tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post7850530948844966893..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: The rest is tonalDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-48459310554329450822016-01-15T00:20:52.138+00:002016-01-15T00:20:52.138+00:00Thank you David.Thank you David.Laurenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03297393116796129135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-5570709211277486062016-01-13T19:48:20.022+00:002016-01-13T19:48:20.022+00:00Ma foi! Well, surely no-one pays that sort of mone...Ma foi! Well, surely no-one pays that sort of money. I did see a copy in even better nick down in my favourite Lewes bookshop for next to nothing (£9, I think). If I can find the name of the shop, I'll ring up - though it was almost as long ago as this blogpost. Will also try Travis and Emery.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-48472739212121437772016-01-13T19:31:21.520+00:002016-01-13T19:31:21.520+00:00David, the book on Poulenc you recommend is unfort...David, the book on Poulenc you recommend is unfortunately not available for a reasonable price. On Amazon the price is $770. far to rich for me. I wonder do you know a book dealer in London who might have a good clean copy for a much cheaper price? larrymuffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14137517764919401795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-30151902403203583202013-05-15T22:20:35.144+01:002013-05-15T22:20:35.144+01:00Scylla and Charybdis indeed! I just finished writi...Scylla and Charybdis indeed! I just finished writing one magnum opus comment in response to Angela on my blog and another on Mark's in support of what Mark wrote, and love the fact that, over here, you've said it all in far fewer words. Still, it was fun to revisit a few choice Taruskin essays I haven't looked at in a while. And, as always, John Adams's perspective shines as both intelligent and humane. Now, I look forward to getting on to all my spring flower photographs, so it's not summer before I post some of those!Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-32815973171508031802013-05-15T09:35:21.319+01:002013-05-15T09:35:21.319+01:00Yes, he's absolutely right, Babbitt's crit...Yes, he's absolutely right, Babbitt's criteria are out of touch. Much more needs to be written on the nature of what kind of audience the composer addresses. The Scylla and Charybdis are the elitists and the lazy listener who says 'I know what I like, and that's not music'. Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-59679043360458428182013-05-15T00:38:48.013+01:002013-05-15T00:38:48.013+01:00David and Joseph: My own thinking has been immense...David and Joseph: My own thinking has been immensely enriched by this discussion, for which I thank you both. The discussion continues and widens, I'm happy to note. Here is a contribution I thought worthwhile to bring to your attention, from Mark Kerstetter, an exceedingly thoughtful and always civilized contributor from whom I have learned a great deal on a number of fronts: <a href="http://markkerstetter.com/2013/05/14/whos-afraid-of-milton-babbitt/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-27535602548345826172013-05-13T08:19:50.695+01:002013-05-13T08:19:50.695+01:00Amen to that (the civilized debate), Joseph. I wis...Amen to that (the civilized debate), Joseph. I wish folk would join it, though perhaps I'm being greedy. Not for attention, I hope, but just to enrich the argument and see other sides of the question.<br /><br />David - the blurb for the wine is typical of the advertising excess you excoriate, methinks...That would be enough to turn me into a second Boulez.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-86149880412733771032013-05-13T05:33:43.491+01:002013-05-13T05:33:43.491+01:00I had meant to come back to this earlier, but with...I had meant to come back to this earlier, but with one thing or another was not able to until now. Essentially I agree with everything David said in his response to my last comment. One moral I take from the discussion is that the criteria we use to judge a work or oeuvre only ever apply more or less well. Innovation is one criterion, but placing too much emphasis on it can lead to some peculiar judgements (e.g. on the relative significance of Mozart and Beethoven). One interesting problem is how far the criteria governing aesthetic success change over time, but that's probably a debate for another time...<br /> On a different note, I wanted to say how nice it is to be able to engage in a civilized conversation on themes like these. Keep the posts coming!Joseph Streeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09063000313935445659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-44566979307241737012013-05-12T12:20:12.258+01:002013-05-12T12:20:12.258+01:00I venture with care on this sophisticated discussi...I venture with care on this sophisticated discussion but on the point about innovation and the past I remember from my youth the wonderful description of the wine of Malescot St. Exupery - "Known by its predestined lovers as combining in itself that innovation within the tradition which is the hallmark of achievement in literature, life and wine". One might add music.David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-29996675998404416262013-05-10T10:01:42.812+01:002013-05-10T10:01:42.812+01:00More wonderful insights from Poulenc on the twelve...More wonderful insights from Poulenc on the twelve tone industry in the late 1950s: in spite of being funny about the 'dodecaca of Darmstadt', he takes it seriously and listens to a lot. At RAI he hears 'a lot of electronic and serial music. Very beautiful sonata for flute and piano by Boulez, although a little too long. Compared with that, what a lot of twelve-tone old hat from so many young musicians!!!! There is already so much cliched stereotype in the genre. The instrumentation of Puccini's Manon Lescaut last night was more rich in surprises.'<br /><br />Know how he feels. The musicians who visited the BBCSO class on Tuesday had an interesting point about Webern's brevity: he understood that listening to dodecaphony for too long is wearing - I just switch off and it becomes wallpaper music - so his elliptical utterances are all the more welcome. And they do anticipate Cage by making you value silence or near silence.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-10843729485926328952013-05-09T21:33:10.168+01:002013-05-09T21:33:10.168+01:00David: I don't "get" the Schoenberg ...David: I don't "get" the Schoenberg piece, either, BTW. I wanted to include one from the 12-tone period, and, consistent with my overall difficulty in listening to those works, I find it's always a sort of random pick, a la Boulez (isn't that a great quote?). Verklärte Nacht, now, that's another matter, but it's pre-12-tone, so there you are! I've not listened to too much Saariaho--partly because my few attempts haven't incited me to go back. I think your comment may well go right to the heart of why. I'm still listening to see if the piece endures, but, for whatever reason, Laterna Magica got past my initial threshold. We shall see.Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-152425291300288292013-05-09T15:31:05.004+01:002013-05-09T15:31:05.004+01:00Well, Sue, I was certainly impressed by Joseph'...Well, Sue, I was certainly impressed by Joseph's willingness to respond and think again. You're right, it doesn't happen often (it always happens with you). I could wish more folk would join the debate. But the sort of 'I know best' exchanges I see on my rare glimpses of messageboards or Facebook don't seem to happen here. And I promise you, I've only ever had to moderate half a post because it was insulting to close friends, and that was many years ago...<br /><br />As I wrote Over There, what more could one want from an intelligent, feeling listener than your five criteria? I'm delighted and honoured that you extended the argument. Of all your examples, the only one I still don't 'get' is Schoenberg's Variations. Unless you happen to be Berg, a twelve-tone theme is going to be so unmemorable as to throw into doubt what the variations are; and in dodecaphony, surely, everything can be derived from anything. I love that Boulez comment about how in their strictures his school ended up sounding closest to its opposite, Cage's chance operations...<br /><br />I also have my doubts about Saariaho. For me, she raises another question I've mulled over since walking Offa's Dyke with Stephen Johnson and him positing the idea that too many new pieces are all process and no 'hook'. In her case it's a beautiful soundworld, but that word, too, I'm suspicious of, implying as it does lack of actual substance. The soundworld is important and, very rarely, in parts of Ravel and key Ligeti pieces, of primary significance, but usually it's not enough by itself. But maybe I open yet another can of (ear)worms there.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-4010067608266388212013-05-09T15:15:08.474+01:002013-05-09T15:15:08.474+01:00I look forward to your new post, though hope you d...I look forward to your new post, though hope you don't mind if I don't leave this enormously rich and fruitful discussion just quite yet. It won't be the first time I'll have actually saved the post and comments to print out for later reference. What particularly impresses me in the comments is the engaged and respectful quality of the conversation between you and Streeter, in which you each closely examine what the other has said and offer clarifications and adjustments based on that. It's rare to happen upon such thoughtful conversation in real life, let alone in the cybersphere. Thank you, also, and Joseph Streeter, too, for the inspiration to try and set down my own thoughts on the topics discussed here. I'm not sure when I might have settled to it without this spur, and it was an enormously gratifying and instructive exercise. (I will of course be responding to your always perceptive comments Over There "in due course.")Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-72798448393262306772013-05-08T22:35:59.003+01:002013-05-08T22:35:59.003+01:00So, now, I started to write a comment on the subst...So, now, I started to write a comment on the substance of the first part of your post, and even by my track record, it became to long to possibly insert here. So, herewith, I have made the comment into a post: <a href="http://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/what-makes-music-great/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Definitely a fool wandering where angels would know better than to tread. FYI, I am only seeing the final exchange between you and Joseph Streeter now. I am certainly in agreement which much that's stated there, as I think you'll see, and particularly your points about use of serialism (dodecaphony is perhaps the more appropriate term?) as a fruitful element within music.<br /><br />PS: You with the punk, me with the Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead . . .Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-16252867039281307072013-05-08T20:16:23.132+01:002013-05-08T20:16:23.132+01:00Can't you just see me headbanging? Makes me al...Can't you just see me headbanging? Makes me almost nostalgic for my two sixth form years, the heyday of punk. Though I was more likely to be putting on a record of the Meistersinger Prelude in our assembly play-what-you-like slot than 'God Save the Queen/the Fascist regime' (or maybe it was 'White Riot'), presented by one Ian Cook-Abbott.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-86444260902193643672013-05-08T18:15:19.471+01:002013-05-08T18:15:19.471+01:00Lest you think that I'm not fascinated by both...Lest you think that I'm not fascinated by both this post and the ensuing discussion, I write here to say au contraire, and I shall return. Great post, not least that closing "doof, doof, doof."Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-19974814353101661472013-05-08T16:15:43.957+01:002013-05-08T16:15:43.957+01:00Agreed - even with regard to Pierrot and the Secon...Agreed - even with regard to Pierrot and the Second Quartet (Erwartung loses me but I love the last page...)<br />I've just found good old Poulenc in 1950 approving of 'young Europeans..searching for new emotions in the not yet ossified twelve-tone system' while railing against their American counterparts for 'buzzing like flies around Hindemith and Igor'. 'And believe me when I tell you that the young Europeans do not like me at all,' he adds. Though he was wrong when he wrote that 'it is out of old Europe that new ideas will come': Cage was about to happen, and bashing a way out of the dead end of Glassian minimalism was good old John Adams.<br /><br />We probably also agree that it was only in its systematized version that dodecaphony became such a dead end. As an element in music, ie in Britten's Death in Venice and Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony, it certainly has its place.<br /><br />So that's a happy consensus, I think.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-16579141017012350322013-05-08T16:07:43.581+01:002013-05-08T16:07:43.581+01:00'Lesser' is an unfortunate term, and the B...'Lesser' is an unfortunate term, and the Bloch distinction sounds pretty sensible. Certainly it would be strange to say that Mozart is a lesser composer than Beethoven (although, on a personal level, Beethoven's music 'speaks to me' more profoundly than does Mozart's). And there are technically innovative composers who are nevertheless relatively minor (Edgar Varese might be an example). I like the remark from the Prokofiev diaries. Personally I would be inclined to say that Schoenberg was both important to the history of music and important to music. I find some of his works of the late 1900s and early 1910s extraordinarily powerful (Pierrot Lunaire, the second string quartet, Ewartung). Whether the turn to twelve tone composition was a fruitful one is perhaps questionable in Schoenberg's case. But I think the technique can itself be quite fruitful - in Berg's music, as you say, and in Webern and some late Stravinsky. Joseph Streeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09063000313935445659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-11032312539541451742013-05-08T08:07:01.130+01:002013-05-08T08:07:01.130+01:00Many years ago I read essays by the German Marxist...Many years ago I read essays by the German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch - not Ernest the composer - who made just such distinctions between the innovators and the (in his opinion) often greater figures like Mozart who followed them. So I really do think we have to talk about importance of introducing new ideas as equalled by importance of expression. So I still wouldn't say 'lesser'. <br /><br />I rather like the dry remark of a personage - I forget whom and can't find the reference - in Prokofiev diaries who says of an innovator 'important to the history of music, but not to music'. Debussy and Stravinsky, of course, were both. Schoenberg post-Gurrelieder, I wonder. It was Berg who really maintained the expressive possibilities of dodecaphony and never quite cut it off from tonality.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-67899685340553239542013-05-08T04:57:56.843+01:002013-05-08T04:57:56.843+01:00Comparing Les Biches and Aubade with Petrushka and...Comparing Les Biches and Aubade with Petrushka and The Rite of Spring was a bit unfair, and the comparison would have been more questionable had I chosen Romeo and Juliet. <br /> I suppose I probably would still want to hold on to the notion that Britten, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich are lesser composers than Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, at least in the sense that Debussy et al expanded the possibilities of musical expression to an extent that it would be very difficult to write a history of 20th century classical music without paying significant attention to their work. The same does not quite hold for Britten, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, whatever its undoubted richness. <br /> I confess, though, that I'm not sure how far I'd want to press this argument, and I would not want to deny that individual works of Britten, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich are more successful than works in the same genre by Debussy et al (I would happily accept that The Turn of the Screw is a more successful work than The Rake's Progress, for instance). Of the criteria that we use to assess musical works, formal innovation is one among several. But I'm inclined to think that it is quite an important one. <br /> Joseph Streeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09063000313935445659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-63309720137934767082013-05-07T17:27:40.733+01:002013-05-07T17:27:40.733+01:00Very welcome thoughts, Joseph, and I hope they pro...Very welcome thoughts, Joseph, and I hope they prompt more. But do you really think that Britten, Prokofiev and Shostakovich - I think Poulenc might, overall, slip in as a 'lesser' but nevertheless very individual figure' - are lesser than Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg? I take it that Poulenc's point means that you don't have to be a pioneer to be first-rank. His examples of Mozart and Schubert (implicitly v Beethoven the innovator) suggest as much.<br /><br />No, Les Biches and Aubade aren't the equals of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. But Shostakovich's Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Symphonies, Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas 6-8 and Britten's The Turn of the Screw along with many of the other operas surely are: not in terms of breaking the rules, but for what we can get out of them spiritually and intellectually. They will surely survive the test of time just as well. <br /><br />I love the progress of Agon from tonal to 12-tone, but I'm still not so sure about what came after in Stravinsky's output. Which person of heart would not rather hear Poulenc's Gloria than Stravinsky's Threni, for instance?<br /><br />Adorno has already been discussed in the last batch of comments as a dogmatic dead end - I refuse to consult him any more - and I always harp back to Stephen Johnson's observation of Boulez in an Edinburgh chat responding to a question by saying 'I think we may have taken insufficiently into account the audience'.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-87097986626869256262013-05-07T16:56:13.815+01:002013-05-07T16:56:13.815+01:00An interesting post. I'm particularly enjoying...An interesting post. I'm particularly enjoying the recent focus on Poulenc. I was, however, a bit puzzled by the claim that "finding new ways to say old things, properly absorbing the past - it's hardly reactionary - are just as valid as the work of the so-called pioneers." I suppose I'm unclear about the notion of 'validity,' which strikes me as a rather weak criterion. Presumably people like Adorno and Boulez are the implicit targets of this statement, and certainly their views on the proper shape of modern music seem too restrictive. But Britten, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Shostakovich etc are surely lesser composers than e.g. Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg (as Poulenc himself acknowledges in his remarks on Stravinsky). I like Poulenc's music very much, and find scores like Les Biches and Aubade aesthetically successful because they are expressions of a very characterful musical personality. But they're not works of the stature of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. I suppose also it's worth emphasizing that the development of the twelve tone system had a conservative motivation, and can be employed alongside more traditional forms. Stravinsky's Agon is a good example, and it seems to me one of his greatest works.Joseph Streeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09063000313935445659noreply@blogger.com