I\u2019m going to attempt to tread carefully in today\u2019s post, so as to minimize the hate mail.<\/p>\n
A collection of words can have devastating, world changing power when we allow them to be perceived as \u201ctruth.\u201d The fundamental level of social discourse in our time is that \u201cit is true because I say it,\u201d and the true power is in whose voice is heard the loudest, not in the merits of what it says.<\/p>\n
I began this thread with Xenakis\u2019 quote from 1955 because it belies what I think have become the two (incestuously connected) ideas about the recent history of music.<\/p>\n
Authoritative voices (or at least the voices of authority) are re-writing the history of music, and have been since the beginning of the Thatcher\/Reagan era. Let\u2019s call it the \u201cNew History of 20th<\/sup> C.\u00a0 Music.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We read almost every day that after World War II, a new generation of serialist, modernist composers took over the world of music, imposing an aesthetic dogma that nearly killed music by giving us 40 years of music that nobody wanted to hear.<\/p>\n To this end, we are taught that this music is:<\/p>\n \u00a01-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All the same<\/p>\n 2-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Derived from mathematical formulas and without human or emotional invovlement or meaning\u00a0<\/p>\n 3-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Written with a contempt for the listener<\/p>\n 4-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unwilling to accept the existence of other musicsWe are taught that there was an orthodoxy that attempted to control, reaching out with sinister ambition from the smoky corridors of Darmstadt to impose its dogma just as the old popes had used the inquisition to enforce their brand of a single truth. Boulez was the Borg- Resistance was Futile!<\/p>\n So- we are taught that Modernism in music was a historical aberration, a toxic force that alienated audiences and stifled creativity, and that now we finally have the freedom to write music that communicates more directly with our audiences. \u00a0<\/p>\n Now- before you start sending your hate mail, I\u2019m not saying there were not composers and teachers who were controlling, aggressive and intolerant of dissent. I know many good composers who were unable to find work in the 60s because they were not writing music that conformed to the expectations of a serialist aesthetic.<\/p>\n However, I think it is important to separate personality from art- the history of 20th<\/sup> c. music has not benefited from too much focus on personality (Stockhausen was an self-obsessed asshole, so we don\u2019t have to try to understand his music, people seem to say). Someone being a schmuck on a search committee is just that- they\u2019re using the language of music to cover their tracks in what is simply old-fashioned institutional politics.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the testimonials of those who may legitimately feel that their music was pushed to the side by the march of the High Modernists distracts us from an examination of the real danger of this critique.<\/p>\n The fact is that this critique (there was this modernist thing that took over, they screwed it up for everyone, so now we\u2019ve got to put it right) is not an attack on modernism, but on all culture.<\/p>\n Xenakis\u2019 quote shows that even within heart of the Modernist mafia, there was always dissent and discussion, but it only hints at the problem with the \u201cNew History of 20th<\/sup>. C. Music.\u201d Of course, all four descriptions of modernist music it advances are, of course, demonstrably false, but more importantly and more dangerously, it completely mis-represents (ie- lies about) the history of music in that time.<\/p>\n Remember the years that Boulez and Stockhausen and their jackbooted minions controlled every university, foundation and arts council? Weren\u2019t those also the years that Britten, Shostakovich, Schuman, Piston, Diamond, Walton, Milhaud, Kabalevsky, Bernstein, Copland and Tippett were all writing?<\/p>\n In fact, if one looks at a list of works composed and premiered in the 50\u2019s, 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s, it is hard to imagine there had ever been so diverse a range of voices at any time in music history. All kinds of music were being written, and that music was getting performed, broadcast, recorded, written about and disseminated.<\/p>\n You see, the corollary to the \u201cNew History of 20th<\/sup> c. Music\u201d is that we should write and perform music that people want to hear. If people don\u2019t want to hear it, if it isn\u2019t going to sell tickets or sell albums, we can\u2019t afford to do it, and why should we do it? After all, they say, all that modern music drove our audience away.<\/p>\n Even the most cursory look at music history tells us that the opinions of listeners of the time, and whether \u201cliked it\u201d is the most useless tool for evaluating the worth of a composition.<\/p>\n The fact is, in 30 years, classical music has transformed itself from an art form to a commercial business. In doing so, paradoxically but predictably, its economic and social impact have been lessoned considerably<\/em><\/strong>. Performing arts organizations, which generally have the best of intentions and the loftiest of goals, stripped of subsidy and support now have to evaluate every project in commercial terms.<\/p>\n But, of course, no project we can ever undertake will be commercial enough. Where cultural organizations used to be primarily about the pursuit of excellence, we have now become competitors in the entertainment industry, measuring our success by the same metrics as a West End musical, the latest episode of X-Factor or Pop Idol,\u00a0or a Britney Spears album. No wonder people like to say we\u2019re failing.<\/p>\n The progenitors of the \u201cNew History of 20th<\/sup> C. Music\u201d have sold us a lie. They tell us that classical music drove its audience away through an embrace of a modernist musical agenda. This is demonstrably false. The peak of the modernist movement in the 60\u2019s and early 70\u2019s was also the peak of classical music\u2019s impact and influence on the larger culture- the glory days of everything from Karajan\u2019s recording career with cycles of Beethoven and Bruckner,\u00a0to Britten\u2019s War Requiem (a piece that had a profound impact on the larger culture) to the evolution of the modern music festival. \u00a0<\/p>\n There was a time when scientific research was funded on the basis of merit of the proposal as pure research, now funding is tied to the demonstrable commercial value of the research. The age of pure research gave us unparalleled numbers of scientific discoveries with profound implications for human health, economic development and enhanced understanding of our world. The modern era of commercial research partnership has given us incremental improvements in existing technologies and not much more.<\/p>\n There was a time when universities, arts councils, foundations and governments would fund the creation and performance of music based on its merit. The historical record shows us that this system worked incredibly well- it allowed us to hear new works by Berio and Henze alongside Bruckner cycles from Jochum. It gave us decades of Copland and Sessions.<\/p>\n Just as poisonous as the \u201cNew History of 20th<\/sup> c. Music,\u201d is the \u201cDisgruntled Composers\u2019 Retort,\u201d to the \u201cNew History.\u201d I think I\u2019ve shown that the era in which we supported and encourage composers to explore ideas, styles, agendas and techniques of them solely on the basis of their quality and without concern for audience reaction was also the era in which the art form hit its high-water mark of influence, relevance and popularity.<\/p>\n The \u201cDisgruntled Composers\u2019 Retort\u201d then builds on this observation and says that classical music has lost popularity because performing organizations don\u2019t do enough new music. The \u201cDCR\u201d states that excessive conservatism is the problem, the \u201cNHoTCM\u201d states that progressiveness was the problem and that we have to restore conservative values to win back the audience.<\/p>\n Both are, frankly, bullsh*t.<\/p>\n In fact, the \u201cDCR\u201d is (whether those\u00a0advocating it realize it or not) a tool of the commercialist agenda, because it accepts the metric of short-term popularity as a measure of the merit of an undertaking. While remembering the value of building relationships with the public and the importance of supporting living composers, an orchestra should not choose whether to do Beethoven or Ferneyhough based on which will ultimately make them more popular or relevant, but simply on the basis of which project is more artistically interesting to them. Hopefully it is not a choice between one or the other, but finding the right time and venue for both, if both are intrinsically interesting.<\/p>\n It may sound like a fantasy world, but there was a time that members of the political right and left, scarred by the upheavals of WW II and the Depression came to an enlightened consensus- education, the arts, human rights* and scientific research where all accepted to have\u00a0intrinsic value, and were to be supported on a bi-partisan basis.<\/p>\n Now, the \u201cNHoTCM\u201d and the \u201cDCR\u201d are part of a larger body of propaganda that has dominated social and political discourse for 30 years- the doctrine of commercialism reigns supreme, and the idea of inherent value has been reduced to a quaint and na\u00efve concept. \u00a0Repeating these same tired fallacies simply reinforces the cynical and depressing message we\u2019ve heard for too long. In fact, respect for inherent value was the most powerful force for good in the 20th<\/sup> c. In the 35 years from WW II to the Thatcher\/Reagan revolution we put men on the moon, cured countless diseases, built universities, created the era of information technology and made huge strides in civil rights. We\u2019ve stripped our airwaves of culture, and transformed universities into job training centers, and our hospitals into extensions of the insurance industry. Everyone complains about anti-social behaviour, about a workforce that cant\u2019 work and about a healthcare system that doesn\u2019t heal, but our political class has been reluctant to challenge any of the tenants of the commercialist revolution that created the situation.<\/p>\n c. 2008 Kenneth Woods\u00a0<\/p>\n *Respect for human rights should be the obvious slam-dunk example of universal inherent and intrinsic value, but even those who argue against the legalization of torture fall into making the wrong argument. Saying that \u201cif we torture, our soldiers and citizens may be tortured, and people will hate us that will cause future terrorists attacks\u201d may be an accurate statement of fact, but it also reinforces the commercialist notion that no concept has inherent or intrinsic value, and that everything in life ought to be evaluated on a cost\/bennefit basis. We\u2019ve been told for 30 years that inherent value is an airy-fairy concept, and rather than dissecting and rebutting that bogus argument, we\u2019ve fallen into trying to prove that things with intrinsic value also have extrinsic value. Of course they do, but that\u2019s not the point!<\/p>\n