I am impressed contemporary classical music has such a warm welcome here in a technological community.
Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#22I never quite understood why music went this way. My take is that, as always, musicians had to have some kind of sponsorship, and it slowly shifted from musician being sponsored by noble family (for example Liszt and Esterhazy) to getting a stipend from some institutions board (for example Arnold Schoenberg who worked as a bank clerk and got his first stipend through intervention of friends). That is why nowadays you…
In my mind the interesting/curious transition is from music that "anybody" can play to music that requires the very very best players in the world. (I mean seriously, if the Kronos Quartet can't handle playing your string quartet...)
I mean, I'm a fair amateur bassoon and piano player. I've played bassoon on four Beethoven symphonies over the years, and technically they were easily within my grasp. His piano sonatas push me, but back when I was actively playing piano I could make them sound like music.
I've played some more modern music which was much harder, and while I quite like some of it, I sure don't think it was "better" than Beethoven.
I think the exact same thing has happened to jazz, too, it's just a few decades behind "classical" music in the transition...
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#23Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was convinced that he was a major 20th century composer. That point of view put him in the minority. Now, 26 years after his untimely death, people are starting to agree. Classical music-lovers, numb from all of the brutal, post-war contemporary music, are intrigued by this unusually intuitive composer and his tender, obsessive music. Feldman's "late" works are the most remarkable. Often sp…
Palais de Mari is a great piece of music, very accessible considering the style.
is the recording available online, either youtube or for sale?
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#24Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was convinced that he was a major 20th century composer. That point of view put him in the minority. Now, 26 years after his untimely death, people are starting to agree. Classical music-lovers, numb from all of the brutal, post-war contemporary music, are intrigued by this unusually intuitive composer and his tender, obsessive music. Feldman's "late" works are the most remarkable. Often sp…
> Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was convinced that he was a major 20th century composer. That point of view put him in the minority. Now, 26 years after his untimely death, people are starting to agree.
It's Béla Bartók all over again. I wonder if there's an unwritten rule in nature that truly creative composers have to die before people recognize the value of their work?
A counterexample to this pattern is Philip Glass, who is receiving some recognition, but by virtue of being recognized in his own lifetime, may undercut his own reputation.
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#25I'm always fascinated by the response of everyday people to music like this. I'm a former professional musician — my degree was in viola performance, and I freelanced for a number of years before I decided paying the rent was important — and my perspective on contemporary music has changed since I ceased actively performing. I think the largest change is that I've become less concerned with interesting music, and mor…
Personally I think it's a real shame that many advanced musicians focus on making 'interesting' music and seem to turn their noses up at merely 'enjoyable' music. It's corrupted entire genres like classical and jazz (Radiohead even managed to almost do it to rock).
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#26I'm always fascinated by the response of everyday people to music like this. I'm a former professional musician — my degree was in viola performance, and I freelanced for a number of years before I decided paying the rent was important — and my perspective on contemporary music has changed since I ceased actively performing. I think the largest change is that I've become less concerned with interesting music, and mor…
Feldman strikes me as a composer who has partly avoided and partly succumbed to the trap — all too common, as I see it — of deciding that the state of constant revolution that music has been in since about 1885 means that they can do anything they please and write music according to their own inscrutable (and often mechanical) system, shattering so many expectations so their music defies evaluation and nobody can tell them it isn't good.
Wow, that is just so well put. As an (at best) amateur musician and listener, I've never been able to quite identify what bothers me about (some) "modern" music. I actually like a lot of it, but as you point out, some of it seems guided more by arbitrary formalism than by what actually sounds good.
I'm sure this is opening an off-topic pandora's box, but the evolution of semi-mechanical compositional methods and (to me) seemingly arbitrary formalisms like 12-tone serialism strikes me as aping mathematics, science, or -- these days -- programming. Except with math, proofs have to, well, prove things; science is about empirical discovery; programs actually have to work.
I guess my malaise with 20th century compositional formalisms stems from the fact that there's no similar constraint for the musical outcomes -- when confronted with bafflement or derision from the audience, the composer can simply shrug and say, "it works for me"
Composers like Feldman (and, IMO Carter) seem to have used formal methods to produce some, at least, interesting and, at best, fascinating and beautiful work. And more intuitive 20th century composers like Charles Ives, Ned Rorem and Havergal Brian (to name three fascinating examples of many) really, to me, pushed the boundaries of beauty in music in seemingly less arbitrary ways.
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#27I never quite understood why music went this way. My take is that, as always, musicians had to have some kind of sponsorship, and it slowly shifted from musician being sponsored by noble family (for example Liszt and Esterhazy) to getting a stipend from some institutions board (for example Arnold Schoenberg who worked as a bank clerk and got his first stipend through intervention of friends). That is why nowadays you…
In my mind the interesting/curious transition is from music that "anybody" can play to music that requires the very very best players in the world. (I mean seriously, if the Kronos Quartet can't handle playing your string quartet...) I mean, I'm a fair amateur bassoon and piano player. I've played bassoon on four Beethoven symphonies over the years, and technically they were easily within my grasp. His piano sonatas…
I suppose in the recording and mass-distribution age, it makes sense to maximise for player ability (assuming it's worthwhile) if you only need one performance to make the piece immortal.
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#28I'm always fascinated by the response of everyday people to music like this. I'm a former professional musician — my degree was in viola performance, and I freelanced for a number of years before I decided paying the rent was important — and my perspective on contemporary music has changed since I ceased actively performing. I think the largest change is that I've become less concerned with interesting music, and mor…
Personally I think it's a real shame that many advanced musicians focus on making 'interesting' music and seem to turn their noses up at merely 'enjoyable' music. It's corrupted entire genres like classical and jazz (Radiohead even managed to almost do it to rock).
The same argument is made for contemporary architecture by Christopher Alexander: almost everyone focuses on creating something novel instead of structures of lasting value and source of, well, goodness. Alexander called this quality 'life'.
I think it is a sad state of affairs that it is indeed so in the modern world.
It is also interesting that it happens in so many distinct areas. Perhaps it is a property of the society and how it is structured today. It is of course rare for a community of nonprofessionals to be able to build a complete modern house. Why this affects musicians too, is not clear to me. The rise of individualism maybe?
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#29Interesting analysis of another amazing Feldman work, "Piano and String Quartet", including a visualization of the "Turkish Rug" formalism: http://www.cnvill.net/mfsani2.htm
Looks a bit like cellular automata. :)
Re: Almost Too Beautiful (2003)
#30Contemporary art tries to describe some kind of distorted reality.
We live in really fucked up times, more fragmented and complex, better documented and infomercialed but at the same time less understood in it's entirety than ever before.
Modern art tends to describe this condition rather then to appease or to gloss over it.
But that is nothing where people in 300 years will look back as something beautiful ( try to listen to ancient greek music, you will know what i mean ), point.