Klarinet Archive - Posting 000580.txt from 2003/07
From: "Michael Norsworthy" <mnorswor@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] RE: Contemporary Music
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 22:26:58 -0400
> Can you help a beginner? Can you mention some specific clarinet
> pieces, for
> example, that could help someone like me appreciate something new?
> Can you
> talk about how you are moved by music, when conventional melody and
harmony are
> not present. What turns you on about it?
> Luciano Berio: 1925 - 2003
> Franco Donatoni: 1927 - 2000
> Pierre Boulez: 1925 -
> John Cage: 1912 - 1992
> John Zorn: 1953 -
> Morton Feldman: 1926 - 1987
> Salvatore Sciarino: 1947 -
OK, the names above are a great place to start. Boulez, btw, is still
composing, making 3 on the VERY short list that are. Here's a few
others and pieces to go along with...
Helmut Lachenmann - Dal Niente, Allegro Sostenuto, Trio Fluido, Accanto
Gerard Grisey (who died not long ago) - Charme, Vortex Temporum
George Crumb (still writing) - 11 Echoes of Autumn
Brian Ferneyhough - La Chute d'Icare, Time & Motion Study I, Prometheus
Pascal Dusapin - If, Itou, Aria
Michael Finnissy - Uzundara, Cirit, Marrgnu, Runnin' Wild, Giant
Abstract Samba, Banumbitt, Transformations of the Vampire
James Dillon - Redemption, Crossing Over
Richard Barrett - Knospend Gespaltener, Charon, What Remains, Another
Heavenly Day
Roger Redgate - +R
Giacinto Scelsi (dead) - Kya, Pregheira per un ombra, 3 Studies
Kimmo Hakola - Clarinet Quintet, Clarinet Concerto, Capriole, loco
Rolf Wallin - Clarinet Concerto
Magnus Lindberg - Clarinet Quintet, Clarinet Concerto
Elliott Carter - Gra, Steep Steps, Clarinet Concerto, Quintet for piano
and winds, Con Legerezza Pensosa, Hiyoku, Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux I & II
Stockhausen - many pieces to choose from
Lee Hyla - We Speak Etruscan, Amnesia Variance, In Double Light
Phillippe Manoury - Michigan Trio
Toru Takemitsu (dead)- Fantasma/Cantos, Waves
This is a VERY SHORT list and should be a place to get you started.
What turns me on... Where do I begin? Over the course of the last
century I believe that communication has progressively gotten more
complicated, simpler to some, but certainly more complicated on the back
end. If music is a form of communication, it would stand to reason that
it too should have become more complicated and yes, sometimes difficult.
IMHO, this rise in global communication has had a profoundly good effect
on classical music as the past century has seen the amalgamation of a
great deal of foreign or indigenous music. Suddenly, people in the west
are able to appreciate music from the east, south, north and all over.
If traditional harmony is to be your guide, it seems to me that you're
pretty much stuck in 18th-19th century Germany and surrouding areas.
I'd rather travel the world, wouldn't you? It's bound to be more
interesting than being locked into one particular place and time period.
When listening to older music, I listen for other things besides the
melody of the particular piece. I listen for discourse, ensemble,
color, rhythm, form, dissonance (because I find it more interesting than
consonance, particularly in the works of Brahms and Mozart), struggle
and resolution, cause and effect among many other things.
In short, I listen to new music in the same fashion as I listen to old
music. All of the same, above mentioned, things are still present. The
one thing that is not present IN ABUNDANCE, is traditional harmony. I
say in adbundance, because if you look at many good, new pieces,
occassionally a triad will peek its head out. Composers today are not
seeking to eliminate traditional harmony from the record books, but to
use it in conjunction with other methods of "composition". Some use set
theory, some use serialism, some, like Carter, draws much of his
material from his recently published harmony book which focuses mostly
on building blocks such as the "all-trichord-hexachord". Choards, in
traditional harmony, are nothing more than building blocks... Today we
simply use more chords. Scales too are nothing more than rows of tones,
so we use more diverse and different rows. The amount of methods of
composition is endless and should not attempt to be ennumerated by
simple little me. However, the fact is that there ARE so many different
methods of composition, so why should all "good music" (to use other's
terms) be taken from only one of those methods (traditional harmony)?
Regarding the commercialism of music... That's a subject far too large
to take on in this forum. It would be a great forum for the next
ClarFest, anyone wanna pitch the idea? For myself, I can only say that
I'm sickened by it, yet, I can do nothing to change it.
>So, what do we have? We're stuck with music of the earlier centuries
until we get >rid of fads and start writing music that really is music.
What is real music? I'm assuming that you mean tonal music. So is
Medeival/Renaissance music NOT real music? Because it surely isn't
tonal. Perhaps you should listen to Gesualdo, many conventions in his
music weren't used again until the 20th century.
Also, what about Ives? He's known for taking several TONAL pieces of
music and layering them on top of one and other. The result is far less
than tonal. Is this real music, because the building blocks of it are
rooted in traditional harmony?
>The comment by someone
>else about rubbing the clarinet bell across a drum head,
>and the ladies gushing
>over it, that's like the splash art. It's not music. It's crap.
Is it? Supposing that was the color that was necessary and that was the
only way to produce the color... Is it still crap? Shall we irradicate
<insert least favorite color here> from the color pallette simply
because you don't like it and think it's crap? Lukas Foss, a friend and
colleague, actually wrote that very same thing in his Tashi and Clarinet
Concerto... I can tell you from personal experience that it's not crap.
It's a most interesting color that was ESSENTIAL to what he was trying
to say. So is it still crap?
>Many of the
>compositional methods you suggested have been generally discredited
over the
>years.
Have they? By whom and how?
> Academic crap is what I call it. There are many Contemporary
> Compositions I like a lot so don't get me wrong but there are
> also the exercises in sound that are to me trash.
So when do we start consider Mozart's music as having started? Would
you call the early violin sonatas academic crap or music? He was clearly
studying with his father when he was 6 years old.
I can see that quite the debate is going on over this from the many
postings and I'm very glad that such discourse is taking place. I think
it's great when people share ideas and challenge opinions. I'm happy to
participate, but please know that anything I say is exactly that, an
opinion.
Thanks for listening,
Michael Norsworthy
mnorswor@-----.net
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