Klarinet Archive - Posting 000551.txt from 2000/05
From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Michael Lowenstern (was: [kl] Hi)
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 15:03:23 -0400
I've been stalling to avoid writing this message, but I can't leave this
thread hanging by a distortion.
Regarding Michael Lowenstern's 1996 CD, "Spasm," I wrote,
>All of the music is contemporary....The only standard on
> the CD, Gershwin's "Summertime," gets thoroughly
>Lowensternified. A lot of this CD is music to climb
>the walls by: frantic, howling, screeching, thumping,
>popping. The title, "Spasm," says it all. I find that I'm
>not in a wall-climbing mood (or willing to be put into a
>wall-climbing mood) often enough to listen to this CD
>very frequently.
Benjamin Maas wrote,
>>What is wrong with releasing a CD without a "standard."
>>Face it, we're in the 21st century now. Let's examine
>>some recent music. Old stuff is great, but it is exactly that- old.>>
Huh? The logic here seems to be:
Michael Lowenstern plays recent music.
Lelia finds "Spasm" too strident to listen to often.
Therefore Lelia will not examine new music.
Socrates wouldn't like that logic. (Of course, he's old... like, dead.)
You've taken that limited, specific comment about one CD and perverted it
with non sequitur reasoning, into a totally unsupported (and, as it happens,
false) generalization about my taste in music.
Nor did I ever say, or imply, that there is *anything* wrong with releasing a
record with no standard tunes on it. I said, by way of supporting my
assertion that all the music on the CD is contemporary, that although there
is one older standard on the CD, "Summertime," Lowenstern plays it in a way
that is *his* and *not* standard. (I think that a more accurate title for
this piece would have been, "Variations on a Theme by George Gershwin.")
Oh, and how about this classic "Emperor's New Clothes" argument-cum-cheapshot:
David Hattner writes that Lowenstern's
>>music and performances are not intended for the clarinetist anyway, but for
those open to new experiences.>>
I'm not sure I understand this comment, but do you mean that anybody who
fails to share your opinion of Lowenstern isn't open to new experiences? (If
not, what *does* it mean?) If so, it's the same sort of logic as Maas's non
sequitur above, and it's poppycock.
Benjamin Maas wrote,
>>Not all music is soothing to listen too. I will totally agree that not
>>everything on the CD is easy to listen to, and yes, you do have to
>>be in the mood to listen to some of the pieces. *But* can't you say
>>that about any music? I usually don't feel like listening to Mozart.
>>To each our own...
I hope you don't intend to imply that anyone who finds Lowenstern's music
irritatingly harsh must therefore prefer music that is merely "soothing" or
"easy to listen to." (Is it coincidental that this phrase so closely
resembles, "Easy Listening music"? Snide, much?)
There's room for a lot of different music between (and around) Lowenstern and
-- well, you're the one who brought up Mozart, a comparison (albeit indirect)
that I suspect would embarrass Lowenstern, if he's normally modest. As you
say, "To each our own," though I admit, I can't separate personal taste from
critical judgment to quite *that* extent. I do think Mozart was a better
composer than Lowenstern is. Okay, I understand that you never intended to
set Lowenstern up on Mozart's pedestal. But it's still an interesting
comparison, because, no, I don't have to feel like listening to Mozart.
No matter if I start out *not* in a mood to listen to Mozart, when I hear his
music, it *puts* me in the mood to listen to it. It seduces me. It draws me
into itself. In contrast, "Spasm" (as a whole; we're talking about several
different composers, though all chosen for performance and to greater or
lesser extent modified by one artist) has, by degrees, pushed me away instead
of pulling me in deeper. I'm less interested in the CD now than the first
time I listened to it.
Please don't misinterpret that as a general disparagement of Lowenstern.
Mozart's old and decomposed, but he composed so much better than most, IMHO,
that his is a high if not impossible standard to expect from anybody, of any
generation. I don't demand that other composers kick Mozart's skeletal butt
before I can enjoy their music. (Now somebody can write in and say that, no,
actually, Mozart's butt is not skeletal; it is mummified. If so, I stand
corrected, in advance.)
The best I can do is to trust my own perceptions. I don't know how tastes
may change in fifty or a hundred years, but IMHO, audience indifference is
more fatal to the survival of a composition than audience outrage, in the
long run. At least outrage means we're paying attention. But if music
sounds nerve-jangling, then I can't be indifferent to many *other* aspects of
it, or else I won't put up with the ear-twisting and the music won't survive
*my* test of time in *my* CD collection. Granted, it's probably mere egotism
for me to think that anybody else might share my taste. Still, I don't think
a preference for Mozart (or Dolphy, for that matter) over "Spasm" means I'm
living in the past. I think it only means that I want the present and the
future to offer me something better than "Spasm." IMHO, most of what the
public rejects over time isn't brilliantly revolutionary and isn't horrible,
either. It's just forgettable. Old classical music only seems generally
better by comparison because previous generations have weeded it until the
worst and the mediocre are long forgotten.
So now we get to continue the work of weeding the more recent generations'
crops. By all means, let's compost Alban Berg's hideous "Lulu" and feed it
to Scott Joplin's rags, for instance. But I don't want to toss Lowenstern in
the compost -- certainly not on the basis of "Spasm." It's way too early to
tell what he'll do. I think he's only in his late 20s or early 30s, right?
IMHO, he's already a first-rate clarinetist and a promising composer. Give
him a few decades and let his music pass through the refining fires of
generations of future contexts.
That *doesn't* mean I think the music on "Spasm" is *bad* music. I NEVER
said that and I don't think that. IMHO, acknowledging the merits of
something does not require me to invite it to rasp on my ganglia regularly.
Maybe the music sounds less scalp-twitching to others than it does to me, or
maybe the virtuosic playing will carry the day and enable the recording,
therefore the composers' music, to survive. At any rate, "Spasm" probably is
not the fulcrum of Lowenstern's career. It's an early work. He's an
interesting musician and I'm interested in hearing what he does next.
Regardless of whether or not I've guessed or figured right about the
long-term fate of "Spasm," however, I don't appreciate attempts to belittle
my opinion by misrepresenting it. It is probably little enough already.
Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Time is only an illusion, but a very persistent one."
-- Albert Einstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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