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Soundcheck Smackdown: When Contemporary Met Classical
Like vegetables stuck into a delicious meal, contemporary classical music is forced on concert audiences before they are allowed to enjoy their Brahms. So says humorist, critic and author Joe Queenan. Today, Queenan and John Berry, Artistic Director with English National Opera, join us for a Soundcheck Smackdown debate on the merits of contemporary music.
Our Blog: John Schaefer dissects the appeal of modern classical music
Weigh in: if you go to an orchestra concert do you enjoy hearing a new piece along with standard repertoire? Do you prefer to see new music in separate programs?
Joe Queenan's article: Admit it, you're as bored as I am
John Berry's article: If This is Torture, Sign Me Up
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Can't agree more with the force feeding spinach analogy! But spinach is good for you...
I usually prefer the contemporary pieces and and snore through Mozart and Beethoven. I've heard it all before and like to hear something new.
Who is this high minded fellow, Joe Queenan.. has he ever heard or Arvo Part or John Tavener... This show seems to be about what Bores Joe Queenan.. and guess what I don't care.
It's interesting that Mr. Queenan should use the example of Berio's "Sinfonia" as drag on the program. As a composer of contemporary music, I admit that there are boring contemporary pieces, just as there are boring works by Haydn. But Berio's "Sinfonia" is and will always be a masterwork among music scholars, regardless of our esteemed guest's appetite or attention span for it.
Joe Queenan is just making ad hominum attacks which have no merit! If you don't like something, explain WHY. You can't just say, if Phillip Glass is conisdered great then what about Debussy. That's meaningless. He's merely stating his opinions. So he likes Bruckner. Great. Go listen Bruckner and be happy. I think Bruckner is one big bore. So now what. Which one of us is right? And further, I would say John Adams nothing like Bruckner. It's like saying John Adams isn't J.S. Bach so why bother. This is stupid.
I was the Ticket Office Manager for the NJ Symphony several years ago, and I still remember the great seats my wife and I got to see the NJSO with the NEXUS percussion ensemble doing a very modern piece by Toru Takamitsu. We got great seats because I had spent the previous weeks EXCHANGING subscribers out of that concert en mass and into more traditional concerts.
It's no secret. Programming a modern piece is like turning the concert hall into a salt shaker -- out come the graying, upper-class subscribers. Orchestras need to dramatically alter their target demographic if they hope to make new music a regular feature.
Could you please bring up Frank Zappa , say the Yellow Shark variations.
Not all the people who appreciate new music are young. I'm 80 and go to concerts a lot, mainly chamber music, and I love to hear contemporary music. Bach and Beethoven are my favorites, but I like to go to concerts that include, or even feature, 20th and 21st century music.
I don't think the issue is the music so much as the way it's programmed. When orchestras stick in some totem modern piece, hidden amongst the standard repertoire, it makes it seem like "spinach" or taking your vitamins, especially to the standard subscription audience who comes to hear the music Joe Queenan likes so much: Bruckner, Debussy etc. I think he'd be surprised to see how many "uninitiated" listeners, especially children, react positively to modern music when it's presented in a fresh way, not like something the musicians have to play in order to fill some sort of quota.
Best smackdown ever!
These guys are fired up!
I take offense to the comment that experimental is only for the young. I am older and I like some of my daughter's music (some chris brown song), as well as, still listening to what I consider quite cool things like, currently some, langhorn slim, wolf parade or stars, and over the years from black sabbath to sonic youth. A huge variety. However, the type of dribble you are playing right now is really just a self indulgent piece which is not to everyone's taste. In my young years, and in my older years I did not have a palate for really wacky, out there stuff. My husband on the other hand likes that stuff. I am sure he would give that a listen. He is my age - 48. This should just be listed as experimental on the order of classical. I do like some experimental. Would Kraftwerk be considered experimental? Maybe so, but it had a tune. I used to really like Lydia Lunch waaay back. That was a bit weird. Some of the solo Thurston Moore stuff is that kind of thing you never want to hear twice. I figure...Just keep an open mind. If it is selling then someone likes it. You don't have to.
Concerts are for exposure. Some audience members need a concert to provide pleasure rather than exposure. Contemporary compositions are about exploring areas of imagination that are not traditional and accordingly, these open the audience's experience to challenges. It is a function of cultural ignorance to need one's fix of comfort while disregarding attentiveness and innovation that can form new foundations for cultural further creativity.
It is NOT a healthy condition for culture to be focused merely on commercial decadent spectacle, on what the attendee finds anodyne.
The measure of music's worth is it's advancement of the imagination so that it is unbound by the familiar. Decadence is the decay of the power of listening to the antique. The rigorous mind eschews the anodyne, the soporific.
My own concert preference is for stimulus that encourages critical attention and aggressive imaginative transgress. I find it boreing to hear from not critics who are regressive and wasting public time with the bunk of "appreciation". Popular standards and pandering to the weak attentiveness of wide audiences is not the measure of what concert exposure should provide. What happened to education? What happened to the role of educating via soundly observed and reasoned explanation from critics? What happened to feeling the importance of the deeply unfamiliar so that we grow more-adaptable in our listening lives? Ciao, T
At 72, I've heard all the classics - and played many of them in my youth! And I have recordings (Lp records, tapes, cd's) of many of them. So if I want to really hear music instead of listening to compare, i prefer to hear some new music when I buy admission.
I think the issue is the programming, not the repertoire. When orchestras stick in a totem modern piece amidst the standard repertoire subscription audiences come to hear, rep like the stuff Joe Queenan likes, it makes it seem like "we have to do this." I think he'd be surprised at how positively "uninitiated," and especially young, audiences react to new music when it's presented in a fresh way, and allowed to stand on its own. Quotas don't make anyone feel good!
Joe Queenan is entitled to his opinions. But he's not entitled to decide what composer's are important based on what he likes. Aside from what he likes, he really knows nothing. Samuel Barber was not respected in his day -- his music was considered totally out of fashion. Britten is great by any standards. The equal of Stravinsky. As for making fun of contemporary composers and new music -- isn't this getting old already?
This is great. Keep name dropping I want to check out all these people they are talking about.
I like Philip Glass and Michael Nyman type stuff. I want to hear specifically why they are not good. The Critic John Simon hates them.
This show recently turned me on to Ludovico Einaudi, I'm sure that would be considered pop stuff too.
Who else has been forgotten in the near past that we should seek out?
David
oops sorry about the 2 times!
Who needs Shakespeare when we've got Harry Potter??
Phenomenal smackdown!
Nevertheless, I think we need to get over the idea of comparing John Adams to Bach. Classical is a huge genre and, as far as I'm concerned, this is akin to comparing Garth Brooks and John Coltrane.
Different genres, different periods, different ideas.
What was the name of that comical character in Star Wars that everyone hated? I think contemporary music can be like that guy sometimes.
I have often thought that one of the reason contemporary classical compisiitons haven't connected with younger audiences is that they don't incoporate enough our existing American melodies and themes; Bach and Beethoven and others, of course, often set familiar folk tunes into their music. One can sit through a whole night of "modern" music without hearing a familiar theme; that's bound to turn people off.
To the caller who doesn't want to be force fed music he doesn't want to hear at a concert....
That's why god made recordings. You can hear only what you want to hear as many times as you want to hear.
But it's too bad that you wouldn't let a performer you (might or might not) respect, lead you to a new composer along with the one you might know already. That's what makes a great artist and a great experience for an audience.
Academic and largely intellectual music is the real problem and the kind that irks Joe.
Unfortunately, few composers outside that world of scrupulously limiting and purposely difficult music are ever heard along with the masters.
Frankly, no composer who is not audience-oriented should be given concert space. But contemporary classical tends to shun anything that might be considered entertaining, despite the fact that all the best music in history does, in the end, entertain along with its spiritual message.
Ach, as usual, when I hear these great programs, I am in the car.
This is a perfect example of why we listeners to WNYC need real forums, with response notification, so that we can interact on these subjects.
I am going to write an absolutely delicious piece which you all need to see, and I don't know if anyone will even look at it.
To me, here is the point: concerts are not the be all and end all. There is great contemporary and avantgarde music available, some on the FM radio, but more on the internet.
First FM, WNYC's Evening Music has benefited by the influence of wnyc2, where Terrance is playing a good bit of late 20th century and current work. WPRB, Princeton, NJ has a good deal of new music in its terrific classical music programing. Other FM that I know is not quite so adventurous, but KUSC, Los Angeles, has Modern Masterpieces for two hours on Saturday nights.
More follows, I am cut off by the qweb site at 1500 words.
Continuation
On the internet, there is much more contemporary music by living composers. wnyc2 is very heavy in contemporary music, and it costs me money. I first heard Michael Gordon's Decasia on wnyc2, and I loved it and immediately bought it right from the Bang On a Can web site. Also, on the net we have at Live365 Kyle Gann's Post Classical, we have the American Music Center's Counterstream, we have Iridian, and, my favorite, Innova.mu-Experimental.
Who has heard Charlemagne Palestine? Who has even heard of Charlemagne Palestine? Kyle Gann is very big on Charlemagne Palestine?
I Launch these streams, I get up the web site with the current play list, and when I hear something I like, as was the case with Decasia (but that at Bang on a Can), I go right to Amazon and can most often buy the .mp3 download.
For me, what it comes down to is how to financially support the art, in this case music, and in my case living composers, not the venue in which they are presented.
>>RSM
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