According to a music scholar I knew who specialized in the music of Mozart and Haydn, there were 500 composers writing at their time. Not possible to figure out now, but I wonder what distinguished the two survivors from the crowd. We do have hints, I suppose, by listening to the few contemporaries that have survived including Mozart's father.
Ed
Most music consumed by most people in the world today is merely functional, created in assembly-line fashion, to achieve predictable sales figures within a particular demographic. The art of composition is not even a factor. There are plenty of people who will argue that it's just as good as Shostakovich 10, but they are lying.Originally Posted by SeanHannifin
I love this thread!
I keep seeing the word "performers" used as a synonym for "symphony orchestra"... this is dangerous. Because they are two vastly different things.
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Some more random thoughts:
The "Players" I have known are generally open minded. But most are much more visciously discerning than most composers realize (indeed, more discerning than most composers). Too many composers seem to live in some weird mental isolation where they cannot see past their own noses. They think things went well if the players do not trash it. This is usually wrong. Players wait until the composer is gone, then trash the hell out of it if they do not like it. They just give the composer icy silence to be polite. I've seen it happen to composers countless times. When players really like a work, they are usually enthusiastically vocal about their approval, often going so far as to offer suggestions about the interpretation, or even the arrangement. Never ignore these, since it's usually something good that would never occur to someone who didn't play the particular instrument.
I've not been reading this thread long term but found the last two pages really interesting and wanted to chime in.
There are a number of interesting conversations in this thread but one comment that caught my eye was this by trentpmcd:
I agree that a lot of the music is beautiful but seems to lack depth. And I'm wondering why.An aside (sort of). I used to listen to a type of music called “New Age”. For the most part this was just a convenient name for music that didn’t fit anywhere else. There was the easy listening type music most think of as New Age; there was light jazz, mellow jazz and smooth jazz; there was what I call “prog rock light” and “prog pop”; there was westernized world music; there was all types of electronic music; etc.
There was also “light classical”. This was music, usually created by music school graduates that hated “modern music”, that had a very clear classical influence. The influence was often Mozart, occasionally something from the Baroque era, but usually Romantic. It was usually well written and always beautiful, however, there seemed to be something missing. It all seemed so one-dimensional. Was it not as well written as I thought? Perhaps. Maybe missing some social context? Maybe. Often it was that the people writing the music would be so concerned with trying to write beautiful music in the style of their favorite classical artist that they didn’t put any soul into it. It all sounded shallow and empty.
One explanation is that perhaps there is a lot of really good New Age music but it is burried in a mass of less interesting stuff. Older music has had the filter of time to eliminate many of the less interesting music. What is left is the world class stuff.
Another issue is that we don't really have any good distribution mechanisms for this type of music. It's tough to get it performed and there are so many people producing on CD or MP3 that it takes a lot of dedicated effort to find the gems.
It seems to me though that a lot of what I think of as New Age music feels superficial because it lacks thematic development. It has nice ideas and pretty transitions. But most of it lacks the depth that you would find in a a symphony. It's perhaps more like background music rather than music intended to be listened to carefully and deeply.
There may not be as huge an audience for complex and deep music but I believe that there will always be a sub-population that is passionate about it.
Such music should be able to be produced in many idioms. The idiom is only a framework and I believe that truly creative composers will find ways to intagrate and innovate so the music continues to sound fresh.
Charlie
So does it have to do with the intent behind the music?
There are plenty of bargain priced classical CD collections, the kind they advertise on late night TV, like "World's Greatest Opera" or "Soothing Classical" ... would this music be considered less serious considering the manner in which it is produced and marketed? The intent of the original composer doesn't change...
And how does one ever know the true intent behind any piece of music anyway?
Sean Patrick Hannifin
My MP3s | My Melody Generator | my album
"serious music" ... as if the rest of us are just kidding
Ooh, it would certainly be interesting to listen to some of these contemporaries. I remember hearing a piece on the radio that was distinctly Mozart, but it turned out to be his father... very similar sound. But then Franz Mozart (I think that was his name) was far different.
Even today celebrities and movies and books become suddenly popular out of nowhere for no explainable reason... Harry Potter will surely continue being famous 50 years from now, but similar stories are nothing new. How did Harry Potter rise to such great heights? I'm certainly not saying this is true of Mozart and Beethoven, but certainly many times people and places and trends and things become quite popular for no good reason at all.
Sean Patrick Hannifin
My MP3s | My Melody Generator | my album
"serious music" ... as if the rest of us are just kidding
I live in the brass band centre of Britain, and band players are just not known for such tact. Usually they will start trashing a piece even with the composer there. For instance, when I was at high school I sang in the premiere of a piece by Peter Maxwell Davies, for choir and brass band. The band were Foden's who are the best band in the country, and just happen to originate from my smal town. Well they decided they didn't like the piece, so, for the actual performance they all swapped instruments - their way of saying 'this is so crap that we can all play really badly and noone will be able to tell the difference.' And they were right.
Who's deciding what they play?
If they're getting paid, then they're being horribly unprofessional and might be out of a job soon... but they themselves obviously didn't choose it...
Sean Patrick Hannifin
My MP3s | My Melody Generator | my album
"serious music" ... as if the rest of us are just kidding
No, bands are all amateur (although usually made up of incredible players, many of whom are professional in some other ensemble). I not sure how they came to be playing in the piece - one of those things where a group manages to make a decision that not one of its members is happy about.Who's deciding what they play?
If they're getting paid, then they're being horribly unprofessional and might be out of a job soon... but they themselves obviously didn't choose it...
Some obfuscation of terms is troubling me. This is true not only in this thread, but in the general populace.
Classical music is that music which was created during the so-called Classical Period. The term is often used to describe any and all forms of instrumental music utilizing orchestral instruments, whether instrumental solos, chamber music, or orchestral. I have even (often) heard the term applied to Stage Band music, and on a few occasions to Marching Band music. Greg Sandowe, in the article Gary cited on opening this thread, also conflates terms in this way.
I believe every poster here understands the distinctions, as well as what Sandowe was presenting. I just needed to make that point.
Beyond that, I've found this thread fascinating. I'm inclined to chime in with what I see as some key points--most of which have been clearly articulated--because I think most of us are at the same place in the score.
The first reply (rpearl) put it quite succinctly: the bean counters replaced the cultural evangalists who seemed to want to elevate the collective cultural consciousness.
Further, Trent put in one post what Jess and Sean (and should I go on?) have clearly intimated: that there is a freedom in discipline. I don't believe any of us would argue the need for a constant repetition of scales, arpeggios and common phrases when practicing our chosen instrument(s) in order to facilitate a mastery of the instrument(s). Most of us who teach certainly take this approach. We are trying to instill a sense of one-ness with the instrument in the student . . . no doubt because we have observed that the true virtuosi have so integrated the vocabulary of their instrument into their own voice that their playing often seems effortless; it is as though the performer were singing their part with an instrument, rather than their vocal chords.
The same holds true of composing and orchestrating. We study the so-called masters because we are trying to integrate the vocabulary of the masters into our own everyday speech in composition and orchestration. There are direct analogies to spoken language: most of us have larger vocabularies than our parents had; some words and phrases have fallen by the wayside because they have lost relevance (e.g., horseless carriage) or because they have been worn out through overuse; we have new words and phrases engendered by "progress;" etc.
I often refer to a quote attributed to Charlie Parker: "Genius is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration." I don't think there's disagreement here about the place held by patterns in any of this. We build a vocabulary of patterns--structural, harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, themic--and expend that perspiration in crafting these patterns in different ways. It helps many to have a systematic approach, and the craft can be taught that way, in some variation or other. It seems to me that the craft of performing is well served by that approach (scales, chords, intervallic patterns, etc.). This approach also allows the composer some mastery of the vocabulary, and frees him or her to be open to that other 10%, the part of each of us that is potentially creative genius.
On occasion, someone coins a new word or phrase that gains currency. In very rare instances this comes about through the deliberate efforts of one person. Most such efforts fail miserably. Generally, the word or phrase gains currency through its relevance to a group of people, or to the masses. When it does come through one person it usually comes from someone with an established credibility. Rarely, it comes from some natural genius that's somehow collectively recognized.
I believe the same holds true of composition. Develop the craft; fine-tune it as much as possible; make the process of composing as much a "second nature" as possible, and leave room for some spark of creative genius to give voice to that which catches the imagination of the listening public.
Happenstance also plays a part. The vagaries of circumstances will frequently determine who is "in" and who is not. I recall playing with some jazz musicians years ago who could outplay any of the "known giants." Yes, "outplay" can be seen as subjective . . . but it might also have some yardsticks available. Spontaneous creativity; command of the instrument; the ability to instantly "grab" the sense of a chart; presence in front of an audience. These were people who had not been "sponsored" in any way, who were not "favorite sons" or someone's "darling." I've heard this same observation made in this thread with respect to "classical" composers . . . that some of the lesser-known were as good as (or better than) some of the better-known. All of this goes to say that anyone wanting to "make a mark" needs as much exposure as possible, and there are many implications in this.
Whether "Classical" music is dead (or dying) or not depends largely on what we deem "Classical." Recorded music sales is one measure; live performances is another. Yet those numbers speak to those aspects, not to the actual listener who already has a collection of records/tapes/CDs, or who listens to the "Classical" stations when given a choice. I repair cars all day, and can tell you what I hear when I get into a customer's car and turn the key. Yes, there's an awful lot of "thump, thump" going on, but more often than we are led to believe by Sandowe's discourse, I hear one of the local "classical" stations, or a "classical" CD in the player. Demographics? Broad and wide. Cars? The full range of rustbuckets we've got on life support to newer hybrids. And when I was teaching at a major university, many of my colleagues listened to metal, and wanted no part of "elitist classical ****."
As has already been pointed out, this is complex. I, for one, am not busy composing a dirge to condole the passing of "classical" (or "serious" or "contemporary") music.
Joe
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