Klarinet Archive - Posting 001017.txt from 1998/01

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Modern Music
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:50:15 -0500

on 1/21/98 11:58 PM, Bill Hausmann wrote:

>But if music is NOT "in dialogue with the...people" as you
>say, then it fails to interest me.

I'm sure Stalin would be delighted to read this comment, and Shostakovich
and Prokofiev, among others, would be appalled! The flaw of this argument
is that there are many different kinds of people with many different
musical backgrounds. Defining which people the dialog is with presents
real problems in a pluralistic society (not so tough in Stalin's case). I
don't think we serve the advancement of our art by defining the dialog in
terms of the lowest common denominator.

People react to music on many different levels, some only "skin deep" and
some in much greater depth. To me a successful piece of music works for
an audience on several of those levels. It makes *me* want to hear it
again to discover new aspects. Note that this is without regard to style
of composition or chronological pigeonhole. Unless the average listener
brings an open mind, new compositions are unlikely to bring forth this
response.

Performances can also color your attitude about a piece of music. I
remember clearly the first time I heard Dvorak Symphony #8. It was a
runout by the Baltimore Symphony, long enough ago that Genusa was the
Principal Clarinet, and also long enough ago that I had no idea who he
was and why I should be paying close attention. I hated the piece.
Several months later Bernard Haitink and the Royal Philharmonic came
through on a US tour, and lo-and-behold, there was the dreaded Dvorak 8.
This time, the performance was a revelation. If even a well known (though
not by me at the time) piece of music from the past can be made
unpleasant by a particular performance, imagine the effect a
bad/uniformed performance of a new work can have.

I can't leave this discussion without a mention of Nicholas Slonimsky's
"Lexicon of Musical Invective". All of the criticisms of modern music
made in this thread can be found there, applied to the music of
Beethoven, Berlioz, etc. I forget which historian said "Those who do not
learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Apparently many musicians
fall into that category. While it is fine to have opinions about various
works and styles of music, to pass blanket judgment on them without a lot
of study is to risk ending up with egg on your face later.

David

David Niethamer
Principal Clarinet, Richmond Symphony
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/