tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post654403762348825013..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: 1200/1600/1970Bryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-58061104881238434232016-05-17T17:35:03.231-05:002016-05-17T17:35:03.231-05:00@Marc: Ay, if we were only in Glasgow we could tak...@Marc: Ay, if we were only in Glasgow we could take in the lecture and after, over a wee dram of single malt, discuss the issues!<br /><br />Re your other comment: this is an extremely interesting observation! Funnily enough, a few weeks ago I listened to some music--it may even have been the same piece--by Simeon ten Holt and had precisely the same reaction. It was pleasant enough, though a bit dull, but as time went on it became, as you say, a Huit clos! I think that what this indicates is that Simeon ten Holt is what we might call a lesser composer in a similar genre to a great composer. Like Steve Reich, he uses consonant harmonies and repeated rhythms. But that alone does not make a good piece of music. In nearly all of Steve Reich's pieces there is a driving intensity, what he calls the "rhythm section" that is constantly providing the ground and context to everything else. ten Holt's music lacks this. It is a bit like having the icing without the cake. ten Holt is like Hummel to Steve Reich's Beethoven.<br />Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-54674691273279099322016-05-17T14:33:54.456-05:002016-05-17T14:33:54.456-05:00Was thinking about this post when I stumbled into ...Was thinking about this post when I stumbled into Simeon ten Holt's <i>Canto Ostinato</i> yesterday. "... (I)f the foundation is thought of as simply negative: no melody, no harmony, no rhythm, then the possibilities are limited": as should be obvious, I only know what few bits of fact I learned from his web site &c ('consonant, tonal materials', 'post-modernist and organic in nature') and while I listened for fifteen minutes & had it on 'in the background' for almost ninety minutes, I reached a point where I had rather abruptly to turn it off-- it was becoming uncomfortable in my ears. <i>Huit clos</i> is the phrase that occurred to me; while one listens & perceives a certain beauty in the pianos' playing, in the patterned arrangement of the notes, it none the less seems sterile, in spite of the minimal rhythm &c. And the combining of the cells by each performer in each successive performance, eh, spectacle that is useful for nothing beyond providing 'difference' (although the performer's point of view is maybe other), & I don't require hours in a theatre to experience 'difference'. Today, am luxuriating in Mendelssohn's version of Handel's <i>Acis and Galatea</i> as an antidote. :-)Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-59888614842205273822016-05-17T14:02:49.309-05:002016-05-17T14:02:49.309-05:00MacMillan is giving a lecture the day after tomorr...MacMillan is giving a lecture the day after tomorrow which certain elements in the media have been hyping, perhaps because it just seems so anti- everything the mainstream Guardian folks like to obsess about; the bits of text I saw weren't all that earth-shattering but.... The address is titled <a href="http://www.saltiresociety.org.uk/event/sir-james-macmillan" rel="nofollow">"A Sober Composer Looks at Some Thistles"</a>.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-75366453425239356562016-05-17T12:24:38.687-05:002016-05-17T12:24:38.687-05:00Lucky for us you get bored!
Lucky for us you get bored!<br />Christine Lacroixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02006109075551438090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-87011457516094141062016-05-16T09:22:57.226-05:002016-05-16T09:22:57.226-05:00Thanks, Ken! I have my moments.Thanks, Ken! I have my moments.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-24830350798639471322016-05-16T08:20:56.697-05:002016-05-16T08:20:56.697-05:00Thank you, Bryan, for that golden nugget! You put ...Thank you, Bryan, for that golden nugget! You put the current music compositional situation in its millenium-wide context in just a few paragraphs!Ken F.https://www.blogger.com/profile/08296737421194767997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-87260998507845226062016-05-15T12:12:29.460-05:002016-05-15T12:12:29.460-05:00Ah, how could I forget Arvo Part! I was in love wi...Ah, how could I forget Arvo Part! I was in love with his music long before I was into classical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-8871123209965315872016-05-15T11:56:07.627-05:002016-05-15T11:56:07.627-05:00Very sage observations, sluggingvampire! I did neg...Very sage observations, sluggingvampire! I did neglect the spiritual dimension, which, as you point out, seems to be an important one. One composer you didn't mention that would support the case is Arvo Pärt.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-14709937222618014912016-05-15T11:33:39.115-05:002016-05-15T11:33:39.115-05:00An excellent read. I definitely agree that music h...An excellent read. I definitely agree that music has to have some kind of foundation, and that Reich was/is incredibly important in this regard. But (and there's always a 'but') I wonder if maybe there's a non-musical foundation that many of the best modern composers have clung to. (And I'm working this out as I write it, so bear with me.) I was listening yesterday to James MacMillan on the radio talking about the 20th and 21st century composers who never stopped searching for the sacred even in an increasingly secular world. He listed Messiaen, Stravinsky, Schoenberg's later works (he referenced Moses und Aron), and a couple of others I can't recall. You can add to that list Sofia Gubaidulina, Macmillan himself, Penderecki, and indeed even Steve Reich's exploration of his Judaism, and many more (including Charles Ives, an obsession of mine). This is all to say that it struck me that my favourite modern composers have religion as a strong influence, and that in reference to your post, composers can clear away everything -- melody, harmony, as you say, but also rhythm -- in search of the sacred instead, and it seems to work.<br /><br />I don't want to ignite a debate on religion, just to suggest that a religious impulse, whatever that is, is something the best modern composers have perhaps re-discovered, or clung to. The war had a devastating effect on religious belief too, and many great modern composers have arguably rescued it. Perhaps, even, it speaks more broadly to the philosophy behind modernism.<br /><br />Your argument that modernism is based on a negative does compel me in another regard, when I think about. I don't know where I read it, but someone wiser than myself made the observation that when modernist music tries to be more complex it always sounds more random, and when it tries to be meticulously logical it always sounds more illogical. A lack of a musical foundation would explain this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-22339007077064805342016-05-15T10:25:07.076-05:002016-05-15T10:25:07.076-05:00Thanks, Jack! Much appreciated.Thanks, Jack! Much appreciated.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-42298825913840695902016-05-15T09:42:04.860-05:002016-05-15T09:42:04.860-05:00Fabulous post!
This is the kind of content that m...Fabulous post! <br />This is the kind of content that makes me visit your blog every day to see if you put any new post;For those of us keen to know about the history of music and how techniques evolved,this is of great help.<br />Thanks <br />Jack Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com