Let's Get Formal: The Official Musical Form Thread

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

I've been thinking a lot about form and architecture in music lately. We have threads about orchestration, harmony, general theory, and now, we have one about this musical dimension.

To start off, I'd like to hear what folks have to say about the current trends in form. I find much contemporary or semi-recent output by many composers to be terribly unapproachable and ungainly in its size and construction - it's the same thing that keeps me away from most high-Romantic stuff. Interminable stretches of unchanging musical character (sometimes this works, often, it doesn't), all-out "complexity" assaults (fine in small doses, but when this defines your entire piece, no thanks), and, how often does a musical idea really justify over an hour of exploration?

I'm not suggesting it's necessary to stay faithful to totally clear traditional forms. But there is some value in them, especially those that aren't as overworked as the symphony/sonata/etc., and they all make good starting points for your own variations and modifications - again, as long as there's some coherence to them. And there's also great potential in totally formless or ambient music. It's the ground in between these two extremes that loses me. Great musical behemoths of episodic or through-composed form with all manner of structures clotted together... ye gods, that's a turn-off. This is the one sort of musical complexity that I really can't stomach - if I can't "see" what the music is, or if what it is is ugly and non-sensical (unless that's the point), then I just don't have any interest in it. So much of the sonic and harmonic experimentation of today is useful and fertile, but trapped in these absurd vehicles, what's the point?

Yes, this is Minimal Mike talking again. But I'm open to enlightenment (if there is any to be had), which is one thing I hope for from this thread.

[Sharkissimo 1,971]

This isn't the lengthy response you were probably hoping for, but where do you draw the line between 'interminable stretches of unchanging musical character' and 'totally formless or ambient music'? Could you post a recent 'musical [behemoth] of episodic or through-composed form with all manner of structures clotted together'?

Julian Anderson's Fantasias strikes me as a recent example. Remember being at its Proms premier and my ear drums and auditory cortex being under assault, and not in the pleasurable Xenakis sense.

Music in need of Ritalin, or maybe a Xanax. All talk and no trousers.

On the other hand, Martin Matalon's Lignes de Fuit (Convergence Lines) I found much more engaging. It's in a similar textural, post-post-modernist idiom, but it's far more colourful with an identifiable form, at both the micro and macro level. Some virtuosic orchestration on display, too.

Music starts at 3:26.

[Dixon Hill 4,229]

You want specific examples? Gah, fine! I'll find some. Those that you posted are a good demonstration of "just too muchery" and "well proportioned."