This recent article in The New Yorker by my favorite music writer, Alex Ross, put me in the mindset of my previous blog, Unpunished Rapture, which was a music-specific blog I abandoned to write here. I feel that this post, from June 17, 2008, merits revisiting because it reflects the last meaningful conversation I had with my father before he passed away two months later. It also reflects the esoteric music-nerd part of myself that I rarely reveal on this site.
A recent conversation with my dad prompted me to formulate some
thoughts about larger philosophical issues in music. The cover of this
month's Gramophone magazine features six of "Today's Great Composers",
including Reich, Golijov and Adams. I'm familiar with music from all of
these composers and I understand -- on the surface at least -- where
they are coming from in terms of answering the musical traditions of
the past. My dad, an admitted musical reactionary of extreme
proportions, has trouble with all of their music, claiming that it
lacks "melody", his defining factor for greatness (think Verdi). He
also noticed with disdain that all of the photographed composers are
dressed in jeans or black khakis. Our opposing reactions to
Gramophone's cover spurred an interesting conversation.
While
some of these current composers are turning away from the esoteric
philosophy-composition that has dominated so much art music of the last
50 years, there is no doubt that composition -- even with melody and
with audience appeal in mind -- has been permanently transformed since
the last of the canonical traditionalists in the 1940s or 50s. I argue
that this is an inevitable evolution responding to the fragmentation of
genres and the domination of commercialized music, and that members of
the "Shuffle generation" like me -- younger people who routinely listen
to music of a swath of genres -- understand the influences and the
relevance of the music of Adams, Ades, Glass, et al. The best of their
music is complex, thoughtful, beautifully structured and contains
compelling lines, even if you might not get a "Di Quella Pira"- type
melody with every aria. My dad sees this transformation as an inability
to hear or understand real beauty, and therefore an irredeemable fault.
In our conversation, he argued that the music of "today's great
composers" simply isn't beautiful.
He's right in that the main
purpose of most music today is not simply to represent beauty, as it
has been in ages past. Often the purpose of today's art music is to
represent more negative feelings, or at least a realistic sense of the
world we live in. But this rejection of romantic ideals isn't just
happening in art music. It's been in progress for decades in all art
forms. Music may be where disillusionment, frustration, and anger are
most commercialized -- those are, after all, the primary sentiments of
much rap and hip hop -- but it's not an evolution confined to Western
art music. In that vein, I suggested to my dad that the next
generations might not even hear beauty the way he does; that, in fact,
Beethoven's Ode to Joy might not even mean triumph, joy, and beauty to
listeners in 50 years, the way it does to him. This idea absolutely
floored him. There has always been to him, and to many of his
generation, one absolute aesthetic. But if a child of today grows up
hearing only commercial music, what guarantee is there that that child
will think "Oh! Joy, brotherly love, beauty!" if suddenly confronted
with the Ode to Joy?
I realized during my class this past
semester how much our aesthetic sense has changed as humans over the
course of the past few hundred years as we discussed modes and
liturgical music. In early church music, modes were beautiful, although
they mostly sound a little strange to us today. Similarly, as we
studied Islamic music, I was made aware of the maliable construct of
our 12-tone scale. In Islamic music, their scale has 47 tones! There
apparently is no absolute even in those elements of music that are
mathematically constructed.
These aesthetics change over much
longer periods than just one person's lifetime, which is why my dad has
such a hard time imagining a world without the Ode to Joy. After all,
Western art music of the past three hundred years is, essentially, all
he's ever known. As a reactionary myself -- although not to the degree
of my father -- I want to work to make sure the Ode to Joy always means
joy, brotherly love, and beauty to those who hear it. But I also
understand that there is no absolute aesthetic, that Western art music
must work to find its place among the myriad of contemporary genres,
and that those other genres are speaking to people with as much force
as the Ode to Joy speaks to my dad.
Neylan, I found your blog through Segullah and I've been very much enjoying your thoughts and your writing. I'm a music nerd, too, and have been thinking a lot about contemporary music over the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to decide on a piece to finish out a recital and have been listening to lots and lots of music. I'm hoping to find something slightly unusual, written in my lifetime, audience-friendly, that feels good in the fingers and is exciting to play, and that speaks to me. It's been a fun process, and I haven't narrowed down my options yet, but there is a lot to choose from. I personally don't think art music will ever fully leave luscious melody behind, even if our ears are attuned to new and different sounds. Even from birth, we're introduced to melody through lullabies. I love a good melody. I also love a good Adams piece.
Oh, so if you have any great suggestions for a piece, I'd love to hear them. I really love Rzewski's Down by the Riverside and a couple of Ligeti Etudes, but I'm open to lots and lots of suggestions.
Posted by: Kerri | February 14, 2010 at 04:57 PM