Klarinet Archive - Posting 000326.txt from 1994/11

From: Kirby Fong <u745%sas.nersc.gov@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Contemporary music
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 18:10:42 -0500

The recent comments about contemporary music and bands were particularly
interesting to me as I just attended at band concert at California State
University at Hayward last night. The oldest piece was written in 1928, and
the newest in 1993. The audience was small and probably consisted mostly of
friends and relatives of the performers.

Several of you have mentioned the economics of contemporary music, and I
believe you are right. There are only a small number of listeners willing to
put both the intellectual effort and the money into supporting contemporary
music. Media like operas, ballets, chorus, and symphonies generally rely on
private support and have to please their patrons. College groups, orchestras
and choruses as well as bands, generally are tax or tuition supported and have
the luxury of perfoming whatever they want whether it pleases audiences or not.
Of all the aforementioned groups, I believe college bands have been most
active in seeking and performing new works, probably because there is such a
miniscule repertoire of 18th and 19th century works for winds. I claim that
if you are a contemporary composer and want musicians to perform your works,
the only viable markets are (1) high school performing groups, (2) church
choirs, and (3) college bands. You will have to keep the technical difficulty
down for the first two markets, and this may or may not require artistic
compromise. America however has some very fine college bands with directors
who are eager for new works, so the band medium deserves serious consideration
by composers. Alas, after college the economics of the marketplace reassert
themselves. Professional bands have to play what their patrons, sponsors, or
audiences are willing to pay for. Don't ask me why, but the paying public
doesn't seem to be as interested in bands as in orchestras, ballets, and operas
as evidenced by the far smaller number of professional bands. Is it because
the bulk of the band repertoire appeals only to the few of us (like me) who
used to play in bands in college? Is it because, unlike John Philip Sousa,
we do not play the band music the public wants or present it as entertainment?
Is it because bands don't have the snob appeal of operas and symphonies?

Dick Williams asked about band pieces that were later transcribed for
orchestra. In addition to the replies I have seen so far on KLARINET, I can
think of Ralph Vaughan-Williams' Folk Song Suite and William Walton's two
coronation marches Orb and Sceptre and Crown Imperial. I think some of Ron
Nelson's compositions (like Rocky Point Holiday) exist in band and orchestra
versions, but I don't know which came first. Another exercise for the
reader is to track down the chronology of the band and orchestra transcriptions
of Charles Ives' Variations on America, originally written for organ.

As for last night's concert, I'll just say that one of the strong points
was the blend and balance of Wind Ensemble I. I have heard bands at other
California State Universities with shrill clarinets or brass overbalancing
the woodwinds. Blend can't happen if you don't play in tune. One of the
curious psychological acoustics phenomena is that bands that play in tune
don't sound as loud as bands that play out of tune. Dissonance apparently
causes a perceived increase in loudness. Anyway, good work guys. (If Joel
Jaffe is still subscribing to KLARINET, tell Tim Smith I was there.)

Kirby Fong