Wednesday, February 23, 2005
re: More
[This was entered as a comment on the preceding post, but was truncated so here is the complete entry FWIW]
I don't think your question is particularly offensive, so I figure I might as well up the ante. In my opinion, there are those who compose without meaning or substance. I recognize that this is entirely subjective, and one man's meaning is another man's mindless dribble. However, there have been many works I've sat through with the most open of minds, studied the scores, etc. listened over and over again trying to see what someone might have seen in them, only to come up empty handed.
When I was a teenager in the 70's, it was very inexpensive to attend concerts of "new music" at what was then Carnegie Recital Hall. Usually, these were concerts of the ISCM type, in which there was a small crowd, most of whom appeared to be the friends and students of the composers represented, and the applause was polite. But 5 minutes after each piece, I couldn't remember anything about the works in question, nor did it make me feel anything one way or the other. Not even anger, just nothing.
In my opinion, music needs to express something. Perhaps we're talking about acquired tastes, but even some of the most "difficult" music of composers like Feldman, Riley, Webern, etc. clearly express something. One might not like the music, and that's ok, but you should feel something. You should feel that the composer is trying to express something or other.
In contrast, (and here's where I really up the ante!), "academic" works do absolutely nothing for me. I'm not trying to generalize or categorize. However, I think people like Carter, Babbitt, Wuorinen and other "uptown" composers write for each other on an academic plane. Maybe this is what gives musicologists pleasure, but it does nothing for me whatsoever. Remember, it was Babbitt who wrote a now infamous essay "Who Cares if You Listen?" and I really do think he was serious.
I used to spend hours studying the scores of Carter, listening to records of his works, etc. really hoping to find something of interest. I really, really wanted to like his music. But with the possible exception of a few measures of his earlier work for harpsichord, flute and cello (or whatever it is), I have yet to find anything to engage me. The scores are pretty to look at, and appeal to my intellect in terms of their complexity. But the music is vapid and forgettable, in my opinion.
Now, I have nothing major against most music that I don't like. There are works of Adams, Nancarrow, Schoenberg and others that I really don't like (I love Schoenberg, but his opus 26 is really dull and strikes me as an academic exercise on the order of "Look, I can write a 12-tone work for something other than the piano!"). However, I can still respect the music as expressing something, just something I may not like to hear. Writing music as an academic exercise is anathema, in my opinion. I'm fine with music I think is garbage, because at least it makes me feel something. Not everyone will like my own music (my wife can't stand the string quartet I wrote for her many years ago, for example) and that's fine. Maybe no one will like it. And that's ok, so long as it makes them feel something.
True story: I had sent my former department chair, a wonderful older ob/gyn, a CD of my music courtesy of my iBook, and he sent me a nice e-mail telling me that it gave him a headache. But at least it made him feel something...
posted by David Toub
7:06 PM
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