Wow, Mathis, you're feeling good, aren't you?


While we agree on many things, and you have some very intelligent responses here and I love hearing this kind of discussion, I must say that I agree with Swanyce who said that GENERALLY people recognize inspiration. Not always (due to cultural differences, etc.) Also, I love romanticism, and do not think it ever died, and think that you are wrong on the concept of inspiration. (Don't get mad and no longer agree to the links, o.k.?) Because it is a real thing.

"Inspiration is a nice overestimated feeling of joy on onesself, nothing more. Stravinsky talks of an emotional disturbance . Ok.
The root of artistic creativity lies in curiousity and appetite, not in emotional disturbances. You get nowhere with that."

Though I agree to some extent if you are really refering to silly cliches about inspiration, you really should pay no attention to Stravinsky's verbal statements. He is one of the most obnoxious, negative and dried up old prunes who ever lived. But he was a tremendous composer. People should only listen to his music, NOT his statements becuase they are bullshit motivated by very narrow personal concerns and biases and frustrations (like his STUPID statement about film music - it is "wallpaper." Guess why he made that pronouncement? Because he was rejected as a film composer.)

"The root of artistic creativity lies in curiousity and appetite, not in emotional disturbances"

Wow - that is a great statement by you, Mathis - I absolutely agree with that - but a stupid one by Stravinsky. Again - never listen to a composer. (So why are you listening to me? I don't know. O.K. - we shouldn't listen to each other. Never mind.)

Sorry for that digression. You know why he wrote "Emotional disturbances?" BECAUSE HE WAS F***ING CONTRADICTING EVERYTHING HE DID IN HIS LIFE!!!!

Igor Stravinski created the single greatest emotional disturbance in the HISTORY OF MUSIC!!!

The "Rite" caused riots and violence! People were hitting each other on the head in time to the music because of it. It was the essence of "Emotional disturbance." But Stravinski couldn't handle that and turned to "neo-classicism" and his music went down the toilet. The most boring piece of crap ever written in modern music is "History of a Soldier." I DEFY anyone beisdes a clarinet player to listen to that piece of shit and stay awake.

"The Firebird" and "Le Sacre" are two fo the greatest works of pure, unadulterated, ferocious ROMANTICISM


Real inspiration is simply emotional commitment to the most emotionally powerful form of art - music (aside from cinema). I agree that Varese is a great composer, but he contradicts you Mathis in that all of his music was very emotionally created (believe it or not). He was a pure, unadulterated ROMANTIC. In fact he hated neo-classicism.

The true nature of romanticism is not the fluff and frills and prettiness that the Victorians made it into and people today believe it is - it is death and sex and the raw power of nature and madness that anti-mainstream weirdos like Byron, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats created - hippies, beatnicks and punks before there were hippies, beatnicks and punks.

Well, that was bold!!! (...I like it!)

I personally do think art music still exists -- in fact, I think there's a great deal of it, from many different walks of life. Now, please understand that I'm not being naive. I realize you are using that word in a very specific way. As I understand it, art music exists when the music enters into a self-referential dialogue with its own history and means. Western art music is music which makes reference to other music, structures itself according to, or in reaction to, previous structures, and constructs new meanings based on the inherited meanings. All of which, of course, is regulated by certain cultural forces of the time.

This is a _very_ small nutshell, so please expand!

Now, why do I say there's actually _more_ art music today? Well, because I truly believe that a great many of today's composers see very clearly that the era of radical, technical/theoretical innovation has passed (except perhaps in the area of electro-acoustic work - but let's limit the discussion to western instrumental music, for now). In seeing this, and likely reacting to it, they also see that everything they write has a history that extends, most likely, far beyond their individual lives. Since there are 'no new ideas', it becomes necessary to discover the link between the ideas you have and the larger theoretical movements that have come up during the relatively short history of the form. I clearly understand, for example, the connections between myself and Mahler, Berlioz, Prokofiev, Stravinsky... and more recently Lutoslawski, some Tippet, Gubaidulina, Sorensen, Saariaho, and Rihm, the last four of whom are alive, hopefully well, and still having a strong influence on my musical thought (if not so directly my music) today. And even though others may not hear these connections, they are there nevertheless, informing my musical decisions on a daily basis. Thus I do, in a very real sense, write music about music for the sake of music. And any listener with a fair degree of familiarity with this history, will be placed in the centre of that dialogue, where s/he can follow along, react, and make evaluations as s/he sees fit. This is, I think, what makes it "art" -- gulp! [and so the flood gates open!]

[to be continued, I'm sure...]

But it is for the same reasons that I feel there is very little art in contemporary film music. Simply put, there are too many composers whose relationship to this history is not a dialogue, but simply a form of paraphrasing (like the Vaughan Williams mentioned elsewhere). When new music simply apes a previous form, without giving anything to it, then the form itself begins to decay... Now, it could be argued that since film music has a particular "function" (like pre-art music written for court dances and the like), that it is really not intended to be "art" at all. That is a totally valid argument, which only points out further that perhaps I'm not particularly interested in film music... perhaps....

ouch!

J.

I'm calming down a little now...

JBM - that is a fascinating and extremely knowledgeable post. I'm afraid I can't offer much discussion because I agree so completely with you!

As opposed to Mathis [8o|]

Sorry - I'm calming down now....

Actually Mathis and I get along just WONDERFULLY when we're not trying to rip each other's guts out over Romanticism vs. Modernism. (Also I'm trying to get him to write something about my Hyper-romantic symphony. Uh-oh. Why in God's name did I ever do that?)

But JBM, you are absolutely right about film music in the light of what you said concerning the essentially deconstructionistic, textually aware nature of modern music. The one thing I think in regard to this is that music, since it is an emotional medium ([8o|] Mathis!) can "lapse" into forms that are no longer intellectually current but still are emotionally. In other words, the great mistake that the early 20th century modernists made (though they created many great new forms) is in thinking that simply because you have intellectually "progressed" to a new level, does not mean that everything is exhausted "emotionally" in that same area. As Schoenberg said, (I'm paraphrasing) "There is much good music remaining to be written in the key of c major."

This is not simply reassurance for backward composers. It is a crucial fact that must be understood by people who assume that because music can do anything including pure white noise today ALL MUSIC must be white noise. That is idiotic, and yet not far from what arrogant jerks like Pierre Boulez say - a mediocre, pure "Emperor's New Clothes" composer and god-awful condutcor who completely alienated the New York Philharmonic in his so-called "tenure" there and said "Beethoven and Mozart and not worth listening to." Pathetic, and yet characteristic of many b.s. modernists who make this assumption - that intellectual knowledge is the same as music.

@jbm said:

But it is for the same reasons that I feel there is very little art in contemporary film music. Simply put, there are too many composers whose relationship to this history is not a dialogue, but simply a form of paraphrasing (like the Vaughan Williams mentioned elsewhere). When new music simply apes a previous form, without giving anything to it, then the form itself begins to decay... Now, it could be argued that since film music has a particular "function" (like pre-art music written for court dances and the like), that it is really not intended to be "art" at all. That is a totally valid argument, which only points out further that perhaps I'm not particularly interested in film music... perhaps....

ouch!

J.

I would agree with your statements that a huge amount of film music is paraphrasing, however, the fact that you are talking about "Western instrumental music" ignores an awful lot of music that is used for film. I think that "pure" instumental music is rapidly becoming marginal in its influence on todays composers, bearing in mind that the so called "classical" genre is already a tiny minority. There is a fashion in the UK at the moment for "classical cross-over" albums. This is supposed to be bringing classical music to the masses in a palatable form, but I am, as yet, unconvinced. I think that one of the sad things about many modern trends in music is that we are moving towards a situation where a live performance situation is not possible, either due to cost or just from the fact that the music is not playable by real humans, be it for technical reasons or beacause of the use of electronic (virtual) instruments.

DG

Mathis,

Thanks for welcoming me [:D].

I must say I disagree with you. And after all, as William kindly repeated, I said "people GENERALLY recognize" when a work is inspired because it causes deeper emotions. But once again, I said "GENERALLY" not EVERYBODY. I agree to some extent about the fact that culture may influence our approach to music but not always necessarily.
Though I admire and respect Stravinskij's genius and experimentations in music, I disagree with part of his vision and approach. Plus he generates such a great contradiction (probably as a provocation) in what he affirms that he even reminds me of Haegel the philosopher [*-)] . :!
I personally think, and this is my own vision, that if you consider music as a form of art and expression of a universal language (not just a sequence of nice notes or "emotional disturbance") you can get the subtle connection among different kinds of music. Yes, maybe if you hear the Masai playing their own native music you may not appreciate that but if you listen (not hear) you can get the message. Masai don't play music according to schemes of musical "aesthetism", they play because it's a way to express themselves, because it's fun. That's the perfect example of free "inspired" work. Just like William said, and I love this example, the attitude of a child drawing pictures with crayons is the perfect way for an artist to behave: he is doing it not because he thinks he is an " Artist " but just because it is FUN.

I agree with what you said "The root of artistic creativity lies in curiousity and appetite, not in emotional disturbances". And I would add that when you create by following inspiration, you definitely feel more "invited" to experiment new things for you are running free and out of any pre-elaborated scheme. In a certain way, inspiration (which I always consider as a sudden revelation), feeds and arouses your appetite for creation/experimentation and makes you more curious about other music dimensions.

But setting the discussion apart, this is just my personal opinion and point of view. Though I disagree in some parts, I hope I haven't offended you for I totally respect your own considerations and the considerations of everybody else.
It's a forum after all. [:)]

William,
[i]"the great mistake that the early 20th century modernists made (though they created many great new forms) is in thinking that simply because you have intellectually "progressed" to a new level, does not mean that everything is exhausted "emotionally" in that same area. As Schoenberg said, (I'm paraphrasing) "There is much good music remaining to be written in the key of c major." [/i]I pefectly agree with you [:D] . Plus, it is a pity to hear how people consider Romanticism a simply "pathethic", old fashioned period. Too bad really. There is a lot to learn from that "old fashioned" period. Being a harpist myself, the most beautiful and expressive music repertoire for harp was conceived during the Romantic age. I think music was felt at its highest extent. Besides, a part from the Romanticism, I believe there are a lot of things to learn from the past (as well as from the present) and I would be very careful when I define something as "old fashioned" anyway.

JBM, I consider your post as a manifesto [[[:D]]] [[[:D]]] [[[:D]]] . You said everything I wanted to say, sorry I can't find anything to add!![8-)]

Swanyce

DG,

you made a really, really interesting consideration and you are definitely
right in a certain way. Yes, we are going towards electronic music that cannot be played live easily. Your statement touches me directly for, with
exception to orchestral and instrumental compositions, I am also a
singer songwriter that uses the Multivocals technique. Such a technique let's you record your voice as an instrument by creating multiple layers (you may record your voice even 500 times and up) to generate choirs. I must say the effect is quite interesting and since it is just your voice and not a real choir, provides a sound that is unique and original. I do the same with instruments to create unique sound combinations. This is ok for my albums but it's not ok when I have to set up a live performance. I would need a hundred keyboards, 10 harps and 500 clones of myself to reproduce what I have recorded in a live stage, just to say the least. [[[:|]]] [[[:|]]]
And a lot of people ask me, why don't you play live? You can imagine how I feel when I have to answer.
Enya, just to make an example, has got the same problem but people still wonder why she doesn't play live.

But even though there is a bad side of the progress in electronic music, there is also the good side of invention and new creativity. That's how I see it. [8-)]

Ok, guys, I LOVE IT! That´s exactly the kind of discussion I wanted.
And I love contradictions, I mean contradictions are after all what makes us humans. We´re a little joke by Mr. God. He sits in his boring sky and can´t stop laughing out loud watching us.
But, well, that´s a different story...

I feel we should get a bit more clear what romanticism is. Generally I recognize this misconception of emotional music = romantic music. But this is only partly true and too simple. As always it´s about a very specific and strong attitude. So what makes a romantic artist?
- The urge of expressing his inner world. For that reason he plunges into himself (or herself) and finds there the music.
- The found music should be of total individuality, of course, since they believed in total individuality of human beings. So if there wasn´t anything new in a piece it wasn´t individual and therefore completely worthless in the true romantic sense.
- Music and art should allow the listener to leave his daily and earthly worries and allow him to enter a better higher world, which at the same time is the really real world. The ordinary world is just wrong and needs to be overcome.
(Feel free to correct and expand these points.)

Sooo, here my personal comments and critics to these points:
- Modernism is in fact the exaggerated form of romanticism. Schönberg was a truly romantic composer since he was just looking for possibilities to express his highly deranged inner world. All in Schönberg is about his personality, his self-expression. The romantics introduced the very wrong need to introduce new material (like new harmony or new forms) to make it a valuable piece of art. Thank god that´s over. But still this totally wrong requirement influenced art for almost another hundred years. It started in the late 1980s or beginning 90s when people slowly stopped asking for "NEW" and still there´s no total freedom to not care about it. In my opinion modernism is very nostalgic, since in fact it just is a longing to the romanticists.
- The urge to express hisself is just mindblocking. Do whatever you want, it will be shaped by your personality anyway.
- I love this real world. It is full of beauty and love. If there´s a responsibility of todays artists then it is showing the beauty of our current world. Never ever was society so much living outside this real world. We live in soap operas, fight wars with joy sticks, don´t recognize love since we expect love like we´ve learned it in the movies. That´s a totally different situation than the romanticists had. When Schumann composed his little children pieces hundreds of neighbour children around him died. The real world was brutal and unfair. There was a real reason to desire a better world.

So, was the "Sacre" a romantic piece of music? Not at all. None of these three points hold true for this piece of art. Still it is triggering very strong emotions, but that´s not romanticism. Same with Varése. Baroque music is also totally emotional but not in the romantic sense.
I´m not against emotions in music. But this "touching the soul" thing is conceited and naiv. There´s absolutely no determined influence you as a composer can have on the listeners feelings and you shouldn´t. Leave that to the dictators.

I completely agree though with the playing child. After all it is about playing music and the true magic in music is that it can simulate emotions. They´re not true nor deep, true feelings can´t be switched so fast. But we can make a game with them and that´s the fantastic thing. Music can make us feel ourselves through triggering emotions. And the music I admire most doesn´t trigger the nostalgic feelings, it gives me a feeling of now, of hearing and feeling life in the second of now. Is that art? I´m not sure. Probably yes.

@mathis said:

Ok, guys, I LOVE IT! That´s exactly the kind of discussion I wanted.
And I love contradictions, I mean contradictions are after all what makes us humans. We´re a little joke by Mr. God. He sits in his boring sky and can´t stop laughing out loud watching us.

How are the exams going Mathis? Everything alright? [:D]

As to the rest of your post, consider you and your girlfriend officially adopted.

Bests

Paul

Barbara Streisand was once asked what she was thinking of as she sang the classic "People". It must have been something lofty and profound to generate such an emotional performance, right?

She was thinking of a big plate of pasta.

Bob Fosse was having difficulty getting an actress to give him the startled reaction he wanted in a scene. He broke for lunch, bought a gun, and fired it on the set at the right moment. Reaction finally on film, he moved on and made his shoot day.

No doubt the actress was credited with her great acting skills.

Great work - 'art' if you will - can happen in so many ways. Often it's not even recognized by the artist upon its creation. (Artists are a notoriously self-critical lot.) Sometimes there's no intent to create art at all, but simply meet a deadline...or make a shoot day. The thing we spent months perfecting can be upstaged by the thing we dashed off in minutes on a whim.

I enjoy these conversations. Folks here astound me with their breadth of knowledge and passion for the work. Which brings me to my point. (Yes, I actually had one.)

Work. This is hard work. I suppose I'm so rooted in working hard every day to learn something new...expand my musical horizon...(along with pleasing a client...meeting a deadline), that I have a hard time thinking of my work in the context of art. My desire to create art will not make art happen. I try to think in the context of bringing as much depth as I can to a piece, but even that is highly subjective.

Like I told my composition teacher about 3 years into a remarkable 7 year journey. "The more I learn, the more stupid I feel". He asked, "What do you mean?" I replied, "Well, the more I know - the more I realize how much I don't know." Ziggy just smiled and said, "Now you're getting it."

Like so many here, I suppose I have more of a blue collar attitude about it. Work, work, work. Learn every day. Always give it it my best effort. Keep an open mind. If art happens...well that's for others to determine. I'll be too busy picking it apart to try and make the next thing better to ever agree.

Oh...and I intend to have some fun along the way...try to keep my sense of humor and never take myself too damn seriously. (Wish I had a perfect score on that one.)

Fred Story

I had this nerdy, geeky thought about Jbm's original question. I was watching The Ladykillers (1955 version) the other day and the thought of 'score' and 'source' entered my head. On one hand, you have original music by Tristram Cary, and on the other, you have music by Luigi Boccherini (Minuet from "Quintet in E major, Opus 11 Number 5").

In the context of the film, would Boccherini's music be regarded as 'source' I wonder? That's a tough one for me.

As an aside, apart from being a brilliant detailed comedy, Tristram Cary's score is an education in how to write a 'serious' sounding score (if you heard it in isolation with no pictures), which heightens the comedic content even more. Especially the sequence of the actual robbery, whereby Cary uses the ticking of a clock as a metronome beat throughout, for the accompanying score. Been done many times (High Noon for example 1952), but extremely accomplished.

PR

I have a lot of the same reactions as Mathis, especially with the concept of another world being "higher" and music lets us go there to escape. This reality here is the most beautiful conceivable though people are constantly ignoring that and killing each other.

That's a good point about Schumann - he was surrounded by death and eventually went mad. But I still think that Varese and the early Stravinsky were extensions of the romantic impulse as it was authentically, not all the later ill-conceived views of it that developed. Though this could be argued.

The modern artist I like the best is de Chirico. He was anti-romantic in a sense, but also a surrealist before surrealism existed (which itself has been called modern romanticism!) A quote I remember from de Chirico and which fits in perfectly with his eerie paintings of deserted cityscapes is "There are more enigmas in the shadow of a man who walks in the sunlight than in all the religions in all the history of the world."

"There are more enigmas in the shadow of a man who walks in the sunlight than in all the religions in all the history of the world."
Really interesting quote.... [8-)]

O.K. that one is somewhat out of context. However here are a couple others:

"To be really immortal a work of art must go completely beyond the limits of the human: good sense and logic will be missing from it. In this way it will come close to the dream state, and also to the mentality of children."

"A profound picture will be entirely without the gesticulations, the idealism which attracts the attention of the crowd and makes the name of the artist well-known. All momentary posture, all forced movement will be put aside. Calm, tranquillity, even serenity but in this serenity, as in an eternal lamentation, all pathos known until now; all grandeur, all sublimity men have known, their hopes and fears, their joys and their suffering, friendship and love, all will blend their music; but the real value of such a work will lie in its new song, for more important than all these will always be the new thing that the artist has brought out of the void, something which previously, did not exist."

"In the middle ages the study of nature led astray those artists who created gothic art. One can observe the same phenomena among modern artists (circa 1911): poets, painters and musicians. The truly profound work will be drawn up by the artist from the innermost depths of his being. There is no murmur of brooks, no song of birds, no rustle of leaves. The Gothic and the Romantic disappear, and in their stead appear measurements, lines, forms of eternity and infinity. This is the feeling produced by Roman architecture. This is why I believe that Greek and Roman buildings, and all those which later were fashioned upon the same principles, even though somewhat transformed are what is most profound in art."
- de Chirico

@PaulR said:

How are the exams going Mathis? Everything alright? [:D]

As to the rest of your post, consider you and your girlfriend officially adopted.

Bests

Paul

Hihi...
Exams went well, thanks [[;)]]

@William said:

But I still think that Varese and the early Stravinsky were extensions of the romantic impulse as it was authentically, not all the later ill-conceived views of it that developed. Though this could be argued.

Probably we should leave that discussion to the music scientists, but personally I percieve both composers as deeply and heartfelt anti-romantic and not at all an extension of romanticism. In fact it still feels weird to me to think of them, especially the "sacre", as romantic.


Fred, I love the pasta anekdote [:D]

Fred,

You really hit it for me, as well!

Work!

Sometimes it actually stresses me out a little how much work composition can be... but then, in the moment that it's really happening, it's as easy as breathing. But to approach it some days -- just getting started... ouch! It just makes my head hurt! However, it is ultimately the drive to sit down a bang out a few bars which guides me. I only make clear decisions when faced with the actual work at hand. I can't simply dream up an idea for a piece and have it become anything if I don't first sit down and see where it goes in actual notes, chords, and rhythms.

So, in that respect (and many others), I have a great deal of Stravinsky in me. He really felt the composer was more an artisan than an "artist", and I'd say that, in my day-to-day life, that's how I experience it. On the other hand, my music, and my interests in making music are basically romantic - I think that if we're not expressing something uniquely "us", then we're probably not expressing much of anything at all... or at least, I can't image why anyone would want to listen. I'm also a little embarrassed by the notion of a "universal" language in music, which sets me against any good, die-hard modernist. Finally, I'm quite interested in musical drama and in evoking images... That is, images of a strictly musical nature (i.e., I never think of a babbling brook and suddenly start writing!), in the sense that the various components, the interactions of foreground an background, and the organic dialogue between elements suggests natural processes which, in the experience of the average listener, are most commonly experienced in "scenes".

Mathis. I agree with both William and yourself... I suspect this is because Stravinsky was following the popular mode of absolute rebellion against the Romantics (yes, with a capital R!), and thus acknowledging a certain debt to them with regard to his musical impulses (thus also agreeing with William's evaluation). This same phenomenon could be seen with postmodernism, where such fantastic efforts were made to avoid modernism that, at times, it became difficult to tell whether the post-modern had any genuine impulse of its own - that is, anything to say that didn't depend on the modern.

But I'm blubbering now... back to work!

J.

My wife laughs at me sometimes. Fortunately our little shop is usually pretty busy, juggling multiple projects. During the most busy times I tell her I hope I'm a good 'note sponge'...and can wring a few more melodies out of my wrung-out mind.

Speaking of imagery, if I'm trying to evoke a very specific image, sometimes I'll call someone in from the office (NEVER another one of the composers), play a bit of the piece and ask what images it brings to mind. If it's something wildly different than I'm trying to conjure, I figure I have some adjustments to make.

Of course this only applies to the commercial work. When I'm working on my own stuff I just try to follow the muse wherever it leads. I try to never consciously think about structure unless I write myself into a corner. Think less...feel more. The work is what happens BEFORE I sit down to write. (Studying, exploring new harmonic ideas, listening and analyzing...expanding my vocabulary, basically.) Sometimes I don't know how it's going to end up until it gets there. Sometimes I THINK I know how it will sound, but along the way it changes so much I don't recognize the original idea. That's the fun of it, don't you think?

I hadn't read that Stravinsky thought of himself as an 'artisan'. Good word. I'm certainly no Stravinsky, but I can relate to the idea. Thanks for sharing it!

Fred Story

@jbm said:

This same phenomenon could be seen with postmodernism, where such fantastic efforts were made to avoid modernism that, at times, it became difficult to tell whether the post-modern had any genuine impulse of its own - that is, anything to say that didn't depend on the modern.

But I'm blubbering now... back to work!

J.

No blubbering at all, I think that´s a very relevant point. Right, for example the New York minimalism as a strong anti-modern statement wouldn´t have existed without Darmstadt. Good point.

Hm. but still it´s not an extension. Right?