tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post7295559092302412250..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: The Jazz VersionBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-84194910154094480172013-08-24T08:04:13.961-05:002013-08-24T08:04:13.961-05:00Rickard, you raise a host of interesting issues an...Rickard, you raise a host of interesting issues and problems!! I think that one of the interesting historical phenomena of music since 1900 is the deployment of modernist (and then post-modernist) ideology in shaping the public reception of music. Books like René Leibowitz' "Schoenberg and His School" were designed to influence and shape public opinion. That they were not entirely successful was due to two things: competing narratives such as the one put forth by Igor Stravinsky in his (probably ghost-written) book "Poetics of Music" and the series of books written in collaboration with Robert Craft and by public resistance to atonal music generally. Since 1900 it has been almost de rigeur for composers to further their careers with some kind of written manifesto. John Cage is an outstanding example of this.<br /><br />But at this stage in music history, where I think a more conservative stage is beginning, the radical manifesto is really not the right strategy. What does a composer who writes music that acknowledges a relationship with the past that involves the use of elements like harmony and melody do? Well, this one started a blog that is attempting to subvert the modernist and post-modernist narrative in music!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-53519981787345577602013-08-23T14:38:07.801-05:002013-08-23T14:38:07.801-05:00"Surely there are gazillions of excellent pie..."Surely there are gazillions of excellent pieces for orchestra that they could play instead." This is an excellent point. I've also heard several arrangements played by the orchestra. For example Debussy's Children's Corner orchestrated. I mean it was nice and all but would be nicer to hear something newer rather than an arrangement of something old. And also if the orchestra plays something new it is typically one of those avant garde/postmodernist things, usually with some kind of long orchestral crescendo. Sure it is usually a nice blend of orchestral colors but there is hardly any concrete substance (and thus it's pretty boring or forgettable), barely any melodies, barely any themes and so on. I'm sure there are plenty of well written (not some kind of avant garde orchestral (sometimes including electronic sounds) color blend pieces)) not too old pieces by living (but maybe not so well known) composers they could play. That's one of the problems in the classical music world today: barely anyone willing to play new (non ridiculous avant garde or silly postmodernist (i.e. too simple, too electronic)) classical music. Maybe the audience is one of the causes of this problem, if it ain't Beethoven or Mozart (for instance) maybe it doesn't sell so well. Who would go to a concert to listen to good pieces written by lesser known living composers?Rickardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08084578675339015204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-29451393979836141092013-08-23T09:02:40.044-05:002013-08-23T09:02:40.044-05:00Yes, there are orchestral versions of a number of ...Yes, there are orchestral versions of a number of pieces of chamber music. I'm thinking of Schoenberg's sextet Verklärte Nacht which I first heard in a version for chamber orchestra. I assume you are referring to the string quartet by Schubert nicknamed "Death and the Maiden" and not the song by Schubert?<br /><br />As musical sins go, this is a fairly minor one. But one does wonder why. Surely there are gazillions of excellent pieces for orchestra that they could play instead. I have a nice little overture that has never been performed if anyone is interested... ;-)Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-54677080103584958192013-08-22T16:12:36.596-05:002013-08-22T16:12:36.596-05:00On a less radical and likely much less disconcerti...On a less radical and likely much less disconcerting note, not long ago I saw the Cleveland Orchestra perform Mahler's arrangement of Schubert's <i>Death and the Maiden</i> (not quite finished by Mahler, but later completed by one or two others, and I don't remember which edition was performed that night). It was not profoundly different or much of a reinvention of the music. I'd heard the quartet many times, and, listening to the string orchestra performance of it, I just wondered, Why?Virgil T. Moranthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12097568763565190893noreply@blogger.com