Author: brycon
Date: 2020-07-02 18:29
It might be two different questions: 1. What happened to high-modernism as a style of composition and artistic movement? 2. Why aren't more high-modernism pieces programmed?
Whatever answer you give to the first question no doubt plays into the second. And because most composition programs (in the U.S. at least) have turned their focus elsewhere, there are fewer young composers churning out total-serialized pieces in the style of early Boulez.
I will push back, though, and say that Boulez's chamber works and clarinet works are part of the standard repertoire and are pretty frequently (for high-modernist music, at least) performed. And the same goes for Carter and Berio, among others. Moreover, Ligeti's wind quintet bagatelles is one of the most popular pieces in that repertoire.
I think with orchestras, younger audiences have been pushing (rightfully, I think) for more programming of living composers, especially composers whose voices have historically been excluded from the orchestra world. But it seems as though most orchestras in the states will program only a single token modern piece--usually a substitute for an overture--on a concert. These forces combined with the immense difficulty of, say, a Boulez orchestral piece have pushed this music out of orchestra concerts in favor of newer pieces (or just John Adams).
This all, however, could be entirely wrong. I have no data on who gets performed most often and in what settings.
I myself frequently play modernist music--Carter, Boulez, Denisov, Donatoni, Wourinen, Babbitt, etc. I find this music very beautiful in its own way--the Bachian counterpoint in Babbitt, for instance, or the theatricality in Carter--and very rewarding to study and to perform.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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