@Jos Wylin said:

Since I'm not a very 'serious' person, I wanted to soften this at times harsh dicussion or dispute with another wink. I hope nobody minds... (You never know these days.)

Even the greatest were great in all they did, even in the smallest. At least that's what we always think. But the greatest also had hidden pleasures in fooling the audience and scoffing at lesser talented fellow composers. These two excerpts are by no means (a)tonal experiments and were composed merely for (sarcastic) pleasure.

Mozart-1

Mozart-2

😉 Jos

Hi Jo's

I am honestly embarrassed by the great examples you provide 👍

"To be serious" please you are the right one to give us and the world finally the ultimative History of the greatest clusters of the old european music-tradition of at least the last 500 years. So what are you waiting for, that is the answer we need to decide the real historic importants of atonal composition and its meaning for the answer of the question "where is music going?"

So it is up to you to decide this discussion 😉

Thanks Steffen. Sad to see that you've lost your sense of humour. You must have noticed that I didn't have any intention to participate in the intellectual battle of who is the cleverest or the most experienced historian in casu atonality. For sure it isn't me! I've only tried to bring everything in the right perspective with some kind of musical joke. Exactly like Mozart was doing. Jos

@Errikos said:

And then compare all that to this decade we are proudly (and relatively peacefully - should I say numbly?) traversing?..

Yeah, that's what I thought...

I cant get enough of Salonen's music. He is a great company for working,

I am listening to this now: 

 I would say we are traversing quiet a decade, if only we are willing to keep our ears open while ignoring the noise.

Oh obviously I have to explain what my intention was:

I just like your Postings, since they are funny.

And yes I thinc in musik fun is imho always one possible way to reasonable answer. "seriously" 😛

So all is fine I am very glad about your contribution here!

I dont think any potential demise of classical music has atonal music to blame.  No one has time for symphonies or string quartets. They want quick rhythmic beats they can download on itunes and go joggin

 I would say we are traversing quiet a decade, if only we are willing to keep our ears open while ignoring the noise

 

Amen Anand.  A voice of reason and common sense.

@mh-7635 said:

I dont think any potential demise of classical music has atonal music to blame.  No one has time for symphonies or string quartets. They want quick rhythmic beats they can download on itunes and go joggin

 I would say we are traversing quiet a decade, if only we are willing to keep our ears open while ignoring the noise

 

Amen Anand.  A voice of reason and common sense.

Puh!!!!! The lamentation about the "demise" of traditional music is so old as tradition is!

Oh how fearful douting are people talking of "demises" like that! How could they forget, that nearly no one is born with a particular penchant to insist on any kind of historic tradition. We all first hear what attracts us immediatly, and most of us sooner or later expiereince after the difference of what is superficial and what is sustainable with enough breath to stay meaningful even through the changes that always happen.

There is nothing wrong with "quick beats", "jogging" or "downlads". If our tradition is alive it will always go on to select everything in everry time what deserves to be remembered.

And be sure it will be not the Discussion about any imagined alternative between tonal or atonal music, but simply those composers and their works who created in what ever musical language unique and convincing musical masterworks. And why not with quick beats, why not for the download, why should we not prefer listening while jogging. I at least do remember well how much I enjoyed listening Prokofievs Pianoconcertos on long travels in car and love those Concertos therefor much more than for the few Life concerts where I've heard them also.

Keep your mind and our tradition open for everything what might be worth to be remembered and I am sure nothing of real value will "demise" at all. (at least klassik-resampled.de will it keep with the incredible power of VSL-Samplelibraries alive and online for you for the next decades so there is no reason any more to fear any demise at all 😛)

@mh-7635 said:

Paul,

I have no contempt for the audience, the proof being I write music that is NOT divorced from the tradition, your assesment is misguided and based on assumption.  My music is recongnisably tonal as well as sometimes more adventurous harmonically. In my more 'dissonant, toxic, stinking, poisonous' pieces, all the signposts an intelligent listener needs to follow the discourse are present too - not the attitude of a composer who dismisses an audience. I do not have a 'who cares if you listen attitude'. Perhaps you actually should listen to my Adagio for strings or the Partita Concordia before you actually say anymore....

hewer

If you're reading now, I assume at the very least that you heard an appeal to the listener whether you liked the music or not.

Mike,

Please do not confuse my carefully considered conclusions about atonality (traditional not narrow definition) and the avant-garde, based on many years of experiencing many such compositions, as an attack on you personally. I must have mentioned this several times, but the only individual I have singled out for criticism is Cage, and he deserves it.

A composer should, IMHO, be expected to discern why the Dvorak 9 is a better piece of music than the Dvorak 2 for example. This level of critical listening and the ability to understand artistic merit is vanishing, or possibly already vanished. It's all just a matter of personal opinion and personal taste, right? Wrong, it is not.

What made me think you have a prejudice (a judgement without a reasoned conclusion based on evidence and/or experience) is among other things this quote. "However, I do not think concert music or art music should be written with too much toadying to the audience otherwise it becomes too easy an entertainment the result of which might weaken its transcendental power and hinder creative freedom." Read that sentence to a stranger and ask them what they think about the author.

As far as your music is concerned, I listened to the first two pieces on the page you linked, and part of the 12 piano pieces. I did not have time to listen to all of them. If you are looking for feedback, or reaction, I would say that your pieces that I heard are thoughtful, intelligent and often attractive. These pieces are primarily tonal, and firmly rooted in western musical tradition. It is not a matter of all music being great or terrible. Hence my call for greater discernment. All Dvoark symphonies are not equally great. All recently written music is not equally terrible. The pieces on your link are far better than any of your three examples of great compositions this decade. I would much prefer to listen to your music rather than to anything I ever heard by Boulez. And he is supposed to be phenomenal, but he isn't.

Paul

Anand,

While I generally agree that attention spans of 2017 are not what they were in 1917, My opinion is that attention span is not the dominant issue regarding concert music. The LOTR Symphony is about 2 hours and 12 minutes and contains six movements, yet it sells out venues all over the world. Bruckner and Mahler Symphonies, as you know, not brief, are more popular with audiences today than in 1917.

The audience for classical music today is much smaller than it was 50 years ago. However, I do have hope. One positive development is the greater availablility of orchestral musical instrument instruction in school. Together with the availability of lower priced, but usable, string instruments from China, more young people are participating in orchestral music. Many of these students will grow up with an appreciation for classical music.

Paul

Paul,

definitely. glad to think you dont feel that classical music is dying. 

LOTR is different from Mahler or a Shostakovich, as you very well know, more than me. LOTR has soothing passages and melodies. Mahler's music is harder and takes a while to get used to...particulary his use of unconventional orchestration. It requires tremendous attention o follow the complex structure, as opposed to film music, which by intention is instantly gratifying. Compared to Shore,  I would say John Williams is more of a cross-over between classical music and film music since he uses highly sophisticated orchestration and melodic innovations. Every film score of JW is almost equivalent to a tone poem, of the likes of Stauss, although much diluted for the audience. Of course you must know all of these more than me, but jusy saying.

I do know that LOTR is played by symphonies, but so is Sting and Pink Floyd and Zimmer. That doesnt make them equivalent to classical works. But I agree that Its smart of orchestras to play from the popular repoertoire to keep auidiences coming.

I am very upbeat about the future of classical music. As Benjamin Zander says, 

we need to look at the a situation where 'no one is wearing shoes' as a business opportunity rather than pessimism.

Cheers

Anand

@mh-7635 said:

Paul,

I have no contempt for the audience, the proof being I write music that is NOT divorced from the tradition, your assesment is misguided and based on assumption.  My music is recongnisably tonal as well as sometimes more adventurous harmonically. In my more 'dissonant, toxic, stinking, poisonous' pieces, all the signposts an intelligent listener needs to follow the discourse are present too - not the attitude of a composer who dismisses an audience. I do not have a 'who cares if you listen attitude'. Perhaps you actually should listen to my Adagio for strings or the Partita Concordia before you actually say anymore....

hewer

If you're reading now, I assume at the very least that you heard an appeal to the listener whether you liked the music or not.

Mike,

Please do not confuse my carefully considered conclusions about atonality (traditional not narrow definition) and the avant-garde, based on many years of experiencing many such compositions, as an attack on you personally. I must have mentioned this several times, but the only individual I have singled out for criticism is Cage, and he deserves it.

A composer should, IMHO, be expected to discern why the Dvorak 9 is a better piece of music than the Dvorak 2 for example. This level of critical listening and the ability to understand artistic merit is vanishing, or possibly already vanished. It's all just a matter of personal opinion and personal taste, right? Wrong, it is not.

What made me think you have a prejudice (a judgement without a reasoned conclusion based on evidence and/or experience) is among other things this quote. "However, I do not think concert music or art music should be written with too much toadying to the audience otherwise it becomes too easy an entertainment the result of which might weaken its transcendental power and hinder creative freedom." Read that sentence to a stranger and ask them what they think about the author.

As far as your music is concerned, I listened to the first two pieces on the page you linked, and part of the 12 piano pieces. I did not have time to listen to all of them. If you are looking for feedback, or reaction, I would say that your pieces that I heard are thoughtful, intelligent and often attractive. These pieces are primarily tonal, and firmly rooted in western musical tradition. It is not a matter of all music being great or terrible. Hence my call for greater discernment. All Dvoark symphonies are not equally great. All recently written music is not equally terrible. The pieces on your link are far better than any of your three examples of great compositions this decade. I would much prefer to listen to your music rather than to anything I ever heard by Boulez. And he is supposed to be phenomenal, but he isn't.

Paul

 

Paul,

I think you worry too much about the audience. I concentrate on my own expression, if people like it, great if not, fine.  A discerning stranger might reply....."good attitude to have as I want to hear his/her take, not a work watered down for consumption, I do not want condescension in my art, I want challenge". Of course the lucky composer may well find his/her musical stance tallies with what the populous wants and that is fine too. That audience member might say of my sentence....."Arrogant s**t, just give me something I don't need to work hard at to appreciate". It's the perrenial problem for todays' music of which our spat is a symptom. The music  just has to be sincere, whatever the language as far as I can tell. I think Fahl makes a good point here.........

"Keep your mind and our tradition open for everything what might be worth to be remembered and I am sure nothing of real value will "demise" at all".

It's a little out of context here so sorry Fahl, but it seems relevant in our context too. The real value must surely start with the sincerity of the expression and intensity of the conviction, untramelled by external considerations. After that, time, familiarity and a bit of luck will decide.

 Finally Paul, just to clear this argument up from my side. I have no real problem with your opinion, rather the language you use and that has always been my main beef. You know why by now. I can't stop you from using it, you have all the rights invested in the internet behind you and you are not prepared to temper it, so I'll leave the last word to you, be it polite, scathing or insensitive.

Mike.

@Paul McGraw said:

Anand,

While I generally agree that attention spans of 2017 are not what they were in 1917, My opinion is that attention span is not the dominant issue regarding concert music. The LOTR Symphony is about 2 hours and 12 minutes and contains six movements, yet it sells out venues all over the world. Bruckner and Mahler Symphonies, as you know, not brief, are more popular with audiences today than in 1917.

Paul

LOTR "Symphony" is only 1.55.56 (Jean Louis Nicodés Gloria!-Symphony (1902-03) is even in my pretty reckless the tempoadvises following interpretation still longer 😛 - and had in real Performances 100 Years ago a duration of 2'30)

I personally never felt any wish to listen a LOTR-Symphony . It is Film music it belongs to the film. The Film is what raises the original attention for this music and determines its duration the musical ideas and their sequence.

It's Size is not at all comparable with a composer who is able to develop an indepedent and in any way ambitious and advanced musical thought of this size like Mahler, Nicodé, or Havergal Brian. And yes it is still hard and very much work to realise such music and it was already 100 Years ago. (Nicodes Symphony has had several only partial preformances and yes even if some conductors contacted me for details about Gloria, No one has every hat the courage to stage it again and I fear that one reason is that there will be only very few conductors and Orchestras today able to.) But does mean anything for the development of our musical culture ?

No (thanks to VSL-you can listen even that music now 😃)

However It is great that we have from one certain epoque embarrassing Masterworks like that but this is imho not at all an argument for any demise of anyting. There always have been very much other composition of all possible dimensions and the whole makes the Tradition what might be to continue not just one kind of singular peak.

(BTW. Hi Mike nice Violinsonata 👍.)

Hi fah5,

I know that I have not reponded to your last few posts. I haven't been ignoring you. I have read all of your posts. I just had nothing of interest to offer in response.

I was not presenting the LOTR symphony as a great piece of music comparable with a Mahler symphony, merely as something interesting and worthwhile that has been written within the last approximately 10 years. If anything as worthy as a Mahler symphony has been written within the last ten years I am not aware of it.  Regarding film music I would judge Williams as generally better than Shore, and Shore generally better than Zimmer, based on development of motives, harmonic language and orchestration skill. Most film music is not rewritten or re-arranged for the concert hall. The music of John Williams was a welcome exception, and several other composers have followed in his steps.

There is little qualitative difference between a late romantic orchestral suite and the film suites created by Williams for the concert hall. For example, I would recommend doing a harmonic, motivic and orchestration analysis of the Grieg Peer Gynt, and any of the Williams Harry Potter Suites. There are at least three that come to mind. Anyone who scoffs at the comparison has simply not done an honest analysis.

Paul

Sorry I did not intended at all to reduce the Mastery of Williams, and for shure he know what he does and of course he has learned what he need. My point is more to outline that this is just another Context of creating music.

Even if the Stözels large Brockes Passsion, Beethoven Missa solemnis and Schoenbergs Gurre Lieder are all likewise large scaled works with a duration of more or less 2 Hours. They are "just" textdependent compositions. so the Idea what unfolds those Works is likewise not primarily musical, it is simply the text.

The difference I see between LOTR-"Symphony" and a real Symphony is comparable to the difference of the Gurre-Lieder and a Mahler Symphony. So "large" and "large" is in a strict musical meaning not always the same, thats just my point about the LOTR-Symphony (in my understanding I would hesitate to call it a Symphony wouldn't it be better called large symphonic "LOTR-Medley")

@fahl5 said:

Sorry I did not intended at all to reduce the Mastery of Williams, and for shure he know what he does and of course he has learned what he need. My point is more to outline that this is just another Context of creating music.

Even if the Stözels large Brockes Passsion, Beethoven Missa solemnis and Schoenbergs Gurre Lieder are all likewise large scaled works with a duration of more or less 2 Hours. They are "just" textdependent compositions. so the Idea what unfolds those Works is likewise not primarily musical, it is simply the text.

The difference I see between LOTR-"Symphony" and a real Symphony is comparable to the difference of the Gurre-Lieder and a Mahler Symphony. So "large" and "large" is in a strict musical meaning not always the same, thats just my point about the LOTR-Symphony (in my understanding I would hesitate to call it a Symphony wouldn't it be better called large symphonic "LOTR-Medley")

I agree that it is not a symphony as you and I would use the term. It is more than a medley, or suite, however as a development of ideas occurs, the ideas cyclically return and it does have a unifying artistic vision and unifying melodic and motivic connections throughout. Yet I would not classify it as a symphony myself for a variety of reasons. If I were the composer I would have called it a Symphonic Poem. A very large one, but that description best fits in my view.

Very quickly: 

I am posting this here, not only because the composer lived quite a long time (contemporary of Stravinsky), but because this work was an examination piece(!), as noted in the programme. This was what 'examinations pieces'  sounded like back then!...

I can't wait to catch my breath and come back to this discussion proper in the next few days hopefully...

@Errikos said:

Very quickly: 

I am posting this here, not only because the composer lived quite a long time (contemporary of Stravinsky), but because this work was an examination piece(!), as noted in the programme. This was what 'examinations pieces'  sounded like back then!...

I can't wait to catch my breath and come back to this discussion proper in the next few days hopefully...

This is an absolute beauty! Thanks for sharing.

There are so many 20th century romantic composers I'd never heard of that I recently discovered for myself. One of them is Arnold Bax. His symphony no. 1 slow movement sounds like the precursor to hollywood scores...incredibly ominous and powerful 

Please let me know about my response to your previous post about Schoenberg though.

cheers

Anand

 

(BTW. Hi Mike nice Violinsonata .)

Thanks for having a listen Fahl, very pleased you liked it,  a work that straddles the border between tonality and atonality in places.

Hi Anand,

 

The Arnold Bax piece is delightful. Most interesting music. I love it!

Jos

Glad you liked it Jos. I can listen to the 2nd movement forever. Thats what 'epic' music should sound like rather than 'thump thump music' that pervades movies today.

The score is free to learn from.....

http://petruccilibrary.ca/files/imglnks/caimg/b/b3/IMSLP252500-PMLP409269-Bax_Sinfonie_Nr.1_2.Satz_fs.pdf

I didnt realize there was a snare drum roll until I saw this!

Anand

Another piece that is food for thought, John Williams Cello concerto:

but as I scrolled down to the comments, was sad to see a war had erupted even there, between the 'tonalists' and others. To me this was just so much fun to listen to, and I cannot label it as any one thing, its old, modern, tonal atonal, everything. Its just pure fluency and mastery in music creation. Nothing else. And people fight over this music! Who could argue about the music of the man who created more memorable melodies in our time than anyone could dream of?

I cant believe this is a living composer and Ive seen him face to face, when he walked out of a concert hall. I was too embarassed to ask him for an autograph.

Anand