (having opposed the restoration of the monarchy, he was deprecated when the monarchy did eventually return) and change in tastes (his classical style went out of fashion quickly, and any lingering fondness for it was captured by Haydn and Mozart).Rhetorical question: how come I had never heard of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges before?