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SEQUENZA21/
340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Zookeeper:   
Jerry Bowles
(212) 582-3791

Managing Editor:
David Salvage

Contributing Editors:

Galen H. Brown
Evan Johnson
Ian Moss
Lanier Sammons
Deborah Kravetz
(Philadelphia)
Eric C. Reda
(Chicago)
Christian Hertzog
(San Diego)
Jerry Zinser
(Los Angeles)

Web & Wiki Master:
Jeff Harrington


Latest Posts

So Nice, They Named It Twice
Mr. Postman, If You Please
You compose because.....
An American Tragedy Debuts Tonight at Met
Dream Music for Waking States
In praise of Paul Dessau
Fascinatin' Rhythm
BBC thinks again on free downloads
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money
Doctor Atomic continued


 

Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019


Sunday, December 04, 2005
Tragedy or Not?

The first reviews of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy are in--from the New York Times and the Associated Press--and they are respectful but... The verdict (from an admittedly small sample so far) seems to be that Tragedy is a qualified success; the reservation being a perception that the music is a bit too easy to like; perhaps not quite gnarly enough, to use my favorite perjorative for the polite form of mannered serialism that passes for modernism these days.

It seems to me that this discussion is less about a single composer or the merits of a single opera than a mirror into a nasty little power struggle between the aging icons of modernism (and the critics who came of age with them) who influence programs and commissions and a new breed of composers who believe it is their mission to bring audiences back to the concert hall and opera by writing music that people might actually enjoy hearing and, dare I say it, find hummable. The irony is that the modernists are now the reactionaries and the new tonalists are the revolutionaries. I suspect the best new music in next few years is going to come from somewhere toward the center of these two impulses.

 



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