Recently I’ve been thinking about
‘modern-classical’ music a lot. Spurred on by two small articles that seem to
have caused a little disturbance, as well as the BBC’s ‘The Sound and Fury’
programmes about contemporary music in the 20th century, I’ve
decided to pen my thoughts on it all; as an exploration as well as simply a
response. The two articles, which I shall leave links for below, are on
‘Considering Your Audience’ as a composer (James McCarthy for Gramophone) and a Telegraph review by Nigel Farndale of the BBC series mentioned
above.
I’ll start with this…
‘Admitting you find modern music, by
which it is meant mid 20th century orchestral music, unlistenably
random and jarring is not easy, because it is tantamount to acknowledging that
you are a thicko.’
Now, I’m sure there are many musical people out there that will be quick to defend the simplicity, the processes and the merits of intelligence in music. But for a moment consider the otherwise ‘non-musical’ audience of the music, who must choose between being intimidated or ignorant to a whole world of art. Do we ever ask ourselves why a listener doesn’t enjoy this area of music or why it seems to be so inaccessible? Have we reached a point of no return for contemporary classical material, and if so, why?
In the early 20th century, orchestral music took a turn towards becoming a cognitive art form. It seemed that a deprivation of the sensory pleasures of music ensued and that composers became scientific instead of spontaneous and intuitive. This came about as the escape from tonality, the move away from known harmony and melodic idioms that make up our world of more familiar music. The result of an escape from the tonal world is the emancipation of dissonance, as put by Arnold Schoenberg: without whom our world of music would surely be a different creature altogether.
Consonance: a harmony, chord or interval that is
considered stable, perhaps comfortable.
Dissonance: an unstable tone combination; its tension demands a move towards a stable chord – to resolve.
Dissonance: an unstable tone combination; its tension demands a move towards a stable chord – to resolve.
This inclusion of dissonance is one unlike
the kind found in music by Wagner, (a
type that the definition above categorises) of which we are nearly
subconsciously familiar with, in the same way as Beethoven. It is unrelated
to consonance entirely: atonal and explicit, the use is not intended to resolve
into a consonance. It all started with an eight-note chord in Richard Strauss’ Salome, at the climax of the finale, and one that resolved quite
awkwardly still into a consonant coda. To think that such a simple augmentation
could get a work banned (which it was, akin to Beethoven’s ninth symphony) is
laughable now, but the sound was groundbreaking alongside a rather sordid
affair in the opera. It begs the question, if we now see such things as
primitive, to what end do we accept dissonance as listeners in the present
day? I like to think, especially as I
occupy most of my time with it, that film
music can at least help with the answer. Film soundtracks, as a guide, usually
stick to dealing with music that an audience is familiar with: reason being
that in order to convey an idea or emotion appropriately, you must utilise the
idioms that have been accepted and understood by the audience. It’s why Hollywood took to the orchestral sound
to begin with, and it’s evident in scores to films such as The Matrix, Gladiator and V for Vendetta.
If, for sake of argument, then, we say that film music, by way of assimilation, represents the current state of audience-acceptance of dissonance, then we can start to draw a line in the sand and find the point at which it all just becomes too much. The point at which the intellectual input results in the ear’s quest to make sense of the jumbled pieces before it; The point at which we need to know the process in order to appreciate the music; The point after which it’s all just noise… I draw that line firmly at Schoenberg.
If, for sake of argument, then, we say that film music, by way of assimilation, represents the current state of audience-acceptance of dissonance, then we can start to draw a line in the sand and find the point at which it all just becomes too much. The point at which the intellectual input results in the ear’s quest to make sense of the jumbled pieces before it; The point at which we need to know the process in order to appreciate the music; The point after which it’s all just noise… I draw that line firmly at Schoenberg.
When Farndale writes ‘what I liked most about this new series was the
permission it gave us to dislike Schoenberg’, I can only hope he was keeping
the significance of the music in mind. He is correct in that modern music at
that point was ‘anti-music’. John Adams mused that the only way to be original
was to do the opposite of what is a ‘big deal’ at the time. In that, the
aversion to consonance becomes clear, but when Eric Whitacre says ‘Poor Schoenberg… He carries the great
weight of causing the terrible rot that happened in classical music’, he is
not attacking the composer. The context implies that as being the point-man on
the front lines of listenability, it is inevitably his shoulders that are stood
on by the generations after him. They adopt his ideals, and arguably still do,
but I think the reason we still cannot accept them in society is because they
now seem to lack any necessary or explainable reason.
When Schoenberg escaped tonality it was to not to evade, but to pursue a different, a new way of describing emotions with music. The world at the time was changing rapidly; there were wars, atrocities, new regimes and industrial uprising. Debussy said that composers had a duty to evoke the progress of modern days, and in this climate it seems more than appropriate that something ‘unlistenable’ might come out of it all. Were Schoenberg and his student successors simply reflecting acts of the 20th-century? In this way it seems easy to compare modernist art of the period with the surge of misunderstood music that we’re referring to. When we want to conjure pictures of other planets, should we not have non-gravitational music? While this all lends a hand to Schoenberg’s defense, it does so because it all had such clear rationale. When we think of ‘modern’ contemporary classical music, the kind that is a couple of generations on from Schoenberg, I fear the reason for the emancipation of dissonance subsides (give thought to the temperament of the world we live in today compared to 1945…).
It seems that there has been growth from the great emancipation towards the
reasonless combination of knowingly uncommon sounding orchestral techniques, or
search for new sounds to make up a
piece of contemporary classical music. Where Stravinsky was cubism, modern music is like modern art, a constant search for the
unique or for originality. I find the current situation baffling given that the
futurist movement had essentially written the orchestra off as a way of
perpetuating a new sound in contemporary music, and that was over fifty years
ago. Composers still write pieces hitting instruments as Xenakis did nearly
thirty years ago when people moved away from the replication to the
augmentation of recorded sounds even earlier. Academia has left us with the
notion that art is not for all, and if
it is for all then it is not art.
I’d say that if a work is so intellectual that it couldn’t be, or wasn’t
allowed to be enjoyed by a listener, or any audience for that matter, then who is left to judge it’s value?
This brings me in a roundabout way to the matter of considering your audience when you write music. Now, while I may have an opinion of my own on the particular style of current contemporary classical music of late, I must retain that it is only my opinion. I couldn’t say how it should be otherwise, nor how to get there. In a rather contradictory way, all I can say is that whatever you do as a composer, don’t think about it, just do it. Don’t write music a certain way because you have to, or because other people do. As an artist of any kind, the only way forward is to do something that is wholly yours, which you believe in, and that you love, rather than seeking out originality for the sake of it. The current state sees composers writing music for peer-review in academia, for originality’s sake, and failing to grasp that it doesn’t work as entertainment. James McCarthy writes:
‘If the composer is writing music
as an academic pursuit then they should go into it fully aware that this is
what they are doing, and not be crushed when the world doesn’t want to storm
the concert hall demanding to hear their music. If they are writing music to say
something about themselves and the world we live in today, then they need to be
aware that what they say needs to be a least partly intelligible to the average
concert-goer.’
Although the article at times is too
attacking towards composers, meaning it is unlikely to be taken seriously by
those who it applies to most, I agree with the overall sentiment. If you write
in this particular, post-Schoenberg language, you should be aware that the
style exists to accommodate to and impress a very small group of individuals,
and they are not, surprise, surprise,
the group that buys concert tickets to hear music that, yes is altogether
usually more tonal, but more importantly it is more accessible. When Schoenberg set aside to free music from the rules
that had been built around it, he didn’t do so that you might use his methods
as guidelines once more. I think there’s some unrest in the community, and the
audience is certainly waiting: it seems apparent that the direction of
contemporary classical composition isn’t moving forward, and can’t while it
moves in the same circles as music of sixty years passed. Like Schoenberg
escaping tonality, it seems more than appropriate given the progress of modern days that we escape
from our purely dissonant world. Noise based music has integrated into other
more popular styles and is accepted by huge audiences; maybe there’s something
to learn from that?
Whatever such a shift may be or require, it’s about time composers did something a little different. 20th-century artists have moved away from being popular, as if the popular is less serious. When Gershwin asked to study under Stravinsky, he was asked how much he earned. His reply was in the millions, to which Stravinsky replied ‘then I should be studying with you’. When he asked Schoenberg the same question he was denied again. The response: ‘Right now you are a great Gershwin, and under me you would merely be a mediocre Schoenberg’. I think it’s about time contemporary music was popular again. We might see some more diversity in the concert scene at the very least.
Gershwin wrote some film music too, just sayin’…
Whatever such a shift may be or require, it’s about time composers did something a little different. 20th-century artists have moved away from being popular, as if the popular is less serious. When Gershwin asked to study under Stravinsky, he was asked how much he earned. His reply was in the millions, to which Stravinsky replied ‘then I should be studying with you’. When he asked Schoenberg the same question he was denied again. The response: ‘Right now you are a great Gershwin, and under me you would merely be a mediocre Schoenberg’. I think it’s about time contemporary music was popular again. We might see some more diversity in the concert scene at the very least.
Gershwin wrote some film music too, just sayin’…
Alex
What do you think - Do you find that modern classical music can be unlistenable? Or are you on the other side of the fence?
What do you think - Do you find that modern classical music can be unlistenable? Or are you on the other side of the fence?
The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Modern Music, BBC
Four, review.
Nigel
Farndale – Feb 13 2013 – The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/9866855/The-Sound-and-the-Fury-A-Century-of-Modern-Music-BBC-Four-review.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/9866855/The-Sound-and-the-Fury-A-Century-of-Modern-Music-BBC-Four-review.html
Composers – consider your
audience
James McCarthy – Feb 7 2013 – Gramophone
James McCarthy – Feb 7 2013 – Gramophone
