Music of the present

[some guy]

Music of the future threads always intrigue me, carried on, as they are, by people who seem to know very little about the present or even the recent past. I try to keep up as best I can, and I feel like I know hardly anything, yet. I just went to a concert here in Portland, OR of Urs Leimgruber, someone I'd never heard of before. Well, it was fantastic. And I felt like such a chump not knowing who this phenomenal performer/composer was.

Here's what the present looks like to me, from the concerts I attend and the CDs I buy and the musicians I hang out with.

Lots of improv, mostly with electronics and objects, but "regular" instruments are quite welcome, so long as they're used to full capacity. (No, we never reach "full.")

Still active acousmatic, soundscape, music for fixed media, with or without live instruments.

Theatre. Some very intriguing uses of space and sound and action, including video. (Best I've seen recently was Azguime's Salt Itinerary. Stunning one man opera, with endlessly inventive live video. See this if you get a chance (which should be easy as it's out on video).

I still see some Fluxus-like events from time to time, too, though mostly it seems that installations are what composers (some of them) are really into nowadays.

Well, those are the main things I'm in frequent contact with. I see a lot of shows with conventional instruments, too, with or without electronics. But the bulk is as I've outlined.

So what are the rest of you taking in now, in the present?

[smittims]

I like to hear new symphonies, concertos and operas, and always try to give them  a fair hearing, though I find a lot less to admire nowadays than in the new music of thirty or forty  years ago. There seemed to be more freshness and excitement then. Robin Holloway's dreary symphony depicting the 20th century,and  David Matthews' embarrassingly coy symphony on 'Down Ampney' , make a poor substitute for Tippett's 4th and Shostakovitch's 15th, both of which thrilled me when I heard  their first performances.

One recent work I have enjoyed very much is  Harrison Birtwistle's opera 'The Minotaur'. I suspect this  is now regarded as a rather old-fashioned work; it reminded me more than once of Tippett's own homeric opera 'KingPriam'. But it was undoubtedly a profound work.   

[Roehre]

...  I find a lot less to admire nowadays than in the new music of thirty or forty  years ago. There seemed to be more freshness and excitement then. [These new works], make a poor substitute for Tippett's 4th and Shostakovitch's 15th, both of which thrilled me when I heard  their first performances. 

I've got to say that I'm thinking/feeling the same.

The question however is, whether we ourselves haven't changed in a way, which makes this type of feelings/remarks rather natural.

I remember a colleague (unfortunately he passed away a couple of month ago) who told me in the 1970s, around the time Philips released Tippett's 3rd symphony (1975 I guess), and shortly after the Melodya release of Shostakovich 15, that he was not admiring the music composed by Tippett, Britten, shostakovich and so forth as he did Vaughan Williams, Walton, or the Schönberg quartets in the 1940s and 50s, "as I think these new works lack freshness and excitement" (a quote of my friend's which's stuck in my mind ever since - as i didn't agree with him, what didn't occur many times).

I'm afraid we don't live to hear the remarks in the future regarding the present compositions/composers.....  :(

[some guy]

I think there are several questions, not just the 'have we changed?' one.

Are Robin Holloway and David Matthews representative, that is, are there other composers, in Italy, for instance, who are writing more exciting symphonic music? (Are they in the same league with Tippett, Shostakovich, and Britten?)
Are composers nowadays putting their best effort into symphonies, concertos, and opera?
(Was this the case even forty years ago? Were Tippett, Shostakovich, or Britten ever truly "new"?
Are the best composers today putting any effort into symphonies, concertos, and opera?
Is new music today even happening in symphony halls or opera houses?

You might guess, just from the opening post, that I would answer all of these questions with "no." That is, I would say that music has gone somewhere else (literally and conceptually) from where it was in the forties. That even in the seventies, the emphasis had shifted from traditional concert halls to other venues (because the kind of music being written/performed had shifted from works for symphony musicians to things like Fluxus and electroacoustic and so forth. You wouldn't expect to hear music by Keith Rowe or Jonty Harrison or Tim Hodgkinson or Christopher Hobbs in a symphony hall, would you?).

I was going to concerts of the L.A. Phil in the seventies and hearing new pieces by Ligeti, Berio, and Lutosławski, among others. The single appearance of John Cage's music with that organization was in the seventies. In the eighties, I attended fewer concerts in the Dorothy Chandler. I was still going to concerts, but they weren't in the symphony hall. (I've been in the Disney Center, but not in the main hall, just in the Redcat hall downstairs, where the new music stuff goes on.) In the nineties, I can't remember more than a couple concerts in a symphony hall--the little American music festival in San Francisco that included the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, and another performance of the Cage I'd heard in L.A., Renga with Apartment House 1776.

In 2007, I attended the Musica Electronica Nova festival in Wrocław. Some of the concerts took place in the symphony hall there, the first time I'd been in a symphony hall in over ten years. In those ten years, I was still going to concerts. Indeed, in the past ten years, I've gone to more concerts than ever before, mostly in bars, coffee shops, art galleries, hotel lobbies, consulates, smaller concert halls (like Theatre Jacques Coeur in Bourges) and in spaces devoted to new music (like IMPART in Wrocław).

So yes, we have changed. Yes, music has changed. Yes, music is being played in different places

And yes, there's still a lot of fine stuff out there!!

[Reiner Torheit]

I am against the removal of new music from concert halls.  It constitutes a massive sulk on the part of those involved...  "well, if you don't like our music, we don't care, we'll run away and perform it for new audiences elsewhere".  But we all know that these new audiences are actually the friends and relations of those involved, and very few others.  Not only does it create an artistic ghetto - the composers and performers involved are directly complicit in creating this ghetto.

Until new music is programmed and performed regularly in the same halls where older music is played, its reputation will always be tainted by a "wasn't actually good enough" tag.  This is the truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be.

On the specific question of opera, since it's my own field...   trying to do operas in venues which are not opera-houses is three times more difficult than using purpose-built opera-theatres.  Any work done away from opera-theatres is automatically prejudicing the success the piece deserves by performing it in a venue that is self-defeating.  This is enormously unfair to the work being presented - it's had its legs pulled from under it before we even start.   An opera theatre is a place where poorly-paid but dedicated staff work to put on operas...  there are costumiers, make-up artists, drama staff, rehearsal pianists, rehearsal rooms, lighting technicians, sophisticated lighting rigs, sound technicians and sound systems... the entire fertile test-tube for making great creative work come alive. 

But what about doing the show in an abandoned factory, hey, that would be sooo cool, right? they all cried. 

No, it wouldn't be. I have done three shows in abandoned factories, and I can promise you it's utter crap.  No lighting (contemporary audiences are very sophisticated and expect the special effects they saw in THE LORD OF THE RINGS..  two 40W bulbs mounted in an dubiously-wired twin socket ain't going to cut it, or even get near).  No seats for the audiences (yeah, yeah, "planks mounted on oil-drums", tell me about it.  Tell the audience about it.  Pay for their coat to be dry-cleaned afterwards). Freezing cold. Mice.  Bird-shit all over everything.  And when the audience want a pee...  where do they go?  In a bucket?  My most recent abandoned-factory show was last weekend,  so I have especially fresh memories of all the things that are wrong, wrong, wrong with them. 

Go ahead, tell me about the great tradition of Poor Theatre, and the medieval commedia troupes played in market squares, right?   But modern audiences have a complete set of expectations, and at least in town squares there is a hope that there might at least be daylight.  If, that is, it's not raining.  Medieval jesters didn't have to refund the groats thrown in their jolly jester caps if it rained.

I write all this having just signed-up to direct an opera in an outdoor festival in 2 months time, and then a full-on Tchaikovsky work on the same outdoor stage in a year's time.   It might sound wromantic and inspiring, but the results of this kind of thing are always worse than if it had just been performed in a purpose opera-theatre which has all the necessary facilities exactly where they are wanted, and where shows go on come snow, come sandstorm, come whirlwind.

Before anyone mentions the superb work done by outfits like Punchdrunk, bear in mind that the conversion of the Battersea Arts Centre to house the installation of MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH cost nearly half a million pounds.  This is not a viable option for 99% of productions.  Alas.

[IanP]

Are Robin Holloway and David Matthews representative, that is, are there other composers, in Italy, for instance, who are writing more exciting symphonic music? (Are they in the same league with Tippett, Shostakovich, and Britten?)

I can't think of others, but wonder why composers would necessarily want to write in a 'symphonic' genre nowadays. Though it could be argued that some of Lachenmann's works are of this nature, albeit not explicitly titled as such.

Are composers nowadays putting their best effort into symphonies, concertos, and opera?

Symphonies - probably not. Concertos - in the sense of works for soloist and either ensemble or orchestra, there have been some interesting works in recent times (for example those of Birtwistle, Furrer, Saunders, which I think are as good as those composers' other works). Opera - depends how you define the term; music-theatre (as a broad category including opera) - I'd say yes.

Is new music today even happening in symphony halls or opera houses?

I don't think so*, because of the basic conservatism of the audiences who frequent those places. It's not inconceivable that new music could take place in such venues, but that would require a quite different constituency of listeners, who in turn might be less likely to come to such things because of the traditional associations that the environments carry with them.

In terms of the issue of new music existing in a ghetto alluded to in the subsequent post - classical music is already a ghetto. For new music to survive, it surely requires a more ambitious approach than simply aiming for a slightly increased subsection of what is already an ever-dwindling classical audience. Maybe it needs to become less worried about whether or not it is called 'classical'?

*It depends what one means by 'new music', though; there are works that have been composed in recent times played in these environments, but if I say that 'new music' is not really happening here, I'm referring to that which can make a plausible claim to be genuinely 'new'.

[some guy]

I am against the removal of new music from concert halls.

Me too, but it's too late. That exodus has been going on for several decades now. And what of it? It's just going back to where it started out, in people's homes and in bars and such.

It constitutes a massive sulk on the part of those involved...  "well, if you don't like our music, we don't care, we'll run away and perform it for new audiences elsewhere".

Well, yeah, I suppose this could be true in some instances. Certainly not all, though. (Very few, I'd guess.) Why stay where you're not welcome, anyway? Besides, what if "not welcome" means simply that you CANNOT get played in these venues. Why is going somewhere where you will be played a "massive sulk"? It's just common sense. 

But we all know that these new audiences are actually the friends and relations of those involved, and very few others.

We do?

...the composers and performers involved are directly complicit in creating this ghetto.

But Ian's already addressed this, so....

Until new music is programmed and performed regularly in the same halls where older music is played, its reputation will always be tainted by a "wasn't actually good enough" tag. This is the truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be.

Not in my household it ain't. The same halls where older music is played are the things with tarnished reputations. Besides, why the insistence that the place matters so much? Isn't it all about the music?

As for opera, I'm inclined to agree with Ian that if we call it music-theatre (Goebbels, Azguime, TAM, and so forth) then it's one of the more exciting manifestations of new music. (I use new to mean novel not just recent.) I've been to musical-theatrical events in abandoned factories. There's always been adequate lighting and toilets, and no one expects elaborate sets and costumes. (These aren't people who are usually attending older operas. Who is coming to these shows you're involved in? What are the operas? You mentioned Tchaikovsky. Well, no. I can't think that Tchaikovsky would work too well in an abandoned factory. The Spy Collective? Well, probably yeah.

[Reiner Torheit]

I'm inclined to agree with Ian that if we call it music-theatre

\

Then you're just deceiving yourself.

But Ian's already addressed this, so....

Where?  Not to my satisfaction he hasn't.  Ian despises music-theatre and doesn't go to it, ever.  [...]

[IanP]

I don't know where you get the idea that I despise music-theatre - far from it. I'm actually involved in creating a new degree course in the subject, for your information.

Looking back on this thread makes me think - it would be good to have a thread, perhaps even a whole child board, on venues for music-making - to look at all aspects of them, their atmosphere, acoustics, at site-specific work, thoughts on particular venues, and so on. Such a big subject and so important, I believe. I'm not sure which child board this would best go in at present - Gerald, would you be prepared to create a new board, if you like the idea?

[Admin]

Done, Mr. P --> http://artmusic.smfforfree.com/index.php/board,66.0.html

[Reiner Torheit]

I don't know where you get the idea that I despise music-theatre - far from it.

From your postings elsewhere in which you said the last time you went to an opera was the ENO production of XERXES ten years ago - which you hated.

[IanP]

[...] somehow a dislike for hammy, trivialising operatic performances such as one gets at the big opera houses in London, and which I tend to stay away from (and this particular performance of Xerses was three or four years ago) translates into a total lack of interest in music-theatre, a far wider and richer category than this narrow view would allow.

I'm not particularly sure how much potential there remains in conventional 'opera', so deeply rooted in archaic musical traditions and developing as a response to particular historically-rooted musical styles. As with so much contemporary music-making, the fact that it is essentially directed by institutions whose bread and butter is a 'traditional' repertory and attract a conservative audience seems to encourage the creation of works which try hard simply not to put off that latter audience too much, rather than exploring all the much wider potential in combinations of music and theatre. In a sense, all live musical performance is a form of theatre; so much can be done (in all types of musical genres) by imaginative approaches to the combination of sounds, motion, site (as opposed simply to 'stage'), use of visual elements, and speech and/or singing, or some sub-set of these. Privileging one particular variety of these (and giving the vast majority of funding towards that) hardly encourages creative innovation.

[Reiner Torheit]

[...] somehow a dislike for hammy, trivialising operatic performances such as one gets at the big opera houses in London, and which I tend to stay away from (and this particular performance of Xerses was three or four years ago) translates into a total lack of interest in music-theatre, a far wider and richer category than this narrow view would allow.

I have no idea, and could care less, when you saw a production of XERXES that was first produced in 1985 for the anniversary of Handel's birth.  [...]

I see your remarks above negate works like THE MASK OF ORPHEUS and GAWAIN, which are - we discover from you! - "hammy" and "trivial".

Bwaaaaaaaaahahaaha!!

[...]

Goodbye. 

[t-p]

I was reading about German composers on the net.
Here is the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music

Do people agree with this definition of Modernism?
Postmodernism is a reaction to Modernism, but it can also be viewed as a response to a deep-seated shift in societal attitude. According to this latter view, Postmodernism began when historic (as opposed to personal) optimism turned to pessimism, at the latest by 1930 (Meyer 1994, 331).

[Neil McGowan]

I was reading about German composers on the net.
Here is the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music

Do people agree with this definition of Modernism?
Postmodernism is a reaction to Modernism, but it can also be viewed as a response to a deep-seated shift in societal attitude. According to this latter view, Postmodernism began when historic (as opposed to personal) optimism turned to pessimism, at the latest by 1930 (Meyer 1994, 331).

I don't especially agree or disagree with it. I am not sure it is helpful to stick this kind of label on work - although I'm sure it keeps the academics in a job :)

The idea that "modern" could be a trend sits uncomfortably with me - surely every generation thinks its own latest works are "modern"?  Mysteriously we are about to start coming up on the 100th anniversaries of "modern" works quite soon  ;)