The Dire State of Contemporary Classical Music (?)

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

I was listening to Thomas Adés's Asyla (1997) on YouTube (a piece I enjoy a great deal), and I scrolled down to the comments and stumbled upon this thought-provoking exchange, between the users Michael Willoughby and John Borstlap.

All the effort is put into the surface. What the music 'says' is merely the conventional clichée of alienation, chaos, disruption, nihilism etc. etc. that has become de rigeur in 'established modern music' for half a century by now. Music is not about interesting sounds but about something musically interesting to 'say'. The snippets of musical lines in the midst of 'nice, interesting sounds' betray a longing to write real music... which was still possible at the beginning of the last century. Ades is a convincing symbol of the conventionalized modern music scene.

what you chattin about, John? It is "about" rhythm, structure, movement, haunted-ness, perhaps lunacy, perhaps danger." The piece is divided into discrete sections with a completely separate emotional tenor. There are a number of themes (yes, there are some tunes) There is tension. Excitement. Overwhelmingness. Majesty. Terror. I agree that some contemporary (or post-Boulez) stuff has nothing to offer a listener. But this piece is fantastic. I warmed to it the first time I heard it and am enjoying it now listening to it in a more mature headspace.

The "clichée [sic] of alienation, chaos, disruption, nihilism" that you hear in this piece is, in fact, a metaphor. It is not "in" the piece any more than "grace" is in a building. I think it is, in fact, simply what is in your head when you hear a piece of music that you don't like, or can't understand or stick with to find out what it offers.

It is always an easy escape to consider critique as a matter of taste... so that arguments can be disposed-of without a closer look into them. Ades' work may be somewhat less bad than, say, Xenakis or Boulez or Birtwistle, but that is not too difficult. It is all a matter of comparison. If Ades' work is intended as serious music for a symphony orchestra, you can compare it with some pieces of the repertoire which carry with them a fully-equiped dimension of psychology and expression, together with an instrumental treatment the aesthetics of which signify the best that is possible with an orchestra. (I won't name some pieces to avoid again the accusaion of 'taste'.) For a musically-developed person - which I assume mr W is - jubilating about Ades is only possible if contemporary music is considered a territory fundamentally different from the existing repertoire. And what does that say?

One of the things it says is that all art forms have changed massively since "the repertoire" was "finished." If I wrote poetry like a late romantic I would be laughed out of my poetry group. But again your points are simply based on metaphor. There is no such thing as "psychology" in music. There is no "thing" to express except what we read into it. Apart from the fact that it is pretty laughable to discount taste given that is the only thing we are talking about here, the fact is that music only has rhythm, melody, tonality, harmony, progression, performance and even these things are human musical constructs for organised sound. The "repertoire" is just a bunch of stuff that was written a while ago that sells tickets and records. I'm not saying this to be pernickerty as you might think. I'm saying I cannot agree with the terms of your argument. But the reason I find your arguments so deeply ironic is that I'm also saying that I think there is so much to talk about in this piece (even from a non musician perspective) that I really feel quite wry that you miss it all as you desperately wish (?) it was something else.

And it suggests to me it's pretty much the same comment you put everywhere, like so many people who espouse your views.

Anyway...who says this is so different from "the repertoire" do we include Bernstein, Gershwin and Ellington in "the repertoire." What about bits of Barber and Ives and Joplin? Even the folk aspects of Dvorak and Brahms are inspired, as is the end of this, by popular, offbeat rhythms. What about "gollywog's cakewalk"? Even on the terms of your own argument you are on slippery ground unless you yourself decide what is "the repertoire." 

I'd love to hear what Thomas, a virtuosic pianist with a penchant for Schubert would reply

All this is merely reflecting a world view, a view upon culture, which is based upon cultural relativism and materialism. There is no objective value, every taste is OK, there are no hierarcies in terms of quality or achievement... etc. etc., a really grey and confused existence. Of course the qualities we detect in existing poetry and art and music are qualities that are inherent in the work of art. We do not 'read into' the thing what we expect, we discover it through our own receptivity. The greenness of the grass is not something we read into the grass, something we project into the thing itself (a 'human construct'), but is a quality of the grass that our senses (related to the environment through evolution) can detect. To think otherwise is misunderstanding Kant, Schopenhauer et al and the entire tradition of philosophy of dislocation that stems from it, especially Derrida, Foucault and the other confused minds that liked the game of 'deconstruction'. Not to mention Bourdieu who explained art as MERELY an instrument of power handled by the bourgoeois classes, which is a statement completely missing the difference between the work of art and the use that could be made of it.

The contemporary music clichés are therefore interesting because they so openly show this sorry state, without the slightest inhibition, and probably without any consciousness of it. There are people who hear the music, and other people who merely hear the sound of it. That is a fundamental difference, and so much contemporary music - i.e. establishment (post-)modernism - only 'happens' on the surface of sound.

It is simply not true that music has no psychological dimension, in contrary, that is just exactly where music is 'about': to create a psychological state in the listener. ALL composers from the very first beginnings of (art-) music history tried to achieve that. It is only in the last century that composers, and they were really sonic artists rather than composers of music, denied that dimension. You can read their intentions clearly in their writings (Boulez, Xenakis, Stockhausen, etc. etc.) and they were followed by armies of people who lacked the musical talents to make music 'speak', and indeed found that composing was much and much easier than thought before. That is the reason that there are so MANY contemporary composers nowadays in relation to the populations.

These are statements that probably won't find a warm welcome with people who really enjoy stuff like Ades (who, by the way, is not the worst of the types), but I am merely stating the thing that is obvious to anybody with a residu of musical insight. The entire central performance culture is based upon the psychological aspects of music, just think of orchestral rehearsels, or what critics try to detect in performances, or what conductors try to achieve. That is what I mean: an abyss of difference between musical practice and the usual practice and thinking within established 'modern music'.

A last word upon 'progress'. There is no linear progressive music history, as there is no such thing in art anyway. It is the timeless qualities of old art, old poetry, old music, which keeps it alive. "If I wrote poetry like a late romantic I would be laughed out of my poetry group." It is exactly this conformism which keeps people with vague artistic promptings on the narrow line of a misunderstood historical narrative. The orientation upon what other people think is sure to produce conventionality and sure to end in barren nihilism - just what we hear and see all around us in the cultural field. If one would be able to pick-up the real qualities of 'late romantic poetry' and give them a personal interpretation, there would not be anything laughable about that. The qualities of, say, a Verlaine or a Mallarmé or, even, a Richard Dehmel, are not locked-up in the particular moment on the historical time line, and it is exactly THIS that makes it possible to enjoy this poetry, while living in a totally different time, culture, place.

All common sense this, really.....

Now, would you agree with John's (damning) statement? Is most contemporary concert music all all talk and no trousers - just a bunch of brilliant effects and extended techniques, but no musical substance?

Something to get the ball rolling...

[Henry B 50]

The only damning thing about John Borstlap's statement is its curmudgeonliness. And Thomas Adés, one of the leaders of the avant garde, really? I love his music, but it (for better or worse) sits on the conservative side of the spectrum. I wonder what Borstlap would think of Beat Furrer.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

No mention of that subtle, tuneful genius, Ferneyhough? His music should dispel all doubt that there is any such thing as a "technique over substance" issue among contemporary composers.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

"Sounding the Century" - Christ alive! I can remember this series as though it was yesterday. And I heard the above when it was broadcast (the night after the actual performance, I think). Probably still have the audio cassette lying around somewhere...

 

As for Mr. Bortslap's opinions, what a pity it is that he doesn't give any examples of pieces or composers he values and the reasons behind them, rather than simply listing some of those that he disdains; that makes it rather difficult to find anything that one can argue against. His reference to traits of "chaos" and "disruption" in modern music is the closest I can find to a concrete example of the sort of thing of which he disapproves and I completely disagree with the implication that, in music such as that of Adès or even Boulez, the chaos overwhelms the order.

 

A rather more vaguely described complaint he has is that "music is not about interesting sounds but about something musically interesting to 'say'" and, while I wouldn't wish to deny that extra-musical perceptions or assumptions about a piece of music can considerably enhance one's responses to it, I'm still firmly of the view that its principal value lies in the actual notes - their various combinations, and transformations of these combinations - and that any further interpretations one might wish to apply are of a secondary nature (which is not to say an unimportant one). Still, since Bortslap gives neither examples of pieces of music which have musically interesting things to say, nor an argument to show that Adès's music has nothing musically interesting to say, it's difficult to know exactly where my disagreement with him lies...

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Perhaps one of us should reply to him...

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

But who among us will dare to plunge their hands into the filth of the Youtube comment section?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

It could be worse. It could be IMDb.

[KK 3,307]

I think Austin Wintory addressed the concept of "colour vs. substance" in contemporary concert music really well in one of his blog posts:

http://austinwintory.com/news/thinking-about-color/

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Do you agree with him, KK?

BTW, I think us JWFanners should start using these terms.

Chocolate Easter Bunny Music
Music that is pretty on the outside, and nothing but air inside.

OLAMBIC

Closely related to Chocolate Easter Bunny Music: "Orchestrated Like A Motherf***er, But It's Crap."

NOLAMAIC

A corollary to olambic: "NOT Orchestrated Like A Motherf***er, AND It's Crap."

PLAMBIDAT

Another corollary to olambic: "Produced Like A Motherf***er, But It's Dumb As Toast."

LAMO

Look At My Orchestration.

Lenny's Revenge

Contemporary concert music that sounds like warmed-over Bernstein, especially ze mambo from ze Vest Side Story.

Intensificatutti

Single-line music given an orchestrational crescendo. Example: the opening of "It's the Same Old Song".

http://home.earthlink.net/~ziodavino/album1_003.htm

[nightscape94 965]



Now, would you agree with John's (damning) statement? Is most contemporary concert music all all talk and no trousers - just a bunch of brilliant effects and extended techniques, but no musical substance?

Elements that are different or new are always worth exploring. Certainly there are things to be gained by studying minimalism or atonality even if you don't like them. There is no finite set of perpetual standards against which all music should be judged.

Substance only exists in the human mind. Notes in a vaccuum do not have substance. Mr. Borstlap seems to have a very specific and unwavering viewpoint on what music should be for everyone, not just himself.

I totally get why, say, something like "Music for 18 Musicians" by Reich is appealing. I really do. At almost an hour long that type of thing is like a bad stress test to me, but a lot of people adore it. I can't take that away from them (nor would I want to). Music is a very personal experience. In what way am I more right them them?

[Score 770]

This discussion is about what is perhaps the most important issue not only with modern music, but probably with a large part of modern art as well. If I understand the main point that Mr. Bortslap is trying to make, I personally agree, and I am also very sad about the state of a great part of current "art music". This does not mean that I do not listen to some avant-garde music (I like many of Ligeti's compositions, to name one), but in general I do not assign it the same value that I assign to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, or, with the due differences, to some good film music like that of John Williams. I just think they are two different experiences.

What I think Bortslap wants to say is NOT that avant-garde music is "disorder" and "chaos". Actually, anyone who is familiar with this music and has seen any sheet music of it knows that many gestures which sound chaotic are actually the result of an extremely careful planning of durations of rests and sounds and heights of pitches from the composer, which often follows very precise and detailed mathematical sequences. His point is probably that the result does not communicate much more than the "sequence" itself. In other terms, a large part of the avant-garde output (with notable exceptions!) does not give emotions (to most people, not to all!), in the sense that it does not affect the listener's state of mind in any constructive way. If this is his point, I personally agree with this, in the sense that I very often find myself completely indifferent and just annoyed when I listen to things such as "Symphonic poem for 100 metronomes", while I almost always feel enriched and I definitely experience some feelings when I listen to Mozart's or Beethoven's masterpieces.

While everybody has a subjective response to music, I have always had the suspect that there must be something objective beyond the difference that most people perceive when experiencing the two kinds of music (let's call them, for simplicity, "classical" and "avant-garde", although "classical" is here intended in a very broad sense, including, for example, even jazz and the Rite of Spring). Some time ago I read that a study (I will look for a reference if I find it again) seemed to link the "sad" or "happy" feelings that are generally produced in tonal music by using minor and major keys, respectively, to the fact that some typical tones of speech that produce the same feelings fall in the same "tonal" areas (probably it's also a matter of rhythm and pitches). In other words, there would be a link between spoken language and tonal music: a minor-key piece "sounds" in some sense as a sad speech, while major-key "sounds" as a happy speech.

Maybe a similar thing, if confirmed, also applies to other parameters. Perhaps there is an objective similarity between a music piece composed in the "classical" way and certain figures of speech that are familiar to all of us, which help in assimilating their emotional content. It's not just about tonality vs. atonality, but probably about the fact of having (or not):

1) an organization of pitches around some "tonal" center: this is analogous to the modulations of voice from when we start a sentence to when we finish it, which makes the listener understand our intentions;

2) a structure of the musical piece consisting of "themes" and "sections": this is analogous to the structure of a speech or a tale (why was sonata form so successful in the classical period? Because the structure involves a presentation of two distinct ideas, the elaboration of them, and a recapitulation, which is similar to what one would often do in a speech);

3) an organization of durations of sounds and rests which is not dictated "a priori" by mathematics, but by the need of conveying some message in an efficient way (the success depends on the ability of the composer to communicate).

I would not be surprised if it was found that these aspects are what helps "classical" pieces to be more communicative than "avant-garde". Note that this is not related to tonality vs. atonality, but to more general properties of musical pieces, particularly to their structure.

How much of this is my personal impression and how much is it objective?

[gkgyver 1,645]

That Borstlep fellow hit it home big time. Agree 100%.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

On 22/04/2014 at 3:43 AM, KK. said:

I think Austin Wintory addressed the concept of "colour vs. substance" in contemporary concert music really well in one of his blog posts:

 

I liked that article and generally have the same sort of sensibilities as Wintory - in that instrumental colour is very much secondary to the aspects of melody, harmony and rhythm in music (largely because, as a musical layperson, I don't have the means to appreciate what's going on in terms of colour in adequate detail). Still, I don't think he succeeded in his argument that colour is fundamentally secondary to other musical parameters - just in expressing his dissatisfaction at what's being done with it in his current experience.

 

On 23/04/2014 at 12:22 AM, Score said:

Some time ago I read that a study (I will look for a reference if I find it again) seemed to link the "sad" or "happy" feelings that are generally produced in tonal music by using minor and major keys, respectively, to the fact that some typical tones of speech that produce the same feelings fall in the same "tonal" areas (probably it's also a matter of rhythm and pitches). In other words, there would be a link between spoken language and tonal music: a minor-key piece "sounds" in some sense as a sad speech, while major-key "sounds" as a happy speech.

 

I'd be interested in seeing that if you do happen to find it, Score. I've often wondered whether the major-happy and minor-sad associations had any kind of objective basis, or whether there's another planet out there whose inhabitants blast out minor chords at parties and major ones at funerals. I would also wonder whether, if there is indeed a connection between the happy/sad connotations of types of key and tones of speech, the causal link might not be working in the opposite direction (i.e. that musical associations might influence tones of speech), etc.

 

I read recently that, just a few centuries ago, the major third interval was considered a dissonance. Unfortunately the JWFan archives don't go back that far so we can't read what members were saying about it at the time...

[Harmsway 6]

Criticism is not a science and never could be, so there will always be matters of taste when it comes to art. There's something to be said for connoisseurship in addition to pure academic study. But to simply write off the possibility of a judgment that amounts to something other than purely subjective response is limited, too. Aesthetic standards and judgment comes with a lot of personal and cultural baggage (art cannot exist in a vacuum, just as we do not exist in a vacuum), but that's not to say everything is equal and attempting to distinguish between crap and gold is a useless endeavor.

That said, I think Borstlap is off-base. His dismissive attitude overwhelms any legitimate sentiments he may have. There are some valid complaints to be made regarding the insularity and cliches of contemporary classical music, but such complaints need to be made with care.

[Ludwig 1,120]

I've often wondered whether the major-happy and minor-sad associations had any kind of objective basis...

Along similar lines, a friend of mine had a tuba teacher that once said (tongue partly in cheek) that all music can be divided into either "love songs" or "pirate songs".

But actually, the major/minor duality is largely an association of Western classical music of the so-called common practice. It's very much a learned thing, not really something objective. Tempo has something to do with it as well, as do features such as dynamics, rhythmic activity, texture, and instrumental timbre. So there end up being counter-examples like the Adagietto of Mahler's 5th Symphony, a piece largely in a major key, but overwhelmingly sad, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee", which is in a minor key but with its dazzling speed and capricious spirit, doesn't sound sad as much as it does fun.

I read recently that, just a few centuries ago, the major third interval was considered a dissonance. Unfortunately the JWFan archives don't go back that far so we can't read what members were saying about it at the time...

That's a really long time ago, like "once upon a time", 11th-century kind of old. The third is an imperfect consonance because it lies higher up in the overtone series than do the octave, fifth, and fourth. So relative to these latter intervals, the major third was viewed as dissonant in some circles then, but that was at the very beginning of notated harmony, which consisted almost entirely of parallel fifths, fourths, and octaves (organum). But even then, other intervals began creeping in pretty quickly.

If you want to see real debate over consonant and dissonant intervals, look up the perfect fourth. Debates over how to hear an interval - now there are some people who really know how to party.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Well, that very same overtone series is responsible for a possibly physical reason for the difference in association between the major and the minor harmony. The minor third is simply more dissonant, it doesn't sit naturally into the lower partials like its major equivalent. It feels uneasy and like less of a "coming home" than a major triad.

[Score 770]

I'd be interested in seeing that if you do happen to find it, Score. I've often wondered whether the major-happy and minor-sad associations had any kind of objective basis, or whether there's another planet out there whose inhabitants blast out minor chords at parties and major ones at funerals. I would also wonder whether, if there is indeed a connection between the happy/sad connotations of types of key and tones of speech, the causal link might not be working in the opposite direction (i.e. that musical associations might influence tones of speech), etc.

There was this, but it is not particularly informative (and the link to the research article therein is broken),

http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jun/29/minor-key-music-sad

or, MUCH better, a research article (the link opens the pdf file directly):

http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/4233/273364700055.pdf?sequence=1

I've often wondered whether the major-happy and minor-sad associations had any kind of objective basis...

Along similar lines, a friend of mine had a tuba teacher that once said (tongue partly in cheek) that all music can be divided into either "love songs" or "pirate songs".

But actually, the major/minor duality is largely an association of Western classical music of the so-called common practice. It's very much a learned thing, not really something objective. Tempo has something to do with it as well, as do features such as dynamics, rhythmic activity, texture, and instrumental timbre. So there end up being counter-examples like the Adagietto of Mahler's 5th Symphony, a piece largely in a major key, but overwhelmingly sad, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee", which is in a minor key but with its dazzling speed and capricious spirit, doesn't sound sad as much as it does fun.

Yes, in fact a major role is played by rhythm, timbre and texture (another example is the ending of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, which is in g minor, but sounds very solemn rather than sad or dramatic). In fact I think the point about the original topic is not whether only the sequence of tones determines the character communicated by a piece (which is clearly not the case), but whether all the aspects of the piece make it more effecive or not in communicating some feelings. This would apply not only to tonal music. My opinion is that there may be some objective basis based on the similarity to spoken language, which is something to which people get in touch earlier than music and use everyday, and has some very deep roots into someone's mind since it is the first way a human learns to communicate when he is a child. Of course, then, different cultures have different languages, different intonations and "speech melodies", which may also influence that culture's music. And since music is actually a very old activity, dating to pre-history, there may even have been a mutual influence, so that even music can have to some extent influenced language!

Well, that very same overtone series is responsible for a possibly physical reason for the difference in association between the major and the minor harmony. The minor third is simply more dissonant, it doesn't sit naturally into the lower partials like its major equivalent. It feels uneasy and like less of a "coming home" than a major triad.

Yes, but then the question is: Why do we "prefer" (at least, nowadays!) to sit into the lower harmonics and why does this give us a "coming home" feeling? The subject is definitely not easy!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

It's not that complicated, probably. Combining lower partials creates a sound that is closer to a single tone, because they are the partials that are most audible in a single tone. So a major triad is like... on the lower end of musical entropy. The higher the partials, the more "disordered" the sound, and the more we feel disordered. I think the brain is hardwired to feel comfort or rest in conjunction with natural phenomena like that.

Keep in mind I'm not suggesting that "disordered" equals "bad."