Monday, January 17, 2005
Canon versus Repertory
We all know there are many composers who are considered important and influential but their works are seldom played and are certainly not part of the standard programming repertory. The Living Composer, who apparently wishes to remain anonymous, asks a question in his first-rate blog that deserves some discussion: "..Charles Ives might be the most discussed composer in American musical scholarship. Our discussion of Ives is central to our understanding of American classical music, but his useful experiments and mind-bending ideas were never put forward in a way that became palatable to a larger audience. He’s a bit of a niche composer who appears on a series like the ‘American Mavericks.’ His music does have a place in the SR, but it is nothing like that of Gershwin, for example.
Can we simply say then that Ives is more a part of the canon than the standard repertory?" The question raises a lot of interesting questions. For example, can we say John Adams, whose works get programmed and played a lot, a more important composer than, say, Morton Feldman, whose work is rarely head in big concert halls? (This is not to denigrate Adams, who is very good, but to raise the question of influence versus fame.) What are your thoughts?
posted by Jerry Bowles
1:46 PM
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