The scene today is dominated, like the economy itself, by a few billionaire musical behemoths: Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Taylor Swift (is she a billionaire yet? If not, she soon will be), and that old-timer, Paul McCartney. On a slightly lower level we have a landscape with everything from kids with a drum machine to K-Pop to Bob Dylan, still on the never-ending tour. Oh, and off in a little niche somewhere there are still a few shards of "classical" music, whatever that is. And Philip Glass!
Going back seventy or so years, in the post-WWII era, there was a lot of middle-brow consumption of classical music that was chronicled in popular culture in places like Disney's Fantasia with Bugs Bunny playing the part of conducting superstar Leopold Stokowski.
And alongside this was the emergence of the first really big pop stars: Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Going back even further, the big economic phenomenon of a hundred years ago was the growth of the sales of recorded music. Enrico Caruso, the big star back then, could only perform a hundred or so concerts a year, but he could sell hundreds of thousands of records. At the same time, composers were recoiling from the horrors of WWI by thinning out their musical textures and incorporating march rhythms and acerbic harmonies. A good example is Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat:
The late 19th century was dominated by Big Orchestral Music, mostly by Big German Composers like Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. Gustav was the first composer/conductor to have a really cool photo:
A photo of Bruckner would be too scary to include, so here is one of his very long symphonies:
A lot of the 19th century was really footnotes to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven who wrote a bunch of really cool symphonies, quartets and piano sonatas. They range from the soothingly beautiful:
to the driving and dramatic:
Now Beethoven did not exactly invent this glorious music, though he certainly upgraded it. No, the two dead white men in wigs who laid down the foundations were Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart and they hung out in Vienna. Mozart is famous for having written the most dangerous soprano aria ever:
They were working in the last half of the 18th century. In the first half, the dude to watch was Johann Sebastian Bach, an obscure Saxon organist who, after he died, became a huge success despite being a Lutheran. Yes, from here back, religious music is a thing. Here is Bach going off the reservation and writing a Catholic mass. It was kind of a job application, but he didn't get the job.
Bach was famous for writing Baroque music, still popular today in some circles. But the foundations for that were really put together by some French and Italian guys. Here is a little tune by François Couperin on the harpsichord, a jangly predecessor to the piano:
While down in Venice, Antonio Vivaldi was ripping off a whole bunch of concertos:
Before the Baroque there was the Renaissance with a lot of cool lute music and choral music. Here is a little Francesco da Milano:
And some Tomás Luis de Victoria who worked for a nunnery in Madrid:
That puts us way back in the Middle Ages when they first invented writing down music in many parts. Here is some music by Guillaume de Machaut:
And finally, what the monks were up to in those long, boring nights in the monastery:
Now I know what you are thinking, hey, music is more fun and groovy the further back you go and yes, that is totally true--well, not in the case of the cave bear flute.
Thanks Bryan for your characteristic fresh look at things musical. And for bringing a smile to my Sunday.
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ReplyDeleteWow, that Machaut recording is something! Must look the group up.
ReplyDeleteRe your last sentence, yes that was exactly what I was thinking. It confirms that, temperamentally, I'm a dreadful reactionary...
Who was it that said that everyone is conservative about those things they know best?
ReplyDeleteWell, that would explain why I lean socialist on economics.
ReplyDeleteMost young people lean socialist--it seems to be perfectly logical. Then you start to notice how it works out in the real world...
ReplyDeleteWe'll see! I feel increasingly close to the imaginative world and aesthetics of 19th century socialists like Ruskin, Morris et al. I think in some ways, though not all, many in my generation are actually becoming more left-wing with age and experience. The experience of present-day capitalism has been radicalising; anyone who loves and is involved in classical music surely feels this especially, with the art form in this country increasingly unsupported by the state, both at the professional and educational level, and instead reliant on markets and patronage. The stereotypical move from left to right over the course of one's life no longer seems to apply; something has definitely changed. Then there's the strange situation where, in a number of European countries (and I believe Israel and some other countries too), it's the young who are the most right-wing and the old who are the most liberal/left, judging by how people vote.
ReplyDeleteBut I've already veered from the proper areas of discussions for this blog, so will stop!
Well yes, the real world is complex and messy and doesn't fit any ideological model very well. Thanks for your observations. Living in Mexico as I do, I don't have much of a sense of how young people are trending in other places. Here, every young person with some ambition is a hard-core capitalist! Unless they have a government job, of course.
ReplyDeleteRevolutionary socialism is definitely a young man's game. However, UK or Nordic socialism has always drawn older supporters. When you are an industrial worker of an age when you’ve got a family, and you can see your body getting frail and the risk of you losing your ability to work completely, universal social insurance looks like a godsend.
ReplyDeleteYou see what you have done, Steven? You got us talking about socialism. I'm more familiar with Canadian socialism as embodied in healthcare in particular. And, to be honest, I am very happy not to have to rely on the poor services and endless waiting lists. I notice that the Nordic countries have moderated their policies considerably, though not the UK as of yet. As a closet Aristotelian, I believe in moderation in most things. Socialist plans usually start out well, but over time the inherent incentives lead to the growth of large bureaucracies designed to siphon off a lion's share of the resources--hence, public choice theory.
ReplyDeleteAaah, it was not my intention -- just a silly comment. But now I've started... Yes the healthcare here is shocking too. I could rant at great length about my own experiences of it, and there are various reasons for the problems, but a dogmatic ideological attachment to the institution is doubtless one of them. During the pandemic, it was strange how intense this became, with weekly scheduled applause for 'our NHS', where everyone would come out of their houses in every street and clap and bang their saucespans in celebration NHS workers. And there were NHS rainbows in every other window. While those of us who actually had to use it had very poor experiences. I would rather a mixed system like in some other European countries -- a reasonable Aristotelian compromise -- but such an idea is politically unimaginable.
ReplyDeleteStill, in this country socialism has worked well when it came to factory reforms and building council housing, say. And public transport, most utilities and Royal Mail (which was nationalised under Charles II for goodness sake!) worked much better before privatisation. Now they are pretty chaotic, and so often unstaffed. The BBC, when it was a state-run media monopoly for several decades, was in effect a socialist means of sharing good culture with all.
The irony is that I get far fewer comments on the purely musical posts, but any hint of politics gets people stirred up. Why no comments on my post on Obscure Musical Forms? But politics is something that does tend to engage. I have never lived in the UK, so I only know what I read, but I am surprised that the NHS received such public support, because from what I have read, it is not doing well. All nations have their complexities and the UK more than most. But my deep conviction is that there are problems whenever you remove the element of competition from any marketplace. A government that pays all the costs of healthcare--as in Canada and the UK--controls when and how it is delivered to you. You have no choice in the matter. This is something I am not comfortable with. But I am surprised that privatization hasn't worked out better. I wonder why that is?
ReplyDeleteAnother irony is the amount of good art that socialism tends to produce despite itself. Shostakovich!
The NHS could have a policy of chopping off the left leg of every third patient and most Britons would still talk effusively about how thankful they are for 'our NHS'. It's a strange one. It has a kind of 'one true church' status.
ReplyDeleteLoosely re your last point, I was wondering the other day how West and East German classical music compared? I can think of West German composers and institutions, but my mind is blank when it comes to the GDR.
When you put up the post I was racking my brain trying to think of an interesting musical form to contribute, but nothing came!
In Canada as well, somehow the Canada Health Act has become a pillar of national pride (though with more and more misgivings). That was a nice trick! Governments are always finding ways to shield themselves from criticism.
ReplyDeleteI am very sorry to say that, offhand, I can't bring to mind any East German composers.
Some uncommon musical forms: branle, sardana, muiñeira.