'Cause He's So Cute. I Can't Refuse a Request from a Goatee as Scratchable as That One.
I have to make something up, though. Something with a bit of substance ( - balls, if you will - ), and of a wholesome length, like Sunday's simply astonishing breakfast (you have no idea).
But I have an idea (so I do)! I can at the same time give something of a tip of the hat to another friend, whom I love dearly; and furthermore, to music - and enough said on my opinion of that.
So: on we go.
What do you think (yes, you. I want your opinion in one of the comments) will survive to the Western canon from the twentieth century, or perhaps, if you want more of a challenge, what will survive of living musicians' music?
I think that, of classical/art/serious music, very very little will survive. I think the sort of serial atonality that is so prevalent these days - yes, Andrew, even Webern, but also virtually every Irish composer I know (John Buckley and especially Martin O'Leary being notable exceptions), and even world-famous composers such as James MacMillan, Messaien, Stockhausen, Boulez - is somehow opposed to what we might call human nature, which, in aesthetics, is important. Schoenberg recognised this, I might add: the ear necessarily hears things in terms of the harmonic series, tonal structures, and the whole panoply that has been drilled into our heads since our mothers sang soothing melodies at us in the cradle, or earlier; not to write music with this in mind is not to write music for humans; the music becomes a hobby, akin to making a toy train set. (Schoenberg wrote, of course, with his observations in mind, but whether his music is as tonal as he thought it is a matter of debate.)
Some of you may at this point observe that a lot of art music has not, in fact, abandoned tonality, and cite Steve Reich and Philip Glass as cases in point. And I agree, and think that they'll be remembered. However - and forgive the muddle of my thoughts - there's something missing from them too. Perhaps it's that they're so repetitive. One can only listen to so much Glass before you start feeling murderous towards minor thirds. He, then, will be remembered for, say, Koyaanisqatsi, and Einstein on the Beach, but little else.
But so far, so much pessism - what will survive from this genre? Which composers? I might bet on those such as Osvaldo Golijov, Shostakovich and Stravinsky; I might even bet on the two Irish composers I've mentioned above; and I cannot over-recommend Abel Carlevaro, who might turn out to be the finest guitar composer ever to have lived (known mainly as a teacher, but then, so was Bach in his lifetime - and I do not apologise for the comparison). All these composers write music, which, while often devoid of a key, is nonetheless tonal, and their music has a beauty which is immediate and overwhelming. Atonality, I contest, cannot do this - atonal chords are often stunningly beautiful, but they all seem to occupy a bleak soundworld, and have a very hard time portraying joy or happiness or anything innocent like that. For that, we need triads. Atonality also has a harder time creating a really captivating sense of harmonic movement - a consequence of them all occupying, broadly speaking, the same expressive soundworld.
I'm not advocating a return to tonality, mind you - nothing so simple. But I think that there is a lot of fine music yet to be written in C major, and the fundamental principles I have already mentioned (harmonic series, etc.), must not be forgotten, or hidden beyond recognition out of a paralyzing fear of pastiche. We can incorporate rich atonal chords quite easily into a structure, once we remember that tonality is not the accepted chord progressions of mediocre eighteenth-century composers, but something much more complicated, immediate, and profound.
The canon aside, I feel like classical music is dead. We can all point out wonderful composers, but I feel like there's too much artistic arrogance, too much Ivory Tower-detachment, too little knowledge of, and too much thinking about, what music should be. (This will become clear in the next paragraph.) Like Hegel said, when the philosophy of art is flourishing, art is not.
So: what I think will really survive is popular music. The Beatles, of course; and Queen, and Miles Davis; and I adore many other artists, such as Steve Vai, King Crimson, Iron and Wine, and Radiohead. And even artists that aren't "great" like these are, for example Dream Theater, or Metallica, or most of big band jazz - they all do what art music too often doesn't, and appeal to your gut, and make you bop your head and forget yourself. If King Crimson is Reich, who is Metallica? I think there's a gap - poor pop errs on the side of banality, poor art on the side of abstruseness. Which side would you have your failures fall? the side of the former - youthful foolishness? or the side of the latter - death? And those who are really superb, are as far as I am concerned, far better than such as Stockhausen; and are better to be compared to Haydn and sometimes even Bach. I'm listening to OK Computer now, and I'm responding to it in an entirely immediate and passionate way; I can barely think of a single contemporary composer to whom I would react in a like manner.
Oh; I also think that history will reserve a place for Andrew Lloyd Webber on the same dinner table as it has preserved for Puccini. :)
But I have an idea (so I do)! I can at the same time give something of a tip of the hat to another friend, whom I love dearly; and furthermore, to music - and enough said on my opinion of that.
So: on we go.
What do you think (yes, you. I want your opinion in one of the comments) will survive to the Western canon from the twentieth century, or perhaps, if you want more of a challenge, what will survive of living musicians' music?
I think that, of classical/art/serious music, very very little will survive. I think the sort of serial atonality that is so prevalent these days - yes, Andrew, even Webern, but also virtually every Irish composer I know (John Buckley and especially Martin O'Leary being notable exceptions), and even world-famous composers such as James MacMillan, Messaien, Stockhausen, Boulez - is somehow opposed to what we might call human nature, which, in aesthetics, is important. Schoenberg recognised this, I might add: the ear necessarily hears things in terms of the harmonic series, tonal structures, and the whole panoply that has been drilled into our heads since our mothers sang soothing melodies at us in the cradle, or earlier; not to write music with this in mind is not to write music for humans; the music becomes a hobby, akin to making a toy train set. (Schoenberg wrote, of course, with his observations in mind, but whether his music is as tonal as he thought it is a matter of debate.)
Some of you may at this point observe that a lot of art music has not, in fact, abandoned tonality, and cite Steve Reich and Philip Glass as cases in point. And I agree, and think that they'll be remembered. However - and forgive the muddle of my thoughts - there's something missing from them too. Perhaps it's that they're so repetitive. One can only listen to so much Glass before you start feeling murderous towards minor thirds. He, then, will be remembered for, say, Koyaanisqatsi, and Einstein on the Beach, but little else.
But so far, so much pessism - what will survive from this genre? Which composers? I might bet on those such as Osvaldo Golijov, Shostakovich and Stravinsky; I might even bet on the two Irish composers I've mentioned above; and I cannot over-recommend Abel Carlevaro, who might turn out to be the finest guitar composer ever to have lived (known mainly as a teacher, but then, so was Bach in his lifetime - and I do not apologise for the comparison). All these composers write music, which, while often devoid of a key, is nonetheless tonal, and their music has a beauty which is immediate and overwhelming. Atonality, I contest, cannot do this - atonal chords are often stunningly beautiful, but they all seem to occupy a bleak soundworld, and have a very hard time portraying joy or happiness or anything innocent like that. For that, we need triads. Atonality also has a harder time creating a really captivating sense of harmonic movement - a consequence of them all occupying, broadly speaking, the same expressive soundworld.
I'm not advocating a return to tonality, mind you - nothing so simple. But I think that there is a lot of fine music yet to be written in C major, and the fundamental principles I have already mentioned (harmonic series, etc.), must not be forgotten, or hidden beyond recognition out of a paralyzing fear of pastiche. We can incorporate rich atonal chords quite easily into a structure, once we remember that tonality is not the accepted chord progressions of mediocre eighteenth-century composers, but something much more complicated, immediate, and profound.
The canon aside, I feel like classical music is dead. We can all point out wonderful composers, but I feel like there's too much artistic arrogance, too much Ivory Tower-detachment, too little knowledge of, and too much thinking about, what music should be. (This will become clear in the next paragraph.) Like Hegel said, when the philosophy of art is flourishing, art is not.
So: what I think will really survive is popular music. The Beatles, of course; and Queen, and Miles Davis; and I adore many other artists, such as Steve Vai, King Crimson, Iron and Wine, and Radiohead. And even artists that aren't "great" like these are, for example Dream Theater, or Metallica, or most of big band jazz - they all do what art music too often doesn't, and appeal to your gut, and make you bop your head and forget yourself. If King Crimson is Reich, who is Metallica? I think there's a gap - poor pop errs on the side of banality, poor art on the side of abstruseness. Which side would you have your failures fall? the side of the former - youthful foolishness? or the side of the latter - death? And those who are really superb, are as far as I am concerned, far better than such as Stockhausen; and are better to be compared to Haydn and sometimes even Bach. I'm listening to OK Computer now, and I'm responding to it in an entirely immediate and passionate way; I can barely think of a single contemporary composer to whom I would react in a like manner.
Oh; I also think that history will reserve a place for Andrew Lloyd Webber on the same dinner table as it has preserved for Puccini. :)