Klarinet Archive - Posting 000859.txt from 1998/01

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Music: Modern vs. 'Old'
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:04:13 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig E. G. Countryman <cegc@-----.net>
Date: Tuesday, January 20, 1998 6:04 PM
Subject: Re: Music: Modern vs. 'Old'

>Aaron Copland is a rather modern composer that has written tons of
>wonderful music. I started listening to his works mainly for
>cross-referencing to his Clarinet Concerto, but the more I heard the
>more I wanted to hear. Likewise, after playing some excerpts from
>Stravinsky's work I wanted to hear more of him. These were two
>composers I never thought I would grow to love, as I was a passionate
>lover of the classics, but I did.
>
Maybe at this point, if this discussion is to make any sense, some terms
need to be defined. "Modern" as a descriptor of anything as mercurial as
style in music (or painting) is an awfully broad term. I don't think Bill
Hausmann and Craig are talking about the same music. Neither Copland nor
Stravinsky seem, in my mind, to offer a counter-argument to Bill's complaint
about music that "...sounds like randomized computer-generated soundbites.."
or music in which "...what is not random is apparently aggressively created
with the purpose of sounding BAD." I have heard music of other composers
that DID seem to fit these descriptions, and they are all twentieth century
composers, my love of the music of both Copland and Stravinsky
notwithstanding. Seems like maybe the discussion is moving toward a stage
where a love of oranges is being used as an argument against anyone's
disliking pears.

I'm not sure, going back to the original point of this thread, what anyone
has in mind when they call for clarinetists to perform more or less "modern"
music. Are the Stravinsky "Three Pieces," the Copland or Nielsen or
Hindemith Concerti, what we're talking about?

Karl