Kleinmeisters
Kyle Gann comes out swinging against mediocrity, and -- oh horrors! -- Names Names:
Most of all, there is no buzz about the kleinmeisters among younger composers. Harbison, Chen Yi, Penderecki, Higdon, Zwilich, Sierra, Paulus, get to command vast musical resources, but no young composers heatedly argue the merits of their pieces.
You can't argue. There's a lot of solid and safe contemporary music out there, the Henry Hadleys and Emerson Whithornes of the age. What interests me is music that is either far-out, or so retro that it's far out... guys like Rosner or Sowash. Whatever it is, it doesn't have that whiff of "product" about it. That's a learned thing; I hear a bit of it in Lowell Liebermann's recent music but not the stuff he was writing at age 15.
I was lucky, I guess...rejected as a comp major during the 70s, then getting an MM in composition at a fairly minor league comp school (Cleveland State) which did have the advantage of a resident orchestra...and then having my mentor discouraging me from a doctorate in composition because "I didn't have a voice" (when I'd been experimenting and following my prof's leads because I thought that's what a student does.) It hasn't all paid off with some huge career (or any career at all really), but I'm writing what I want and am happy about it, and performers seem to be happy with what I write (a trap in itself).
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: January 22, 2007 11:24 PM
The really bad part is that most of this is rattling in a tea cup. Except for Penderecki, I've heard of none of the people he names, and of all the composers you heard at the concert you reviewed two posts ago, the only one I know is Ives. All the rest is musica incognita.
Although I disagree with his opinion of Penderecki: but then again, it's the chamber music of Penderecki that I like, not the stuff "for large forces"--the Sextet, the Divertimento for 'Cello, etc.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 24, 2007 03:55 PM
With Penderecki, you have the odd situation where his earlier music (esp. Ofiarom Hiroszimy) get taught as classics (or at least representative works) in music history courses, but nobody at all cares about his recent necromantic music.
Harbison is quite well known (his Great Gatsby made it to the Met) and probably least deserving of Gann's diss, and I've liked what I've heard of Higdon. But there's nothing about any of these guys that makes me want to track down every recorded piece of theirs.
Posted by: M.
Posted on: January 24, 2007 09:51 PM
Speaking for myself, the only composer on Gann's (apparently off-the-cuff) list that I haven't heard of - that I in fact do not listen to - is Sierra. The rest I consider either genuinely good (Harbison, Higdon), or occasionally good (Penderecki, Zwilich, Paulus). Regardless, as a non-composer, non-conservatory-trained, non-musician, I find these sorts of rants genuinely amusing. It's all a bunch of insular infighting to me, and by extension I would guess it's the same to any of the other, paltry few non-musician-non-composers who bother to make an acquaintance with classical music.
I don't really give a good goddamn if today's young composers are heatedly debating the merits of a given piece of music. I care if a particular piece is worth hearing. The real problem -beyond public indifference - arises when modern composers care too much about what other composers are thinking, and not enough about a putative audience. Most of the great music was written for the crowds - even if, in the case of Ives, for example, those crowds were imaginary.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: January 25, 2007 12:22 AM
Necromantic? Oh, ye have harsh words anon. I do like the pieces he composed for solo cello and solo clarinet. Perhaps part of their charm lies in the fact that when the only instrument involved is a clarinet, there's only so much dissonance you can achieve (at least, intentionally).
And now that you have mentioned it, I remember hearing the Gatsby opera broadcast. Or rather, the first act. I saw little point in listening to the rest. Do you know anything about David Carlson? The FGO is premiering his opera on Anna Karenina this spring here in Miami, and I'm almost tempted to go, just to say I went to a world premiere production...
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: February 1, 2007 01:15 PM
Carlson? Never heard of the guy. Apparently he's done some other operas though.
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/stepanich/entries/2006/06/the_composer_sp.html