@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.

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

Well, let's see how long this takes; I am going to address as many points as I can, so this post might be on the longish side... Anyway, it gives me great pleasure to partake in this discussion - this is what I had hoped the VSL forum would be about in the beginning (save for technical issues). So, thank you everyone for the kind words, and in no particular order:

Anand: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Lest we forget that we are discussing Schoenberg's pre-dodecaphonic position in compositional hierarchy. His contemporaries then would roughly (±15 years) include: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Gustav Mahler, Max Reger, Alexandre Skryabin, Sergei Rachmaninov, Jean Sibelius, Gustav Holst, Francis Poulenc, Giacomo Puccini, Alexandre Glazunov, Rheinhold Gliere, Ottorino Respighi, Manuel de Falla, Edward Elgar, Florent Schmitt, Franz Schmidt, Carl Nielsen, George Enescu, Charles Ives, and many others - probably important - that I am forgetting in haste...

Verklarte Nacht: This work was premiered in 1902 (having been finished roughly a couple of years earlier). Let's examine musical premieres around that date (±2 years): The Dream of Gerontius, Symphony no.4 (Mahler), Piano Concerto no.2 (Rachmaninov), Pelleas and Melisande - Estampes - La Mer..., Romanian Rhapsodies, The Divine Poem - Etudes - Piano Sonata no.4 (Skryabin), Ein Heldenleben (composed almost concurrently), Jeux d'Eau - String Quartet in F (Ravel), Symphonies nos. 1,2 - En Saga - Finlandia (Sibelius), etc. There was apparently such a fuss about an unresolved 9th chord regarding V.N. (boo-hoo), when I think of, say Ives' Scherzo for String Quartet, it really makes me laugh... And what was that review? "Half Wagner, half Brahms, half Strauss, and no Schoenberg". I respect, but actually feel neither hot or cold for the work.

At any rate, I am not saying that anybody here claimed Schoenberg to be top shelf, but rather protesting my rating him so low. I actually take my cue from R. Strauss who considered himself a 1st class 2nd-rate composer, and go from there. Schoenberg as a tonal composer -including Gurre-Lieder, the chamber symphonies and what have you- is maybe one or two or three places from the bottom and on par with some on the above list (for my taste), and since that list does not contain titans such as Chopin, Brahms, Verdi, Schubert, let alone gods like Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, bottom 3rd rung is my best concession. He was a great teacher of course and an extraordinary mind; his textbooks and collected writings make for very interesting reads.

There are three main reasons why classical music is dying: a) It is not culture that one can acquire in adulthood, when striking it rich for example and wishes to fit in with the bourgeois crowd. Art is easy; you see a splash of shyt on the wall for three seconds, and pretend to appreciate it. You don't have to endure two hours of silence in a concert hall listening to stuff to which you cannot relate. Children today are not flooded with great music enough at school or -more importantly- at home, in order for their ears to acclimatise, thus acquiring that culture, b) It is now a more than less museum culture, rather than a vibrant, living culture (like pop music), since composers who could be great tonal ones, either followed academia, or became film composers (a very different kind of music) or pop/rock composers, leaving lesser personalities to carry the banner, c) Technology has replaced the need for families to make their own music by themselves, for almost a century now. Let's all get glued to the TVs and iPads.

John Williams has released a great CD with music for cello and orchestra (the concerto you mention included). It is polished, pleasant music, for more than one hearing (and that is saying something). As far as labeling this music, it is simply called 'lightly chromatic'.

An interesting point is that you consider Williams a melodist, when in fact his inability to compose a melody is his one Achilles' heel. Williams composes 'themes', mostly chord-based and, by his own admission, he has enormous trouble coming up with those too... His music sounds melodious, but isn't really. He just knows his craft backwards and his other skills are so well developed, that he furnishes us with such great stuff. His one "melody" that everybody seems to melt over, is so uninspired really... A series of quavers so forced and contrived, but so well presented that (other) people swoon to their sound. 

Mike: You know that you and I come from the same kind of background, so when you mention Gurre-Lieder and Verklarte Nacht not being 3rd-4th rate music, you do add the expression "from a technical point at least", knowing that I cannot disagree there. I also agree with you that today's top composers' technique is at least as sophisticated as  that of the masters. The same (and more) goes for the instrumentalists of today. So it is puzzling why we don't have any Richters, Casals', Heifetzs, and Furtwanglers today, the same as we don't have Prokofievs. Well, maybe not so puzzling...

fahl: Shoenberg's late-romantic status is something of a post-mortem myth. Even he was disgusted in his own Gurre-Lieder after a few years (although I find many useful things in there, and orchestrally consider it more advanced than Mahler). Mahler's defence of Schoenberg may have had something to do with wishing to help his kindred, as with anything else. And how many really were the late-Romantics? With Wagner's, Brahms', Bruckner's, and Tchaikovsky's demises, who is left really? Mahler and Strauss are clearly his superiors, so it isn't that he has great competition... Reger, Schmidt, Nielsen, Stenhammar and a couple of others?

Your asking me about other tonal composers of the 20th century gives me an opportunity to state that I didn't enter this 'spat' -as Mike I think put it- between tonality vs. atonality. I just jumped in to correct some historically incorrect assertions, as I saw them. Like I said in my post, I appreciate many works by atonalists. For example, when I first heard Ligeti's Requiem (and I remember being intimidated as a student by the A3 and a half long score), my jaws dropped. Having heard so many other such works from the canon, from the off this work grabbed me by the spine. For once, I felt like I was in a cemetery and the dead were chanting from their graves. Tonality or atonality, when a work has such an effect on you there must be something to it. By the same token, I am not that crazy about the metronomes... I have great respect for George Crumb's mysticism and soundscapes, but amongst atonalists these are the lightweights (compared say to Ferneyhough, Stockhausen, or Lachenmann). I envy Xenakis' power and objectivity. To me, his best works are like cosmic rays hitting our planet, like gamma rays do.

Tonalists: There were so many beautiful tonal to chromatic composers last century, where does one begin? Certainly Honegger (who has written a great book about being a composer - I recommend people read it, along with Hindemith's own, and Constant Lambert's Music Ho! before all others!), everyone I mentioned above, the obvious ones (Prokofiev and such), and then Delius sure, Britten, Tippett, Milhaud, Copland, Gershwin (the orchestral works), Martinu, Moeran (wonderful music guys, look him up), Villa-Lobos, Szymanowcki, Schnittke, L. Boulanger, Hovhaness, Cowell, I am going to stop here as I realize the catalogue would number many tens of composers, including many you've never heard of that I wish you had, but I can't omit Barber, Lutoslawcki, and Rautavaara. It is interesting you mentioning van Dieren; I have respect but no particular love. He is certainly in the list even though I've only heard a couple of works.

William: I have great admiration for Varese, and I believe I own his complete works and most scores. Powerful music and concept!

Finally: Please understand everybody that music for film is not the same as concert music, unless the composer is able to produce both kinds ( ex. Korngold, Herrmann, Williams). The aesthetics and requirements almost could not be more different. The fact that both musics are composed for orchestra means little. It is the same as comparing Pink Floyd to Bieber as drum kits and electric guitars are involved in both cases.

Errikos,

excellent post, again. Despite what the critics said then, I felt V.N. was not that bad compared to other parallel premeires you mention, all of which Ive heard. And its not even about some unresolved 9th chord. Its certainly up there in its craft, and in no way reflects the work of a third rate composer.

Just my opninon anyways. I am may be biased because I love harmonielehre. or Structural functions of harmony. I only see a man driven by curiosity and not in desperate need to be recognized.

In any case, I am no expert in music history and there's much to learn from your post. Thanks!

And I so agree with you about music for film and use of orchestras ... thanks for pointing that out clearly.

About us not having Prokofiev's etc., today, what do you think of Salonen's or Coriglianos music? (although the latter has been around for decades..)

Cheers

Anand

Anand,

The Williams cello concerto is teriffic isn't it. I've known the Yo Yo Ma recording for several years now. Perhaps i should have mentioned that one to Paul - if you're reading this, try that on for size as it straddles the border between lyrical romantic and modern extended practice brilliantly. He has also written a violin and bassoon concerto which I have but have not got around to yet.

@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...

Thank you for that link. I just ordered the CD. I had never heard of Dyson, and I was entranced by the clip in the video. Do you know any of his other work?

@mh-7635 said:

 

Anand,

The Williams cello concerto is teriffic isn't it. I've known the Yo Yo Ma recording for several years now. Perhaps i should have mentioned that one to Paul - if you're reading this, try that on for size as it straddles the border between lyrical romantic and modern extended practice brilliantly. He has also written a violin and bassoon concerto which I have but have not got around to yet.

I believe I have everything available on CD by John Williams in my collection, both film and concert music. His tuba concerto is my favorite of his concertos.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Dyson snippet Paul, I don't recall having heard anything by that composer... Someone asked or mentioned Bax earlier; I neglected to include him and Howard Hanson in my earlier 20th century favourites list, but there are so many...

Anand,

Please forgive this diversion away from the OP but as Mr. Errikos mentioned Hanson, perhaps readers will be interested in this treatise by him. It is free and is a great resource on some of the 20thCs' harmonic practice.....

Howard Hanson treatise

I suppose it is relevant to the thread in that it gives foundation to somewhere a composer could go to.

Hi Mike,

This is not a diversion at all. Thanks for the link to Hanson!

I never get tired ot theory books. Recently started on Hindemith,

Anand

@agitato said:

About us not having Prokofiev's etc., today, what do you think of Salonen's or Coriglianos music? (although the latter has been around for decades..)

HI again,

I appreciate both composers, but I admit they are not on my regular listening list; I have something by Salonen in my collection, I can't remember what - he is not a spring chicken either you know. You keep mentioning Salonen almost every second sentence with overwhelming enthusiasm, and that pleases me greatly. One must be healthily obsessed with other composers' works at different periods of time. It certainly has happened to me over time, the obsession recedes to appreciation and we move to the next one. I hope this will be the same for you. We grow artistically and technically that way.

Neither these, nor any composer I'm aware of today (and most from the past to be honest - he would be in my top 20 of all time) could be anything but copyists for Prokofiev. The qualities are just so discrepant.

Mike: Thanks for the link!