Postscript to "If You Can't Beat 'em, Should You Join 'em?"
John GibbonsIt occurs to me that in my defense of intractability, etc. I have made myself vulnerable to Richard Taruskin’s charge of irrelevantly clinging to the dying idealogy of German romanticism. And my case wouldn’t be appreciably helped if I substituted intractable works by say, Gesualdo or Scriabin for the works I did invoke by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Berg. Oh, well, let it stand. When somebody believes in something, it is only too easy to find reasoning that seemingly makes one’s own point of view appear to be the best point of view. To borrow a rhetorical tool from Nietzsche, here are some “maxims and arrows” related to the subject at hand:
- A composer creates his own audience.
- Yes, he creates it, and then like as not abandons it.
- What is the difference between some run-of-the-mill divertimento in D Major by a Classical composer, and some piece for three amplified percussionists, called “Resonances” by a Darmstadter?
- In every way, John Cage is more old-fashioned than Rachmaninov.
- Yes, and Philip Glass is more old-fashioned than Puccini. Compare “Satyagraha” and “Boheme”.
- But Schoenberg, despite vociferous hype to the contrary, is not old-fashioned. You can’t be old-fashioned before you’ve been digested (and being an icon for a generation of university composers is not digestion).
- Mozart wrote approximately three times as much music as Beethoven. They have roughly the same number of masterpieces. Does this make Beethoven better?
- No. He just has a better batting average.
- Taruskin’s words, “accommodation” and “German romanticism” are new words for that old stand-by of Schiller’s, the “Naive and the Sentimental”.
- Re Taruskin: Beethoven is sentimental in this dichotomy, agreed, but is Shostakovich “naive”?
- Polemics are like junk food; they taste great at first, but anything more than a few bites leaves you feeling a little nauseous; one wants fresh air.
- Popular and “high brow” music aren’t the same subject and shouldn’t be compared; they serve different functions; but sometimes they overlap.
- The composer is closer to the poet, never the scientist. Beauty can’t be “proved”.
In “A Shostakovich Casebook”, Taruskin wrote movingly of an experience he had listening to a Shostakovich symphony with sophisticated musicians, in the Soviet Union. He relates that he looked around to see if there were expressions of condescension on the part of his Soviet colleagues, and was taken aback to see how deeply involved with and moved by the music they were, and it appears he had a sort of epiphany, or awakening, which led him to question the biases in our higher musical education system. Could this be the beginning of the train of thinking that led to his article, “The Musical Mystique”?
Reader Comments (5)
AND THE REST IS NOISE, LISTENING TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
Alex Ross, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008
Notes from a presentation by the author, Fulton Recital Hall, University of Chicago, November 5, 2007.
Alex Ross is the music critic for the New Yorker. He defined this presentation as a “colloquium event.” Mr. Ross was born in Washington, D. C. As a child he was an altar boy in a Greek Orthodox church, and attended Harvard College where he majored in English. He was involved with radio station WHRV, and has been at the New Yorker since 1996.
He regard this as a personal book, not comprehensive, but of his own view of the 20th century musical scene. Some subjects are touched on briefly. The initial manuscript was twice as long, and he made “painful decisions” in shortening it. His method was to tell a series of stories about 20th C. music providing vivid glimpses of many important figures along the way. He selected representative composers.
The book is written in a cultural, social and political context to provide a sense of context in which each composer lived. He regards the book as a “pragmatic history.” He has attempted to provide a “middle ground” between inward-turning vocabulary and a populist approach that appeals directly to people. He has one foot in classical music as a profession, and one foot in journalism.
In his view, there is a canyon between two groups, which represent two extremes. Some people look for every form of cultural expression but don’t include classical music. Some like only classical music. In his writing, Ross alternates between the technical/arcane and addressing a wider audience. His goal is to “capture” his audience.
The three parts of the book are:
1) First section, 1900-1933, traveling across the landscape of early 20th C. music. This includes R. Strauss and Salome (which engendered great interest in Schoenberg, who brought 6 students to a performance). He considers R. Strauss to have the [orchestral] lushness of Wagner with the seething (missed word) of present. Also, he discusses Schoenberg and others’ life in 1920s Paris. He also includes Bartok, but does not want to represent one composer as more modern at the other.
2) Middle Section. Music of Soviet Union, Age of Terror and period following. He also included Aaron Copland, Hitler’s Germany, including an emphasis on what happened to music under Hitler. (What was Hitler’s musical taste?) What happened after Hitler? He believes we are still struggling with aftershocks of Hitler’s legacy.
3. Last section. Rise of Postwar avant garde. Many of these composers had horrific impressions of WWII as refuges and soldiers, including Stockhausen, Ligeti, and Henze. Most strongly affected was music from Central Europe. This includes a chapter on Minimalism, which first rose in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He brings in the influence of pop music.
As a young man he was a purist, preferring music from Bach to Brahms. As a late teenager he learned about 20th C. composers through Neil Sedaka, including Stockhausen and Ligeti (enjoying 100 Metronomes). Became interested in “noisy music.’ DJs at Harvard said their favorite artists also listened to “noise.” This led Ross to develop an interest in popular music.
The book traces the interrelation between classical and pop music: ‘20s and ‘30s, Ives to Ellington. Bee-bop has had an influence, also jazz and rock-and-roll. Other names mentioned: Brian Eno, David Bowie, and Steve Reich in London.
Ross made a point that it is his feeling that borders between genres are melting down. Why not introduce Beethoven by asking what Steve Reich took from Coltrane, etc? He would be pleased if younger readers would pick up book and learned where pop artists came from.
He objects to an “either-or” situation regarding music, but realizes that his statements should not be interpreted too broadly.
In conclusion, he returned to stating his purpose: Finding a middle ground between music of different genres.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (IN PART)
1. Q. Should this book be included in a university course?
A. It may be useful as a history in an undergraduate course, but wouldn’t be particularly useful to scholars.
2. Q. In terms of music, should the 20th Century have happened? (Laughter)
A. It was the greatest century, and music (of its various camps) can be listened to in various ways.
Brahms as opposed to Wagner, Elliott Carter --- Leonard Bernstein are not as “opposite” as once considered to be.
Question from moderator Andrew Patner: Should it be said that) the century was worth having, and that the lion should lie down with the lamb? (This issue was not pursued.)
3. Q. Is 12-tonal music really music?
A. 12-tone and atonal music are not the same. The book discusses only atonality. There is a chapter on atonal music of the 20th C, ending with Lulu (20th C. Berlin), which was a reaction to the chaos of the period. Also, 12-tone music is not necessarily the same as atonality. Britten has some 12-tonal elements in his Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Also, minimalism (Terry Riley and John Cage) are mentioned in the book. Lemont Young’s string trio is rarely played, but is beautiful (like Greek Orthodox Easter service).
4. Q. How do performers figure in the book?
A. Much less. The book must be about composers.
5. Q. (About Taruskin’s essay)
A. Taruskin indicates that classical music may be shrinking to a niche. (Note: the book’s jacket holds very favorable comments about this book.)
Statement by Mr. Ross: It is important to speak clearly and directly as mediators to the mass audience out there. There are lots of people working on ways to make (classical) music more comprehensible. There is evolution going on (Taruskin would agree).
In conclusion, many possibilities are being worked out. Every critic should express personal reactions, but there is opportunity for expansion.
Comments, such as they are, by Frances Vandervoort
John,
In your Postscript of Nov. 6, you state that John Cage is more old-fashioned than Rachmaninoff, and Philip Glass is more old-fashioned than Puccini.
As a novice student of music, I'd like an explanation of this.
Thank you.
Lynn Straus
John,
The Shostakovich symphony about which Taruskin writes so movingly is the 7th, the "Leningrad". The fact that this is among the most reviled works by academics and many critics lends a lot of strength to Taruskin's story.
I join Lynn in waiting for more details on your numbers 4 and 5 above. I do know that Glass' first name has only one "l", not two, and also that Satyagraha is spelled as I just spelled it. And even if you managed to present a strong argument on "Boheme" vs. "Satyagraha", would it apply equally to anything by Puccini vs. "Einstein on the Beach"?
If I follow your logic on Number 6 above, Schoenberg will NEVER be old-fashioned until his works are digested by some sort of mass musical audience - one possible example being Schoenberg's wistful wish that some day the postman will be whistling 12 tone melodies. And wouldn't you call Verklaerte Nacht old-fashioned? My professor for 20th century music played the beginning at the start of each class to inform us of what his class was definitely NOT about! Last year's statistics from the American Symphony Orchestra League show that of 15 performances of Schoenberg's pieces, 7 were of Verklaerte Nacht and the other 8 were taken from all of his other works, which suggests that most of his (symphonic) music will never be old-fashioned because it will never be digested.
Alright! Let's roll! The Gauntlet is picked up. This is gonna be fun. To Frances, Lynn, and especially my bete noire, David:
1. Thank you, Frances, for the splendidly thorough coverage of an event I would have liked to have attended; I feel like I was there.
2. To David, I put too many 'l's in Glass's name, and misspelled "Satyagraha"; I apologize, and mean no disrespect...maintaining the desired spontaneity of a blog doesn't necessarily conduce to unimpeachable spelling or indeed, grammar. I don't think twice about such missteps from my interlocutors, but would vastly prefer to be as correct as possible myself; the internet is only too full of sloppy spellings and grammar. I'll repent by doing a fast, but I insist it be a Trappist Monk fast, where I'm permitted the monastery ale. Let's hope it's Traquer!
3. To Lynn and David:
Of course I meant my comments about Rachmaninov, Puccini, Cage and Glass to be provocative and ironic, I'm adopting Nietzsche's strategy, from, I think, "Beyond Good and Evil", where he has passages such as: "Even concubinage has been corrupted; by marriage." Points 4 and 5, and even the whole collection of maxims, is meant to be counterintuitive, and therefore ironic. Specifically: Cage disputes the concept of "meaning", in works that involve arbitrary references to the I Ching, or involve the use of random radio frequencies. He's sometimes a Buddhist, sometimes a nihilist, sometimes a dadaist, and always a provacateur. I think this is something that will always smell like the 1960's, and never like, 2007, or 2020, if we live that long: I postulate that something that belongs too obviously to its own time quickly becomes "old-fashioned", like lava lamps and (I find them charming) tie-dyed shirts. Rachmaninov wrote works that have abstract coherence, and despite their indebtedness to Tchaikovsky, or Arensky, whatever, they don't particularly feel like the 1910's, let's say, and therefore are not especially old-fashioned.
Glass disputes the Western musical past...at least as defined by what I believe he perceived to be the main-stream academic establishment, and because of his stand, which is actually one of singular intransigence and iconoclasm, identifies himself strongly with, and is one of the principal figures in, the re-evaluation of musical heritage associated with the 70's and 80's, which doesn't necessarily mark him as old-fashioned. Nevertheless, his style appears to my incredibly biased ears to owe so much to an overt idealogy indelibly associated with a backlash against imported European Hyper-Schoenbergians who spread like a fungus in American musical academic establishments in the post war years. Argue with my definition, if you like, but I claim "old-fashioned" means something that speaks of its time, and only of its time; something that doesn't transcend generational boundaries. As for Puccini? Well, I ruffled the feathers of some of my buddies a coupla weeks ago by dissin' "Madama Butterfly" and wanted to get back in their good graces by praising "Boheme". Politic, politics, politics! One knows my views, at least, by wetting a finger and sticking it in the wind.
Schoenberg? Well, he's many things. "Old-fashioned" implies (I think, but this is arguable) something that was once coin of the realm but now seems counterfeit; it no longer has relevance. The atonal Schoenberg never achieved a comfortable relationship with any meaningful audience, and hence never acquired the dubious acknowledgment, "old hat", and is even terra incognito to most serious musicians today! And I hate to say it, but I do think many of Schoenberg's most indefatigable supporters... I just had a computer emergency and lost my train of thought. Yes, Verklaerte Nacht is old-fashioned, oh, you betcha. If I talked about "Einstein on the Beach", I would have had to take Glass more seriously than by talking "Satyagraha", Choose yer battles, Mister! By the way, I attempted to fix my misspellings, so my perfectly amateurish mistakes should be regarded as my authentic shortcomings, and the new spellings are merely a grateful correction made possible by the alert eyes of my correspondents!
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