tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post6636183274675311456..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Neglecting BoulezBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-40800659399527207312015-04-23T07:39:25.146-05:002015-04-23T07:39:25.146-05:00Yes, I did mention it about a month ago, but the l...Yes, I did mention it about a month ago, but the locus classicus regarding the poietic fallacy on this blog is this post from 2013, which I think you might enjoy:<br /><br />http://themusicsalon.blogspot.mx/2013/12/absurdly-overcomposed-monstrosities.htmlBryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-32762588306006334052015-04-22T09:44:33.560-05:002015-04-22T09:44:33.560-05:00Indeed yes-- you discussed this Taruskin not more ...Indeed yes-- you discussed this Taruskin not more than a fortnight ago, well, not too long ago. In neither that essay nor in the W/B, on single readings, did I notice anything substantive that I disagreed with. Hmm, hmm. I suspect I have stumbled into the recognition that my habitual ways of thinking about music are not quite as sound as they should be. This is not very surprising to me, really, for a number of reasons. :-)Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-39269141860990181822015-04-22T07:32:24.438-05:002015-04-22T07:32:24.438-05:00And then there is the "poietic fallacy" ...And then there is the "poietic fallacy" for which we have Richard Taruskin to thank:<br /><br />"An analysis that is concerned with the sending of the message, hence with its devising, is a poietic analysis (from the Greek poiein, 'to make', but distinguished by the unusual spelling from 'poetic' to avoid confusion with the more ordinary usages.) An analysis that is concerned with the receiving is an esthesic analysis (from the Greek aisthesis, 'perception' similarly distinguished from 'aesthectic.')" (Richard Taruskin. from "Poetic Fallacy',The Musical Times, Spring 145, Vol. 145, No. 1886. pp. 10-11.)"<br /><br />From an aesthetic point of view, while it may be interesting to know something about how a piece of music was constructed, at the end of the day, the important thing is what you can hear.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-33420859310195034362015-04-21T12:03:42.348-05:002015-04-21T12:03:42.348-05:00Fascinating, really, specially for someone like me...Fascinating, really, specially for someone like me who had really just not paid attention to the distinctions, tsk, and tended to mix up 'them' all up, with one or two exceptions. Am looking forward to listening to the Robertson/Juilliard O. program you've assembled! this afternoon.<br /><br />Am only starting the Fallacious essay but was thinking about it etc last night. The commissioned piece is called Contrails and the composer's note begins by baldly asserting an untruth-- 'contrail' has a specific meaning, so far as I know, and that isn't 'evidence left after something passes by', which I couldn't quite get past, although I read it to the end. Of course this note was online and so accessible to me only after I heard the piece: which was (in my apprehension) a series of more or less pleasant sounds (the flute) occluded by noises (the 'interacting electronics') supplied by assistants at a console below the stage and in the sound control booth above my head. I doubt that attending more closely to the written manifesto will enable me to hear better the... mechanics? of the audible music, why the flute goes here and here but not there etc etc. And knowing that the 'i. e.' is intended to be this or do that certainly helps allay my impatience with it, but I doubt such knowledge would ever challenge my original judgment. But perhaps.... Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-20913382619072260142015-04-21T11:12:13.261-05:002015-04-21T11:12:13.261-05:00The kind of music I usually call "high modern...The kind of music I usually call "high modernism", which is characterized by extended techniques, pointillist textures, intricate pulseless rhythms, dissonance, lack of melody and general complexity is a style I think was at its peak from 1950 with the earlier works of Boulez and Babbitt to around 1970. At that point we start seeing the minimalism of Reich and Glass really start to have an influence. But there are composers, especially ones associated with academia, that still write this kind of music. They just don't get performed a lot outside of new music festivals like Cabrillo and master's recitals like the one you attended. In public concerts by orchestras and chamber groups you are much more likely to hear Philip Glass and John Adams than any of the high modernists. There are exceptions, of course...Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-77032294965020635362015-04-21T10:48:33.259-05:002015-04-21T10:48:33.259-05:00"... The rapid flurries of arpeggiations endi..."... The rapid flurries of arpeggiations ending with a mid-range trill, the jerky rhythms, the leaping from one end of the range to another, all these things are heard over and over again in the music of Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Ferneyhough and others of that generation. Are they not now, along with the continuing dissonance, a cliché?"<br /><br />Went to a flute recital last night; he's taking his MM. Asha Srinivasan, Kalevi Aho, JP Merz, Daniel Miller, Shulamit Ran.<br /><br />The Merz (two piccolos, actually) and Miller both employ 'interactive electronics'; the flutist commissioned the Miller, as a matter of fact, so when the 'electronics' malfunctioned he was presumably the first to know. The "flurries and leaping", ahem, were mostly confined to these. Who are the youngest of the five composers on the program-- which may or may not be suggestive or indicative of anything.<br /><br />The flutist-- Sam Golter-- certainly seemed to me to be master of his instrument; I thought the percussion effects (foot beating, clicking with his mouth) required in... I suspect it was the Miller but... were not really successful aspects of the work, although G. performed these well, too, so far as I could tell.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-20447009819546494382015-04-20T12:36:44.985-05:002015-04-20T12:36:44.985-05:00I haven't read the original article for, oh, a...I haven't read the original article for, oh, a very long time. But the summary at the link I posted gives a very different account. I used that link instead of a link to the original article because I had difficulty finding it. But few things regarding Boulez are simple!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-68980560563261772072015-04-20T12:25:43.982-05:002015-04-20T12:25:43.982-05:00Perhaps "Schoenberg est mort" is a doubl...Perhaps "Schoenberg est mort" is a double entendre - Schoenberg's aesthetic is dead; but also "Le roi est mort, vive le roi!" As a student Boulez had few scores of Webern available - op. 5, none of the serial works. His earliest model was Berg. So "Schoenberg est mort" is not such a simple statement.Ken Fasanonoreply@blogger.com