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Though I think some composers are undeniably great, my general feelings about music are much more reflected by the end of this excellent article on a largely-overlooked but wonderful composer for the concert hall:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price
"In progressive musicological circles these days, you hear much talk about the canon and about the bad assumptions that underpin it. Classical music, perhaps more than any other field, suffers from what the acidulous critic-composer Virgil Thomson liked to call the “masterpiece cult.” He complained about the idea of an “unbridgeable chasm between ‘great work’ and the rest of production . . . a distinction as radical as that recognized in theology between the elect and the damned.” The adulation of the master, the genius, the divinely gifted creator all too easily lapses into a cult of the white-male hero, to whom such traits are almost unthinkingly attached.
I feel some ambivalence about the anti-masterpiece line. Having grown up with the notion of musical genius, I am reluctant to let it go entirely. What I value most as a listener is the sense of a singular creative personality coalescing from anonymous sounds. I wonder whether the profile of genius could simply evolve to include a broader range of personalities and faces. But there’s no doubt that the jargon of greatness has become musty, and more than a little toxic. I recently had a social-media exchange with the Harvard-based scholar Anne Shreffler, who wrote of instilling different values in her classes. She said, “Instead of telling students it’s Great, you can say it’s worth their while: historically fascinating, well crafted, genre bending, or just listen-to-this-amazing-moment-at-the-end. Rather than a religious icon.” If we are going to treat music as a full-fledged art form—and, surprisingly often, we don’t—we need to be open to the bewildering richness of everything that has been written during the past thousand years. To reduce music history to a pageant of masters is, at bottom, lazy. We stick with the known in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown."
I find myself agreeing with Virgil Thomson...as a society music lovers tend to concentrate solely on the "great" works and "great" composers (perhaps because of active guidance from snobby critics or even music teachers) as if that is all that has worth, and all of the great, rich context of music gets forgotten as works/composers not fortunate enough to make it into the official pantheon are allowed to fall through the cracks (or are even sometimes more intentionally buried).
What do you guys think?
Yavar
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Posted: |
May 11, 2018 - 11:15 AM
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By: |
mgh
(Member)
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Well, I agree with you and Mr. Thomson; I think if we only concentrate on masterpieces and great composers, we miss a tremendous amount of music. One of my great joys has been searching for new music. Yes, I have come up with some real clunkers, but I have also come up with some music that has really enriched my life. An example of this is Shostakovich. Starting out, I was not particularly fond of Shostakovich. I really loved his 5th and 7th Symphonies, and that was pretty much it. But I kept digging into him. One of his symphonies I actually disliked was Symphony No. 4. But I would listen to it every once in a while, give up, and come back a year or two later, and try again. One time I came back, and it opened up to me. I suddenly understood what he was trying to do. And now I am of the opinion that his Symphony No. 4 may be the greatest symphony of the 20th Century.
Another example is the English composer, Richard Arnell. I discovered him when I was digging through relatively unknown composers and I came across his Symphony No. 4; in my opinion, a raving masterpiece.
And, of course, there are many others. I am still discovering them.
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I have a problem with the white person thing coming up, didn't seem necessary to me.
An interesting article. For musicologically educated people, it can be horrendously uncomfortable hearing Taylor Swift and Jay Z compared to Beethoven. In fact I resent being indoctrinated into that mindset (though I imagine there are plenty of other folks who'd get uncomfortable with that I'm sure).
Sometimes I wonder if music graduates can be a bit like Nietzsche's critique of the adoration of Catholic Saints: "I mean, all that had to be for SOMEthing, didn't it?". It's almost like we're defensive at times over having learned so much only to be confronted with new music that's mostly recycled and reliant on production tricks and fresh new faces over anything truly original and compelling as music-in-itself.
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I don't think the argument is for Taylor Swift and Jay Z to be considered with Beethoven, but for Florence Price to be listened to in addition to Beethoven.  Hence the "white male hero" angle, since Florence Price was a female person of color.
Yavar
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Posted: |
May 11, 2018 - 12:30 PM
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By: |
Rameau
(Member)
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The problem is that record companies & concert halls have to live in the commercial world, that's why we get 9000 recordings of Beethoven's 5th & one recording of Rameau's last opera, Les Boréades (trying to think of a work that has just one complete recording). When you start off liking/exploring classical music, it's all the well known stuff (the Clockwork Orange soundtrack LP got me going), but you soon get bored with that & start exploring the less well known stuff. When I started off I had lots of Bach, I haven't got any now, but I have lots of his sons works, CPE & JC (the London Bach), in fact JC is one of my favourite composers. My latest leap in the dark is Paul Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik, a lot of short works for various small ensembles, I heard some of it on the radio (I found the two-CD set in a charity shop). It's just like pop/rock really, you start off with the obvious stuff & then move on the more obscure.
https://www.youtube
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It's extremely relevant in the context of the New Yorker article as it discusses the overlooked, yet extraordinary work of a female African American composer.
Exactly, thanks, though I didn't mean to focus on that aspect for this board discussion.
That said, the great classical composers would be my heroes regardless of color, gender, or any other factor, because the music is all that really matters. Do we really need to reevaluate them just for being while males?
I don't think anyone (even anyone quoted in the article) is arguing for knocking down the white male composers a peg or two, just wanting to *additionally* celebrate the overlooked composers who don't fit that description, and appreciate that there were probably many more nonwhite, nonmale individuals with great musical talent who were actively discouraged from becoming composers. Some of them became composers anyway, though each small victory and performance of their work was no doubt hard-won. Recognizing that is important, as is changing things for the future (how many female film composers are there? how many people of color writing film music?) Doesn't take anything away from Beethoven.
For what it's worth, I had never heard of Florence Price before Yavar brought up this article. I am listening to her Symphony No. 1 in E minor right now and it is stunning.
I realize that she's heavily influenced by Dvorak and all, but since I adore Dvorak that's no problem at all for me. Here you go Jens -- It's all really good stuff and it's so easy to be a completist of her work because so little has been recorded/released:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=667784
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=9153
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Name/Florence-Beatrice-Price/Composer/106741-1#drilldown_recordings
Most recent was the premiere recording of her two violin concertos, but I can't recommend it from experience because I haven't listened yet:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2266518
I like to encourage support of ArkivMusic when possible over evil Amazon.
Yavar
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It's extremely relevant in the context of the New Yorker article as it discusses the overlooked, yet extraordinary work of a female African American composer.
Exactly, thanks, though I didn't mean to focus on that aspect for this board discussion.
That said, the great classical composers would be my heroes regardless of color, gender, or any other factor, because the music is all that really matters. Do we really need to reevaluate them just for being while males?
Yavar
Why can't it just be "the overlooked, yet extraordinary work of a female composer."?
But I apologize, as this isn't the aim of the topic. I just get tired of hearing about the evil, overpriviledged white man...and I'm neither white nor male.
And I won't apologize for feeling that last.
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What I value most is music that goes well with the cocktail I'm drinking. I just mixed a maitai (Don the Beachcomber version) and listening to Martin Denny's Exotica III in mono. That album is "great" for where I am right now.
I prefer Wayne Newton with Mai Tais (but please keep in mind, I'm talking the turquoise-belt-wearing era of Wayne's specifically, all others are best with Wild Irish Rose).
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Why can't it just be "the overlooked, yet extraordinary work of a female composer."?
Perhaps because, when grading it on a scale with "the greatest composers of all time" it can't really reasonably be called "extraordinary". But this takes me back to the original topic I wanted to bring up. Why can't "excellent" or "worth you time" be the focus rather than on something only being considered if it is in the accepted great pantheon of works?
I stick with what seems fair to me: if you like something (specifically, something that doesn't involve hurting someone else), it's good, it's great, it's whatever you think about it. Don't listen to some mildly successful composer/music graduate for affirmation, or anyone else. That's how trends start, which provides yet another way everyone can be like someone other than who they are.
I still love my AC/DC and Cannibal Corpse records, which overwhelmingly consist of basically three good songs played over and over again with new titles stuck on. I really couldn't give a rat's hindquarters what anyone else thinks of them.
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The thing I will agree with in this article is that the focus of classical music performances and preservation is too narrow, and that discoverability is too low. I agree it would be wonderful if the "gatekeepers" in charge of classical music concert programming and labels made more of an effort to promote lesser-known artists.
However, I also think Rameau is correct in pointing out that this is mostly driven by what will sell. It is infinitely harder to raise awareness of and create demand for an obscure artist than to focus on what is already popular. Is this unfortunate? Yes. Is it an "evil system"? Not at all. It's just reality.
The "evil system" I was referring to was the one that over centuries has discouraged those who are not white or male from being able to pursue composition. Women were allowed to be musicians more than composers, and I suspect we all know how difficult it's even been for female musicians to be taken seriously before the past century or so.
I don't think the current concert-programming system is evil...at the worst it's cowardly. I agree they're just doing what they think is likely to sell. But the fact is: this is a *result* of decades upon decades of this "greatness is all that is worthwhile" mindset when it comes to classical music. There is a *reason* that Beethoven sells and Florence Price does not, beyond the fact that Beethoven was undeniably the greater composer. It's the same reason that Florence Price did not get the opportunities she might have gotten. It's something of a vicious cycle: People want to go to Beethoven or Brahms or Tchakovsky because that's what they've mainly heard of. But that's what they've mainly heard of because that's what's been getting played (in concerts, on the radio, recorded for album ad nauseam, etc.) But this also becomes a self-destructive cycle I think, because it makes concert programming tired and pedestrian for the most part...eventually over time making people less excited to attend as well. ("Oh, Beethoven's 5th again? I've already heard that five times before. I don't need to bother.") It makes classical music become more of a museum piece, rather than a living breathing art form, which it SHOULD be since it's performance-based!
Now maybe it's too late to change this trend. But we should still try. And programming some Florence Price in there is one way of starting. That's what I think was being argued in the article, anyway.
Yavar
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