Subject:  Re: Pseudo-intellectual dirges |
Author:
Simon
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Date Posted: 13:53:37 23/04/2001
In reply to:
Prom Spice
's message, "Re: Lack of Arnold" on 11:01:56 23/04/2001
On the basis of individual works I've listened to (and I do try to listen) I would cite, perhaps solely on the basis of these works:
Anthony Powers, Johnathan Harvey, Michael Berkeley, Gyorgy Kurtag, Gerard McBurney, Rhian Samuel, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Sally Beamish, Maxwell-Davies (some is ok, the rest I can get as much grip on as a snake in a mudbath), Marc Yeats, David Lang, Sofia Gubaidulina, Gyorgy Ligeti, Harrison Birtwistle, and goodness knows how many others whose names have long since been excised from my memory.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not grinding a conservative axe either. I'm not one of these colonel blimp types who wants wall-to-wall Delius (fine in small quantities, rather sickly and insipid in bulk) and won't go to a concert with a "contemporary" work. In general I'm not doubting these composers integrity, but just what are they banging on about? So much of it is so tediously unengaging and self-indulgent. In other words, it's the musical equivalent of my postings to this forum, with the difference that no-one would hold me up as being worthy of attention to a paying public!
I can think of a rather smaller number of (mostly not-quite) "contemporary" works that have done something for me. A brief selection of Boulez' Notations (of all things) hit the spot a few years ago, because they were each about 2 minutes long and either explosively violent, or very evocative and their brevity meant they didn't outlast their inspiration. Quite a lot of James McMillan is ok or better. Judith Weir can go too far towards "accesibility" but some stuff works well.
Most of the stuff that does work for me is written in more traditional idioms (i.e. sort-of diatonic, structured and with regular or driving rhythm) which presumably qualifies me as a fully signed-up luddite. Viz, Nicholas Maw, Henri Dutilleux, Naji Hakim, minimalism generally and the more "compromised" variety in particular (principally John Adams, also Paul Schoenfield, Joseph Schwantner etc) to name a few. And given a choice I'd rather listen to Messiaen than Mozart, so I'm hardly an ardent traditionalist...
Curiously, I quite enjoyed the Birtwistle Panic that caused such a fracas in '95 because it involved lots of percussionists thrashing around like crazy. In fact, for us percussionists, this is the saving grace of much of the more challenging contemporary music: We get plenty of fun (and sometimes outright violent) things to do. Even if the end result is a lot of apparently random bangs, crashes and other industrial noises..... Which kind of exemplifies the point. There you are furiously counting bars alternating between 1/16 3/16 7/8 4/2 9/4 1/1 27/32 and various other ludicrous time signatures you aren't sure even exist, and eventually, on the 47th hemi-demi-hemi-demi-semiquaver of the bar (or as close as your overchallenged rhythmic sense allows) you dispense a blow to the bass-drum with such ferocity that it practically dislodges your teeth and drives your left eardrum out of your right ear. And is anyone the wiser? Would they have noticed had you come in two seconds late, or simply gone home? I doubt it.
Whinge, whinge, whinge.... *:-)
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