Alex Ross - The Rest Is Noise

I'm loving it so far. It's inspired me to listen to lots more Berg and Stravinsky, and to peck at pianos to try some of the chords he describes in the pieces he likes. Thumbs up.

Some idiot talked about it on Cave 17.

im digging it

thanks for the awesome link!

not much action on the original thread yet

The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

2/3rds in and really loving it so far. Most of the books I've read on 20th century music were of course written before the 20th century were over, i.e. from the front lines, particularly invested in the front lines & avant garde. The general narrative of those books: Western Music developed in an unbroken line towards the plateau of Serialism & atonality and then lost a common thread, shattering into thousands of specialist fronts. If Strauss, Shostakovich or Sibelius come up, they are minor players quickly dismissed etc. so it is pretty remarkable to read a history of 20th century that kicks off by describing all the major avant garde composers congregating at a Strauss premiere and then continually returning to him as a pivotal character / signpost for the next 300 pages. Sibelius & Shostakovich get huge chapters, Varese & Webern a little less than one page each, then scattered inconsequential mentions

This is redressing a balance in terms of most of the page time spent on those composers but it accurately reflects the amount of public attention & performances those composers actually received at the time

Need to finish reading before writing more, but what makes this so readable are the politics, the amount of historical detail Ross has put into this book to depict the environment this music was born into is astonishing. Most histories mention Shostakovich's self-censorship under Stalin, usually in a quick mention relating to how conservative or mediocre his later works are, but Ross really brings it to life, reprinting the reviews and the dates that each of the composer's remaining friends and allies went missing

Ultimately many of my tastes and Ross' couldn't be more different (he does not have an ear for electronic or even recorded music) but it doesn't matter, this is a very different book on 20th century music and probably the first one you don't have to be an obsessed music nerd to read and I am buying a copy for my mom

everything Milton said seconded esp this: the amount of historical detail Ross has put into this book to depict the environment this music was born into is astonishing

working my way thru the recommended listening appendix now. so far Messiaen is blowing my mind, not so much Shostakovich and Sibelius but they're not bad. might try some Benj Britten while I'm working today.

like I said on the other thread, this is flat-out some of the very best writing on music I've ever read.

not much action on the original thread yet

Shit, I really should have searched - I can't believe I'd never seen that. That and a typo in the title of this one. Oh well.

Ultimately many of my tastes and Ross' couldn't be more different (he does not have an ear for electronic or even recorded music) but it doesn't matter, this is a very different book on 20th century music and probably the first one you don't have to be an obsessed music nerd to read and I am buying a copy for my mom

Very interesting! You were definitely one of the people (plus Julio) that I had down as a Ross-hater. But yeah, this is the first book I've tried to read on 20th century music that I've actually got very far with, and not only that but I'm really enjoying it, to the extent that I don't want to get through it too quickly.

I'd be interested to see if people have any particular thoughts on his recommended recordings; there are only a couple of records on there I'd heard before (eg Music for 18 Musicians), but I've now got quite a few of them out of the library. So far the things that have most impressed me have been Quartet for The End of Time (which I've actually has for a decade, but never listened to) and rather to my surprise the disc of Sibelius 4th and 6th symphonies - I'll definitely have to get some more.

On the other hand, I've also been getting really into Luigi Nono of late, so it's slightly frustrating to see so little on him; but I imagine that a book along these lines that did cover Nono etc to any degree would be 5 times the length.

On another tack, my knowledge of pre-20th century classical music is very slim - can anyone recommend any books (preferably as good as this!)?

Ultimately many of my tastes and Ross' couldn't be more different (he does not have an ear for electronic or even recorded music) but it doesn't matter, this is a very different book on 20th century music and probably the first one you don't have to be an obsessed music nerd to read

I agree with Milton except for the bit about electronic and recorded music. I don't think it's that he doesn't have an ear for it. I've heard him talk about loving electronic music, and records. He raved about hearing live, electronic Stockhausen. He can't stop talking about that freaking Tashi record (which is not all that, IMO). The difference lies in that he still champions the live experience.

But within that there's some small issue. While he's making a case for "the other side of 20th Century Music" he's really just attempting to explaining, or re-explain, for the masses what a ton of other people already inherently knew, Stockhausen's not bad music, nor Schoenberg, nor Reich. And he's good at it, but how much does he even acknowledge the true lesser-knowns of the 20th Century? My guess is that he left out even a hint of them. And is it because there's no chance that anyone's going to have a live revival of the pop music tape work of Claudio Rocchi? It really just might be. Despite all the flair of giving thumbs up to the iPhone and DG mp3 store, Ross still seems very pinned down to a somewhat stuffy classical lineage, manners, and respect for the artists classical tradition has already let in. References for popular music like Beatles, Velvet Underground, Bjork, Radiohead reference should be a little more tiresome for folks by now, too. I'd truly like it if Ross tried to tackle some of the more unclassifiable types of music that popped up in the 20th century, or now. Or is that the part about the rest being noise? Maybe I'm suggesting he write about that, too.

if only he'd added a vampire weekend chapter.

I'm really glad I read this book. I'm nearly totally ignorant of classical stuff and whether or not Alex Ross is right on is something for the classical crowd to discuss, but for me as a reader I found it totally gripping and interesting all the way through, and while I guess he doesn't go into great detail on a lot of stuff, it was the first book that could really put a bunch of names I'd heard into perspective with the times and culture of the day...

as a result I've bought a bunch of classical records and have started listening more to the classical station when the mpls rap station is sucking (which is often lately)....

I didn't mean that he doesn't enjoy electronic music and / or recordings, it just doesn't seem to be his passion -- he loves Stockhausen & enthusiastically writes up 'Gesang der Jünglinge', but there are those writers who try to summon enthusiasm for Xenakis' instrumental writing and don't mention his tape works, and there are those people who think that his tape works are among the most important pieces of music created in the 20th century -- he's in one camp and I'm in the other

he's absolutely right to underline that a recording of classical music is a fake. the first time I heard Ives and Beethoven performed in a hall, you realize you can actually hear all 60-80 individual instruments -- ears capture more information than than any microphone, you can discern far more detail. you also can't ignore the social meaning, the amount of co-operation required for that many people to come together. we listen to recordings so often that it can take effort to even remember that symphonic music was not written for the medium of stereo recording, it suffers horribly. this is not a book about recorded music, or what happened to composers who started dealing with the implications of being able to record sound, this is about people who continued to write in the old style in the 20th century, focusing on the pieces that actually found & entertained larger audiences as opposed to the pieces that gripped and inspired dedicated musicians & music fans.

which is WEIRD for me because I basically consider the whole of popular 20th century classical music an anachronism, I am waiting for the book that does _not_ see a disruption in the narrative but fuses the public expansion of what is considered 'consonance' to the shift to composing with pure sound that was enabled by recordings, from Musique Concréte > Beatles > Modern Folk Electronic / Hip Hop. James Tenney's books come closest to doing this but those are for specialists (though most people on this board I'd count as specialists)

but if this book gets anyone to join in the Messiaen POV / POX thread, I'm happy

& I agree with matinee, I don't hear what's so specifically great about the Tashi version of 'Quartet for the End of Time', it's nice but the Messiaen Edition version on Erato w/ Marcel Couraud is spacier

I need to listen again before I go off, I remember the fast parts are more virtuosic on the Tashi but the two 'Praise' sections weren't anywhere near as slow or eternal, you shouldn't even be able to check your e-mail while listening to them

This sounds interesting but I'll probably wait for it in paperback.

Ross pointed out a link to his popular music taste articles today on his blog and I see now that a little over ten years ago he wrote NYT articles on Caroliner and AMM. Granted, a long time ago, but I'll still buy it as cool, even though neither of those bands is especially my cup of tea, with the exception of early AMM. I also like the fact that he's grouped AMM with "popular music."

any friend of Caroliner is a friend of mine. man, this guy is kinda impossible not to like:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/popular/index.html

Bob Dylan
Radiohead
Björk
The Death of Kurt Cobain
Pavement
Cecil Taylor / Sonic Youth
Kiki and Herb
Academia and Pop
AMM
Caroliner

hey he's on colbert!

Presenting pretty well I'd say. Colbert just asked him to pick one lesson could you take from the entirety of the 20th century and Ross visibly slumped in his chair trying to figure out how to respond to that.

"lesson you could take"

I am loving his book, which is very entertaining and approachable for a layperson like me. One minor gripe - I am waiting for the arrival of Bjork in the final chapter like a fart at the end of a good meal.

The critical pant-wetting starts to come to an end?

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/artsandentertainment/0,,2263630,00.html

"Commenting on Stravinsky's negotiations with Walt Disney and Barnum & Bailey's Circus, Ross hails the United States as 'a marketplace in which absolutely anything can be bought and sold'. At times, his grand narrative paraphrases the messianic imperialism preached by George W Bush. As Ross sees it, Messiaen brings God back to earth during a tour of America's national parks, whose geological radiance he transcribes in From the Canyons to the Stars; Bartok, having migrated from Budapest to Manhattan, plans his Concerto for Orchestra as a 'parting gift to his adopted country - a portrait of democracy in action'. It's a shame that rich America disregarded the offering and left Bartok to die in misery."

The book gets something of a slating on BBC Radio 3 this week, where it is described (not entirely without justification) as "the Donald Rumsfeld view of music history".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/musicmatters/pip/5jl8c/ (link expires 15th May)

"the Donald Rumsfeld view of music history"

Ugh. What does that even mean?

it means fuck all as does this bit from the guardian review:

At times, his grand narrative paraphrases the messianic imperialism preached by George W Bush.

get on your hobbyhorse and ride

The woman in this interview bafflingly accuses Ross of failing to describe the actual music — the difference, she says, in the sounds of Schoenberg and Sibelius. I didn't come away with that at all, sounds like some serious ax-grinding.

This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books about classical music.

This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books abouts classical music.

This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books abouts classical music.

Yeah, I must say, as an objection to that book, those kind of stock responses seem pretty 0_o

bite me England

Is that what you call it.

The woman in this interview bafflingly accuses Ross of failing to describe the actual music

Yeah, that's just flat out bizarre. And I just don't see the relevance of current US foreign policy to Ross's account of racism in "Porgy and Bess". Was there something I missed?

This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books abouts classical music.

Alex Ross to host weekly new music show on Fox News channel confirmed

thanks for that radio link Tim, I love BBC morning radio

very interesting interview & round table. In abstract, Morag Grant (the female critic who's the angriest at Ross' book) has some valid points worth making: Spectralism is underrepresented, all of Germany is summed up by Helmut Lachenmann. This I agree with, but she really takes this personally and comes up with the Donald Rumsfield line. She also thinks he spends too much time on biography, the seamy details, and there's not enough musicological advocation -- but c'mon _that's the reason this book is being read outside of musicological circles_. You can sense panic from certain quarters as they realize that this is the only book on 20th century that many people will ever read, and they're taking it personally that this book has perhaps a populist agenda, emphasizing Strauss / Sibelius / Copland / John Adams while openly dismissing pivotal figures like Boulez & spending next to no time on Webern & Varèse

About the nationalism, Ross' book is very political and so I'm not surprised people have an allergic reaction to any trace of US myopia, but I didn't see it. the BBC shouldn't be complaining about the UK being underrepresented with that novel-length love letter to Britten in the middle & the pro-Thomas Adès sentiment.

& most books with a sweep this wide make a point of keeping the recent history unsettled, I was surprised Grisey & Lachenmann even got their one paragraph each, and sort of shocked to see him briefly advocate two of their most challenging pieces (ok I will link to my favorite recordings of each here and here -- got to be those recordings, especially with the Grisey)

seeing as it probably is the only book many people will ever read on 20th classical I'm happy to read even the most savage rejoinders. I loved the book, but seriously in most cases my level of my enthusiasm for any composer mentioned was in inverse proportion to the page time spent on them

except for all the fun writing on Feldman! He likes Feldman. for a second I thought that page count was so high on Morty because he'd simply imported his New Yorker profile on him almost wholesale, but then he used hardly any of his beautiful profile on Scelsi, so... hard not to suspect page time does equal editorializing

Just went to Gann's site: That the European critics' arguments are so pathetically, blusteringly weak is the surest sign yet of the strength of Alex's book.

& I thought I'd alrready linked this in this thread, but here's DeLaurenti's caveats.

http://lineout.thestranger.com/2006/05/the_rest_should_have
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=433725

ross sort of pwns delaurenti in the comments section there

maybe a little, any attempt to criticize a book that's taking such a populist tack leaves you wide open to being called a snob. I do prefer delaurenti's playlist though (perhaps understandably)

This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books about classical music.

-- Hurting 2, Monday, 10 March 2008 15:22 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

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This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books abouts classical music.

-- poortheatre, Monday, 10 March 2008 15:44 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

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This all smacks a bit of Americans have no business writing books abouts classical music.

-- Ned Raggett, Monday, 10 March 2008 15:53 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

LOL how can the world's must succesful exporter of its own culture and art get butthurt about not having enough exposure and interest?
Shoulder potato farming. Incidentally the woman with the Rumsfeld line was Scottish.
Aanyway thanks to Milton for providing a balanced view on the Music Matters review. I just listened to it. I haven't read the book, though i'm interested in it, and will get a copy before long. I have to say though, any book on 20c music which leaves out Webern and Varese (particularly the former imo) has got a problem from the get-go, and I'd find it hard to understand why Copland and Vaughan Williams don't get equal time (or at least a fairer ratio) when they're of similar quality, importance and musical signifigance. I thought the Ross interview was very interesting, his point about de-centering is bang on.
One thing i would say is if this book is character-driven (and I see no problem with that in itself,) then you're inevitably going to get criticised if you leave out or dismiss some of the most important characters/composers, like Boulez or RWV, to focus on movements.
In a way, and of course i'm only going on the interview here, it's kind of necessary to reinstate some of those forgotten giants to young readers of Ross columns and new classical concert-goers, rather than to insist on minimalsism's importance. The latter has been SO promoted in recent years. And yes here's my bias, because I think the compositional quality of eg Webern/RWV is stronger than that of every single minimalist (loose term) composer, not because I want a reurn to former musical language (that would be horrible). However, anything which tackles 20c music altogether rather than dividing along artificially created lines is A Good Thing.

the BBC shouldn't be complaining about the UK being underrepresented with that novel-length love letter to Britten in the middle & the pro-Thomas Adès sentiment.
The 'BBC' is not one editorially controlled publication, like The New Yorker or Ross's book. If this book was reviewd on Radio, 2, Radio 1, Radio 4, Radio 5, BBC Music Magazine, The Culture Show on BBC2, it would get completely different opinions, and different guests from other parts of the music and art world. It prob will be reviewed and or covered in at least 3 of the above mentioned, btw. So, y'know, The BBC aint complaining about nothing, it was James fenton and Morag Grant criticising it, and Petroc Trelawney the host praising it.
And for all you complainers, i'd ask you to listen to a review of this book on Classic FM, and then judge what Radio 3 was doing with that programme before you say 'urgh'.

I thought the Donald Rumsfeld line was pretty clear in its meaning, and it's one I've heard elsewhere too - Ross's book, for anyone with decent knowledge and experience of European music (like Morag Grant, whose Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics is one of the smartest books available on the subject), can seem extremely parochial. It doesn't bother me quite so much as to throw around neo-con metaphors, but I do see where they come from.

Boulez is not left out of the book. He pops up frequently and a lot of his parts of the book were memorable.

sure Boulez is a recurring character, Ross even goes out of his way to put in a good word for his later work Répons, but relative to previous overviews Ross is taking him down more than a few pegs

the titles of Paul Griffiths' books on the 20th century (widely used as standard texts) block out his "Western Music culminates in Serialism" narrative -- Modern Music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez and Modern Music: The Avant Garde Since 1945 - Boulez and Beyond. His "Concise History" was the first book I'd read that really brought early 20th century classical to life for me and is absolutely the one to go to if you already know you're more interested in Varèse than Sibelius. Even the pictures are better (the pictures in Ross' book are Dull). Griffiths' later books are interesting as well but he runs into more difficulty maintaining his unified narrative once Cage & the Minimalists show up (i.e. the Americans). In fact he doesn't try, in the later chapters he just throws up his hands and starts grousing about the splinters

the online pdf of Morag Grant's book shows she leads with a chapter on electronic music (the central development that goes unintegrated or cordoned off in too many overviews) so I am definitely going to have to hunt that down. somehow. & nicely stated, Tim

Ross' latest roundup of audio links reminds me that maybe I do need to check out more Strauss - http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/01/book-audiofiles.html

well, yup, i'm way over my head here. although all i'll say is that i def. rememebered boulez from the book and it definitely made me want to check his stuff out. which, as a classical no-nothing, i'd never even heard of him before, so maybe ross's book is doing the job?

That neo-con comparison is madness, what's the diff between that and all the Ross' 'yearning for Hitler's hate' stuff?!

Even Griffiths is sorta struggling w/most post-1970s music tho'. Hopefully all the debate surrounding the Ross will mean that more is published on 20th (and 21st) century music.

'That neo-con comparison is madness, what's the diff between that and all the Ross' 'yearning for Hitler's hate' stuff?!'

1. Neo-conservatism is an ideology a fair few of whose basic tenets are considered basically acceptable today, certainly in America, unlike Nazism.
2. The criticism of Ross is about the views of an individual, not those of a whole nation.
3. For all neo-conservatism is a hideous and dangerous ideology, and will cause millions of deaths when carried out, it does not actually have total genocidal dehumanisation at its very heart, as an end in itself.

Can anyone recommend any books on pre-20th century classical music? I keep feeling that I'd like to go further back, and surely there are some good books around?

Charles Rosen's The Classical Style is a good one for Mozart/Haydn/Beethoven. His book on the Romantic era comes recommended by other people, although I've not read it.

Thanks - although Amazon reviewers seem to suggest that knowing some musical theory might be necessary?

I can't vouch for this as I haven't read it yet, but it's next in line after I finish Hegarty's "Noise/Music" -- Stove's 'A Student's Guide to Music History'. Looks like broad strokes & it's way short, under a hundred pages.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933859415

toby, what kind of books are you looking for exactly? if you're music theory is minimal, think about reading biographies of the composers. if you can't understand the technical aspect, knowing a composer's biography will make you feel like you understand his music, and some of the theory will rub off on you.

maynard solomon's biographies of beethoven and mozart are standard. (mozart's letters are great, too.) berlioz's autobiography is a classic, although it's more useful for anecdote than fact. ditto wagner x 10. harold schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers might be a good place to start, too. you can see who interests you first..

if you want theory books, Rosen's The Classical Style is standard and not as challenging as his book on the Sonata form. The Beethoven Quartet Companion (ed. Winter and Martin) is more approachable, and it concerns more than the quartets.. i have a book just on counterpoint but i haven't tried to read it yet.

(i live in paris and boulez still conducts here! like, every week! it kind of looks like Weekend at Bernies III, but he gets the job done.)

Nice to see IanP make a post here :-)

"2. The criticism of Ross is about the views of an individual, not those of a whole nation."

The fact that she mentions an once major figure in US politics seems to make it, in part, to be about the nation. But what this and the Hitler's hate stuff have in common is the reaching out for provocation (this after her initial remarks never got the remainder of the panel going...not the best panel discussion, that the host of it found it 'engaging' ws hilarious coming in after her criticisms).

Anyway, her instincts on this bk are also shared by me -- and its not that he doesn't write about Nono's late style or that he doesn't think Chris Dench or James Clarke is British music. I found myself nodding at the bits where she talks about the writing on Shostakovich with the unconvinced feeling, kind of what I get from his New Yorker stuff. Hoping to be turned onto Peter Grimes by the end of it all tho'.

Instincts on instincts is all I can have as I haven't read it.

Toby - if you want a really broad stroke introduction to all classical music from the Babylonians onwards, you could do worse than Paul Griffiths' A Concise History of Western Music. It's a bit too sweeping for me (it crams all that history into 300 pages), and I don't agree entirely with some of Griffiths's conclusions, but it covers most of the important points and is a nice read too. It's got a glossary which is partly useful, partly redundant ("Volume: loudness", anyone?), and recommended further reading and listening. Even though the 20thC occupies only the last few chapters, Griffiths' recommended recordings here are much more comprehensive and interesting than those in Ross's book, so it's worth a glance for that alone.

Thanks for all the book recommendations - I suspect that broad and basic is exactly what I want at the moment, but I'll be checking out everything that's been suggested so far. Stove looks kinda crazy from his website, though, which gives me the fear.

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/random_rules_alex_ross

Pretty good.

The Band, "Whispering Pines"

I like the "Kingdom Come" Alex Ross better.

I was waiting for somebody to add something about the "King Harvest" Alex Ross.

i have never read a single o_0 sentence in a ross piece. he also seems like the nicest guy ever. he's like the criterion collection of music critics.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ee/The_Wire_Snoop.jpg/250px-The_Wire_Snoop.jpg
he meant janus but he aint know it

Haven't read the book yet, but this is exactly the sort of browntonguing guaranteed to put me off ever doing so.

On his site...he has broken new ground in thinking aloud about music on a virtually daily basis.

I warned you, Tom, you should have taken out a copyright...

How remarkable that Bjork and Radiohead should be so complimentary about a book which is complimentary about Radiohead and Bjork.

I knew why this thread would be revived.

Looking forward to the book when I get round to it though.

Yes, it looks v. good indeed on speed reading but the hype is detaching from its qualities.

Just won a MacArthur "Genius" award that comes with $500,000

and book's out in paperback next month, so maybe i'll actually read it.

This isn't just one of the best books about music I've ever read, it's one of the best books I've ever read.
Hugely informative, with an remarkably compelling narrative. (I too went to the piano to pick out the chords Ross describes.)

Starting this now! I'm very excited to read it after going through this thread.

has someone put together a well-edited audio compilation to go with this book? would love that to listen along.

he's got audio samples galore over at therestisnoise.com, but i dunno if someone's done a comp of all that stuff ... incredible book.

Yeah a 2CD compilation of chamber works by these guys would be something I'd be up for.

Its a year and several threads on...just wondering if people who didn't listen to a lot of classical before opening this bk have listened to a bunch, gone to the odd concert and if so what was it?

Unfortunately I feel too set in my ways to ever pick this up :-( xp

i went into a short composed music phase after reading it. my ipod had to be refreshed around when i finished the book so for a while (about a week or two) i didn't have any rock music on my ipod, just some of the stuff ross discussed, though i got tired of that pretty quickly. also went to see a john adams opera (a flowering tree), which was fun.

I got Nixon in China and Strauss' Salome after I finished it, but haven't really followed up with much careful listening.

Got into Morton Feldman, Stockhausen, Mahler, Sibelius a bit after reading this ... Knew a little about them, but the book got me to go buy the records. Also made me start digging deeper into Stravinsky's later stuff. Oh and Shostakovich, too. I mean, there is a lifetime's worth of music in this book, for real.

Ah, nice. One of the marginal things I've picked up when this bk hit was the notion that lots of people were going to read it and get onto listening to the old records, maybe go to concerts that would never otherwise. As for myself I've never gotten into a type of music like that, it would usually be a paragraph length review, then I'd build an interest after trying lots of names and then start hunting for in depth books/histories...

Reading this just now. Not really living up to the hype, though it's good. Not interested in the reams of stuff about Britten and it was somehow inevitable that he would think the best thing Messiaen ever did was the piece inspired by America.

The best parts of the book IMO are the bits about Berg's operas. Ross is amazing there. Also the sections on Sibelius and Feldman are awesome. Sibelius is one my v favorite composers and has hardly ever been given his due in writings on the 20c (he was far more the modernist than he is perceived).

Tom D is it that you don't care for Britten's music or just don't care to know extraneous stuff abt him?

Both. The stuff on Sibelius definitely made me want to check the miserable old bastard out.

Five to start you on Sibelius:

1. Symphonies 4 and 7, Tapiola- Maazel/Vienna PO (Decca Legends)
2. Symphonies 5 and 6- Colin Davis/London SO (LSO Live label)
3. The Oceanides/The Tempest/Nightride and Sunrise- Segerstam/Helsinki PO (Ondine label)
4. Violin Concerto- zillions of eligible choices. Heifetz, Hahn, Kraggerud, Ida Haendel, Julian Rachlin are all great IMO.
5. Symphony 2, Luonnatar and Pohjola's Daughter- Bernstein/NYPO (Sony)

If u are on eMusic I can suggest some top choices from there instead.

Thanks, yeah, I'll get round to him someday I hope!

If u are on eMusic I can suggest some top choices from there instead.

I'd like these suggestions, please.

Well, since you can still cherry pick from certain classical labels on eMusic, here's what I say--

--Cherry pick Symphony 5 (4 credits) off the Colin Davis LSO disc listed above, then Symphony 6 (4 creds) off the BIS label (Vanska/Lahti SO)
--Get the whole Ondine disc of Symphony 4 and Pohjola's Daughter with Segerstam/Helsinki PO, even if it's a 12-cred DL. Vanska's 4th is too slow.
--If the Oceanides/Tempest/Nightride disc on Ondine, listed above, is on the 12-track whole album plan, get that. If it's not, cherry pick Oceanides off BIS (Vanska/Lahti SO again) and I guess hold off on the track-heavy Tempest music (but it's Sib's last major work for orchestra and you should hear it sometime).
--You could drop 12 credits on Heifetz in the concerto (coupled with Tchaikovsky I think?), or on Hilary Hahn (hers comes with a knockout Schoenberg concerto). Or just cherry pick the Kavakos/Vanska off BIS for 3 creds
--Cherry pick Luonnatar (Vanska/Lahti/BIS) and the Six Humoresques (Kang/Jarvi/Gothenburg SO/BIS)
--Cherry pick Colin Davis/LSO in the seventh symphony (LSO Live label)

This is a review of Taruskin's The Oxford History of Western Music, written by Franklin Cox, a cellist and composer that I really admire.

A few notes:

- Its a 45 page review (part one of two) of a book in five vols in several thousand pages.

- Learning much about historical methodologies, romanticism and modernism, politics and hsitory.

- It is very well-written, thorough and rigorous with long footnotes, not light and breezy like Ross, but if you wanted to pick up on the perils of writing a history -- and how the author's politics and nationality, which was touched on above -- can cause disruption to this kind of project, and also on the hurt that the 20th century (the last two hundred years of classical) has caused then let this be your guide, I say.

Ooh thanks! I have the Taruskin 19th century, Early 20th century and late 20th century volumes in PDF but haven't read any of them yet.

OK so I'm almost done with that Taruskin review PDF and wow I knew Taruskin was a crank and a scold but did not know what a real radical-reactionary he is. Astonishing that he was Oxford's man to do such a centuries spanning authoritative project. He's easily as far out as the young Boulez (in the opposite direction) but is way old enough to know better; he comes off, if Cox is to be believed (and the excerpts are pretty damning) like he wants to be a new Zhdanov.

Thanks a lot for posting it.

I came across more (potentially) cranky stuff from Taruskin in the comments section of this blog too btw.

Really like to read ”Prokofiev Hail… And Farewell?”

I trust Cox's compositions and playing of the Cello, so I think I'll trust his piece. Cox does try to give credit where he can but it must be hard when an entire tradition of musical avant-garde (that Cox is v much a part of) is getting thrashed. I hesitate because I don't know Taruskin's own writings that well, and like Mark (and Cox) says he does seem to be a good writer who knows early music.

Also I only found out recently that Charles Rosen died so onto this piece on Carter

Wait what WHAT? Rosen is dead?

Damn

The Romantic Generation is in like my top 5 non fiction works ever

totally missed rosen's death, and so close to carter's too

i liked that sense of contunuity with rosen, who studied with a pupil of liszt and then became one of the foremost interpreters/proselytizers for carter

re taruskin -- wouldn't you exactly expect the oup to give that history to a conservative?

i'm just kind of stunned here.

That book is fkin soul-stuff for me.

re taruskin but he's more than a conservative, that's like calling wolfowitz a conservative

taruskin used to be a serialist?

serially formed joeks

re taruskin -- wouldn't you exactly expect the oup to give that history to a conservative?

I would have expected this to be the work of several specialists, as it happens.

how big is it in total

some scholars are just born bigness queens

5 heavy volumes

they measure their worth in lbs rather than citations

Cox's PDF is not a review, it's a polemic. I enjoyed reading it, the Taruskin quotes he threads together make a strong case for his argument, and it seems like a helpful contrarian point of view for anyone to have in mind before diving into Taruskin's version of the 19th/20th centuries (good lord). but a lot of what he says I'd nearly take for granted; I know it's pretty shocking for Oxford to have granted their imprimatur to a single-author history, but it's so obviously one author's perspective that a lot of Cox's objections start to seem a little redundant.

I don't know, maybe when I read it I'll be equally outraged by all the subjective objectivity, but the audience-determined model of history that Taruskin apparently champions only makes me more curious to read it.

I will, in fact, be using this as my springboard to finally dip into the Taruskin books (of which I have 'The Nineteenth Century', 'The Early 20th c' and 'The Late 20c'). Where to start, though...

That audience model of history I could see working if he was writing about pop music that I have no doubt Taruskin detests. To apply it to the 12th century is incredibly bizarre, to say the least.

http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2011/10/16/taking-on-taruskin-2/

other Oxford histories use multiple specialist authors.

i still want to read Taruskin's book because i'm a sucker for big history and i'm a sucker for historians with blatant attitude, no matter how much i disagree. but i've been wanting to read a musicological history for a while now that isn't Ross - i like bits of his stuff but i find him a bit lightweight or pop-leaning?

any suggestions for a good book, especially anything on the last 150 years, especially focused on "Art music"?

For the earliest part of that timespan, Rosen's The Romantic Generation, my friend! You won't regret it.

the one that I'm most in line with that was written in the 60's is Peter Yates' "Twentieth Century Music": http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century-Music-Peter-Yates/dp/0047810041

I still like Paul Griffiths a lot, especially on the first half of the 20th century. The fact that the subtitles of nearly all of his books include the word 'Boulez' gives you a hint with the lens through which he sees everything that happens after 1950, but this one is still wonderful: http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Avant-Garde-Music-Debussy/dp/0195200454/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357341718&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+griffiths+avant+garde

The Stuckenschmidt book is still good too, lotza great pitchers of operas & scores: http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-century-music-university-library/dp/B0007FND02

And my favorite recent book focusing on my favorite offshoot of all of this: http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music-Technology-Culture/dp/0415957826

But my favorite is Yates, he's the only one who really saw the turn towards music-as-sound rather than notes / serialism, and who talks about pop music & recordings in an integrated way instead of an alien strain to be feared or regretted

Ross' book in many ways comes across like a one-man antidote to Griffiths, slighting everything difficult he loves, lovingly going over everything he passed over as regressive or too mainstream. It was overdue, and I really enjoyed it despite not liking too much of the music he does, but I saw it as redressing the imbalance of the histories of 20th century that were written while it was still a contemporary music more than too much of a fresh reappraisal of the whole mess

thanks guys, i will explore. i think music-as-sound is definitely my own instinctive attitude but this year i really want to engage with other ways of thinking and try to get deeper into what i love in music and what i want from it

if music-as-sound is your instinctive attitude I recommend these as well

A History of 'Consonance' and 'Dissonance' - http://www.plainsound.org/pdfs/HCD.pdf

Meta / Hodos - http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/12/26/2703030//MetaHodos.pdf

I've heard of the Yates for years, never seen it around. $5 huh?

A book that takes account of the research on how Darmstadt came to be what it was; a book that not only talks about the role of John Cage as a Duchamp type artist-philosopher but tackles his central importance to the central European music of the likes of Lachenmann and Spahlinger (this requres the US-Europe divide to be dispensed with); a book that treats complexity like Rosen does, intelligently and seriously and playfully, as a facet present in all of classcal music, so this would look at the complexity in simplicity too; a book of approaches to opera and ethnic musics from the likes of Kagel and Schnebel and Finnissy, and finally a book that is not scared to talk about politics and what is outside the concert hall, that doesn't set the scene as in a fucking landscape painting. And finally...

That book is yet to be written. In the meantime there are articles and if you piece them together there are hints of what that could look like.

So I'm pretty much tearing through Taruskin's 'Late Twentieth Century' volume. I think it's just about ideal to prep yourself with that review/takedown just so's to have your BS detector on, but that said I'm enjoying it greatly. He certainly sees a moral perniciousness in the OG wave of total serialists, aleatorists etc but it's also abundantly clear that he admires Cage, Babbitt et al for their sheer firepower. Maybe he will become an intolerable scold as he continues (right now I am up to the Babbitt/Princeton math music chapter) but that hasn't happened yet.

In the first chapter he lets you know that as far as he's concerned the Cold War is THE prism through which to interpret everyone's activities in the post WWII arts. Fine, dude, I appreciate the disclaimer.

Anyone psyched for The Rest os Noise fest at the Southbank? Can't say I am, but some of the concerts are interesting.

But Pierrot Lunaire is on next Sunday.

And this is the best its gonna get. I see the season is based on The Rest is Noise, wonder what that means...if Webern was given "one page" I guess he shouldn't have been programmed. Then again you know its bullsht to ignore him. The composer of the century, easily.

Op.6 was just one of those 'life will never be the same' kind of things. Shame I probably won't be able to make that.

There is also a 'beginnings' of minimalism with a couple of pieces by La Monte Young.

Anyone psyched for The Rest os Noise fest at the Southbank? Can't say I am, but some of the concerts are interesting.

The website annoyed me so much that I gave up looking, but guy I know gave me a programme of events, agree that it's not that exciting really. Won't be here for the Second Viennese School concert either :((((

The website annoyed me so much that I gave up looking

yeah i just went looking for info on the LaMonte Young performances that xyzzz mentioned, to see if I might be down in London at the time, and it seemed impossible to find details anywhere. what a fucking disaster the SouthBank is these days (useless website, unadventurous programming posing as the cutting edge, dreary run of meltdown fests)

google "La Monte Young rfh" and you come up with the details.

thanks xyzzz - i can't go, anyway :-(

Alex Ross's talks from the weekend are online.

http://therestisnoise.southbankcentre.co.uk/explore/here-comes-the-20th-century#1

I went to the Aurora Orchestra's concert on the Sunday night. Two things in particular stood out. Firstly, that the audience were sat on the stage and in the choir and the orchestra faced 'backwards' (with their backs to the empty auditorium). This meant we were much closer to the orchestra than normal, and it was odd to think that the orchestra could actually see everyone in the audience for once.

Secondly, they had Edmund de Waal act as a sort of narrator during the concert (which was programmed to show the sort of music the Viennese listened to around the time Schoenberg composed Chamber Symphony No. 1. It really set the context of the piece. That was such a great idea (and completely in line with the idea behind the book), as I always wished I knew more about the history of the era when listening to classical music. Apparently they are doing this for other concerts during the season as well.

The South Bank website is still a disaster but I managed to find this press release with full details of what's happening this year (hope the link works):

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:FqTB-MVaMJsJ:ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/sites/default/files/press_releases/southbank_centres_2013-2014_classical_music_season_release.pdf+&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiGn1sgOvE_cTlzelsCqyIlvRI5zT4VyZjrfJvk17jPikp-uaW71sx_j5yY3hMcX6sdeElsYwPnn0R-BFc2tG7innY7wI8tM8unVbhcLCCnzfwGu30TIFFegaZhDXiCznidoHje&sig=AHIEtbSCR7b6azhVN86-6sJDGYPzQtS6WA

Very excited about the Glass/Reich weekend in November.

Thx Jill. Listening to the first lecture:

Now years ago Howard Goddall, a conservative-type who writes music for TV and has agreeable mannerisms that TV commissioning editors like (hes doing a History of Music I am going to laugh at if I ever get round to seeing an ep from), made a series on C4 on modern classical in several parts by focusing on four key figures (not gonna bother to look right now), one of whom ws Bernard Herrmann, which he made up this tangent to castigate serialism and said it was better at conveying certain dark emotions through film and THAT'S IT. It wasn't a symptom that it was actually perfectly ok to listen to in its own terms and maybe you should give it a go OH NO!

So years later you find pretty much the same thing: lets start from film. It was in Kubrick, etc. Later on (while looking at Debussy's atonality) he cites that it comes w/out the 'stereotypical harshness' but he's already implying there is one by citing those examples from film, really playing up to that. Instead of doing this he could've perhaps talked about Boulez and Debussy in terms of not only their affinity for Gamelan (apparent in Marteau..) but also how that lightness of touch is apparent in not only both these but in so much other French music. So the 20th century is like any other century but that would possibly kill the book.

Man oh man the bit @25 mins "Listen to the flute" should've been Schonberg --> Boulez --> Chris Dench or Ferneyhough. Opportunity miseed, as I knew it would be.

unreasonable, etc.

gaaah I didn't know about the LMY etc thing and now it's sold out. Looking through the website for The Rest is Noise fest back when it was announced was a bit of an uninspiring trudge, but I will be going to quite a few things, including that Second Viennese School event.

this concert hall is a "shrine to the past" thing is some bullshit. As oposed to picking up a book or seeing paintings in a gallery now? People can't walk out of a concert if they don't like it?!

The "riots" seemed like a bunch of spoilt children acting out.

48 mins - lol@ "music giving way to noise", more like hey composers have actually bothered to write something meaty for percussion for a change.

Or we should read the "riots" dfferently. What happens when people's expectations in art aren't fulfilled? Isn't that what artists should be doing? On dance threads you read about people figuring out a track by learning to dance to it: how can we do this in a concert hall? :)

More lols at Feldman/Takemitsu anecdote at the Darmstadt bar asking for Sibelius to be kept on. Yes unlce Morty saw the error of his ways years after walking out of Rachmaninoff w/John cage as they decided Webern was all they needed.

Ends by quoting Wagner's "love for mankind". Does that include jews?

The interview has a germ of an interesting discussion of black american composers writing music applying say ragtime dynamics to orchestra but then they all went away shut out and created jazz, which perhaps mis-reads jazz history ("oh jazz might have happened anyway"...er well of course it would have!) but then they both turn out clueless about whether such a vision of musical fusion across barriers of race would happen now. I think they were coming from a more inclusionistic sense (how Israeli and Palestinian musicians might collaborate now, say) but musically you have an entire history of jazz's engagement w/its history and composition (Braxton, Taylor) and the gift of improvisation as a compositional strategy adopted in the 70s and 80s to begin with and beyond. That wasn't even talked about.

Think the wars as precursor to re-making music in Darmstadt is overplayed. The early concerts at D were Bartok, Hindemith, Copland, i.e. beginning again from the past and not breaking entirely from it. And then elsewhere the troubling fact is that Schonberg theorised the new methods before the war, and a few works were composed and played before a gun was fired...really seems like a with interruptions development that occurs anyway, and is applied to new technologies when they come into being via a network of radio stations in Europe and Varese's dreams are realised. And then his thinking of noises and music always seemed to me to run a lot deeper than something he saw in the war etc. He loved the sound of sirens...this is important because it reinforces the opinion that serialism was a result of carnage. However Xenakis (who was in the thick of the war) didn't exactly toe the line w/serialism, nor did Cage (who wasn't in the war). Of course it does dramatise things, which Ross is fond of doing.

Funnily enough it was the bits on Glass that were closer to my thinking: a composer and his small-ish ensemble, making the music he wants to make and "disappearing into the night". That has been how a lot of great modernist European music has been conceived as chamber or solo works, many of those composers weren't given orchestral resources often at all, and that stuff is pretty much the reason I listen to classical at all. But because it has yet to achieve any visibility, unlike Glass or Reich, its not written about much.

i never read Feldman saying he was wrong, just a kind of "i won't be so mean any more to composers i don't like" in later years. i love his early dismissiveness of music he didn't care about

The woman in the Q&A who talked about Britten as a 'radical' because of his activism was a total joker. Did he use his works to mouth off on issues; Nono battered people with his politics, which is why we can't deny the role they played in his music (and why Ross cited it in the follow-up when it came to 'politics and music').

Oh yeah Noodle totally, that was sarcasm - he probably always liked Sibelius but Ross talks of composers who did their own like Rachmaninoff and Sibelius. Just irritates me how Ross uses these fucking anecdotes.

I think Feldman was a meanie throughout his life and v v funny but wrong on Stockhausen and Boulez.

They all lked Webern of course.

yeah i was going to add "i like his meanness even when i vigorously disagree with it"

the worst thing about "anti-intellectualism" is maybe that it ascribes all these characteristics that aren't really there to the art it seeks to decry, and denies a lot of characteristics that are present to make its case - so you get this bollocks about serious, unmusical, dry serialism with no visceral impact on an audience and no connection to emotion, and then add insult to injury by psychoanalysing some bullshit about the War and particle physics into it. all the while blissfully ignorant of the artificial dividing lines you're drawing all over the musical map to create your case

and of course putting every quality of the music in the score and denying any agency to listeners

Secondly, they had Edmund de Waal act as a sort of narrator during the concert (which was programmed to show the sort of music the Viennese listened to around the time Schoenberg composed Chamber Symphony No. 1. It really set the context of the piece. That was such a great idea (and completely in line with the idea behind the book), as I always wished I knew more about the history of the era when listening to classical music. Apparently they are doing this for other concerts during the season as well.

Probably be at Tuesday's concert so I'll see how that works.

And thanks for that press release way upthread: they are still confirming things for the 2d half of the year. In the Q&A a perf of Stockhausen's Gruppen was mentioned.

Can't wait for tonight.

Found this awesome series of blog posts on atonality over the weekend. Interesting stuff to keep in mind ahead of tonight.

(the URL says page 6, so if you wander back to mid-way through to page 11, it was done over a month)

The concert tonight was the most marvellous thing in the world. Hadn't that piece by Berg before, .mp3 hunt to begin shortly.

Theere was a screen behing with some animated video artwork, photographs and quotes. Again taking the cue from 'this music is to be digested via a film'. I was too far back and will probably need glasses one day so could not read it although this should've been reproduced in the booklet.

The talk and Q&A after was reasonable until the question was asked as to whether Webern would have enjoyed what Boulez and the like made of it in their own music. This was answered by saying that he possibly would not as the music had become a technique.

This was the wrong answer. He might have improved upon it but I could not hang around to let him finish that sentence. Shame.

talk and Q&A? Oops I did not know about that. I was too tired to really appreciate I think (sorry for those microsleeps, Schoenberg), and generally I'm probably a few big steps away from really being able to appreciate serialism in general, but that Berg piece was pretty striking. The Webern Symphony and Concerto for nine instruments I liked too.

also I saw Will from TFI Friday there. Will from TFI Friday!!!!

Yeah, it was in the programme - there should've been an announcement before the 2nd half started, I was nearly out of the door before someone actually said there would a 25 min discussion. Nothing too heavy, few questions from the audience after a few remarks from the artist who made the graphics, a musician, the conductor and a guy who wrote a book on the 2nd Viennese school. Few biographical details come out: how much of the music was driven by the death of his mother but also his love of mountains so his use of space in the hall -- the distance between the piano and perc in Op.9, for example -- yeah, you can see it. I didn't know he wrote a thesis on Early/Renaissance music and so you go 'but of course'!

Very struck by the Berg, the sequencing was really good - it showed how Schonberg was working off Wagner or Bruckner or what have you in that first piece and then when you get to Webern its striking how that tradition is tackled from another angle and yet its never just hardened diamond geometrics at all either.

xp: lol, that's some past past 'celeb' spotting there.

The most prominent speaker wrote this book and the agenda is def to wrest Webern from the "absract" crowd that took his ideas at the end of WWII and place him in the context of the romantics (to position this in the canon, finally). This is so much easier to with Schonberg and Berg given that the former - despite polemics - wrote music with more easily identifiable 'romanticisms' and Berg wrote two operas that work as drama and spectacle (the filmic aspect).

See how the arg has shifted from when the Viennese were up in arms about this -- "no way this is a follow-up to Mozart and Haydn, let the Darmstadt crowd have it" -- to now a "we can save this from where it got to in the 50s and 60s" (Johnson) by finallly acknowleging its legacy to the music of Mozart, Strauss and Haydn.

Which is what Schonberg et al., were saying in the first place!

While I can see this position as a corrective to a lot of further polemics by Boulez et al. the problem with the args last night is that they rested on a view of 'technique' I couldn't agree with. Because tech is a thing always used by classical composers (and everybody in any type of music (or whatever we do in life) has a technique, develops one after a while by questioning and thought and practice and refinement). That is their bread and butter, to establish their own and work with this as a way to help them articulate their movements and ideas in music.

They would reply 'where does that leave emotion?' but for many in classical emotion must be a 'jolly' happy thing, there must be obvious nods to 'pleasure' which surely restricts the range and complexity of emotion.

That would be ok EXCEPT for them (and I repeat this, for them) classical is an art music that is BETTER AND DEEPER THAN POP and surely the function of an art music should be to incorporate differing layers of articulation, thought and feeling, not just to be happy and have facile emotions, but to strive at a mirroring nature. Art music cannot be just be reduced to such a simple infantile thing.

Now I have been aware of the gap between where the music got to and the people who listened to it was as wide as the Grand Canyon but last night's music, while incredible and great (exhilarating to finally hear Webern in the concert hall) came with an agenda -- via this bloody festival -- that I can't get on with AT ALL. This music is too good to gain acceptance with these fucking caveats being placed on it.

Never any question for me that Webern was a Romantic. As many things as I disagree with Taruskin about, I think he is OTM that basically everything up to post-modernism was really late-late Romanticism. (For Taruskin that is a bad thing; for me, it's not at all).

He's in line with history, certainly not an unbridgeable break from it as perhaps some of the first detractors would paint the 2nd Viennese school as being. Ditto Boulez and so on until maybe some of the work that Cage and Stockhausen are doing with electronic music, but that is technology driven change.

Don't get much out of modernism an post-modernism args in music myself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/07/sound-and-the-fury-ep1.html

so this is happening. i'll probly miss it, but i don't know that i'll be missing much.

yeah a friend of a friend worked on it, the word is really as you'd expect - interesting enough and well made, but in that short run (three episodes) not long enough to go into the necessary depth.

yeah. i don't think i'm going to be near a TV for the next couple of weeks so I'll see how inspired i feel to chase it up on iPlayer, but the tenor of the introduction there makes me feel like i'll disagree with the argument. even tho any chance to see cool archive footage is a good thing.

From that intro I wouldn't say it was 'deliberate', just that er...it was going that way, seemed like a good idea to explore, why re-make Beethoven or Strauss, etc etc.

This is a basic thing. Just a blurb so ok not gonna judge.

Depends who is on and how much space is given argument - if its someone like Ian Pace, say, I'll watch. If it comes with explanation and examples, the better.

Otherwise I can see ep1 modernism -> ep3 a return to normality with minimalism. Fuck that don't need.

well the argument isn't the programme and i can tune it out to an extent - see Mark Cousins' Story of Film where the visual elements more or less made up for my virulent disagreement with his ideas about movies - but yeah "deliberate" plus the alienation of the audience as if previous musics hadn't alienated the traditionalists within their own audiences - Squire Weston in Tom Jones treating Handel like the Sex Pistols - or the oncoming "composers responding to butchery and tyranny" theme because pre-20th century the world was a peaceful and democratic place etc

Funny bcz what you are saying (and I agree with) is how this stuff is what music and the arts (popular or otherwise) always does -- challenges pre-conceptions, engages with different views, all set in new contexts (Marxism lol) -- but then you'd have a perhaps more boring programme bcz you're ironing out some made up tension.

the task of communicating understanding of some actual works is the main challenge.

Simon Rattle did a nice series on 20C music some years back. It wasn't too forceful or didactic; I rather enjoyed it. (The musical examples were great, as you'd expect.)

this was great!

Bartok was a huge miss (great to see a thread on the str quartets, nice coincidence) in the first programme.

Talking heads were terrible. John Adams was cast as the old fogey but clueless when criticising Webern for attempting to unify science and art, but (as above) he loved the Renaissance, a time when both disciplines seemed to co-exist a lot more then. A remark on how composers were often looking down on the public is something you could surely say about many composers or artists most of the time in most eras. In fact, so much of this was a set of attitudes that have always been present in a time of continuous violence (numbers aside was the 20th century more violent than the 16th?) Not that history repeats itself: the music of the 20th could not been made in the 16th but how does it build on the prev era? Why is it always always seen in relation to the 19th century?

What are other ways of reading this history?

Boulez was rocking those shades tho'.

So I'm nearly all the way throughthis series on improvisation and it is the way a music doc should be conducted on TV.

- See how there is NO heavy lifting on concepts (they are there but really underneath): of course Ross can't do it, but the need is for less baggage is greater than ever. Improvisation is as old if not older and I like how the various participants - whether they come from Hindutani classical, Flamenco etc - are so relaxed when talking about what they do and don't bother with their place in it which lets face it is as boutique as classical.

- I would have had practioners talking about their music, whether Ferneyhough about complex music, Boulez on himself and maybe the 2nd Viennese school, Reich about minimalism, Pisaro about Cage etc etc and not about anything else, or where the composer is dead have a knowledgeable performer doing that.

- Lots of space for performnaces.

Note that Max Roach on the 3rd programme talks about blacks denied access to classical and inventing jazz as a result, which is what Ross talked about in his lecture in that link.

Of course my approach would be perhaps less fractious and bitchy and while I like fighting my battles it would allow for people who don't know much to see everything: new minimalism, Nancarrow, Elliott Carter, electronic music, Oboes from Mars.

I had no idea that The Sound and the Fury was going to be so closely modelled around The Rest Is Noise - the first episode at least.

Have to say, as well as the convenient overlooking of every epic period of plague and slaughter in previous ages, I'm not comfortable with the characterisation of all music pre-1895 as exquisite, melodic, etc. No violence in Beethoven?

Also the latent premise that dissonance is the only musical property that has ever had the potential to disorient or shock listeners.

the "theory" is noise.

i guess people will argue you need a narrative. i don't think a narrative helps much.

On the plus side, so nice to see Meredith Monk in there.

yeah i don't wanna moan about some of this footage getting airtime i just think the level of analytical sophistication - on a lot of Beeb 4 shows tbf - is pretty retrograde compared to Beeb arts programming of 30 plus years back

Ross is "senior consultant", so it would run quite closely alongside the book and festival.

Meredith Monk was gd, so was Schonberg's daughter Nuria. Possibly the best talking head.

yeah the interview with Nuria Schoenberg was the main bit that stuck for me on first viewing - so charming and honest and demystifying in a good way, not talking to the audience like they were shiftless sixth formers

If we get a good ten, fifteen minutes on Sibelius out of this in some future episode, I will stop whining for sure.

Also the latent premise that dissonance is the only musical property that has ever had the potential to disorient or shock listeners.

― OG requiem head (Call the Cops), Saturday, 16 February 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Added issue is that audience reaction isn't v well documented from middle ages up to the 19th century so you can't make a comparison as to what people thought of certain movements, if people other than church and courts were involved much then other than bowing to god every Sunday and going back to slave work in the first place.

The 2nd prog was an incoherent mess:

- Called "Free for All" yet goes on to describe total serialism where every parameter is defined.
- Dumbness in comments re: american funding. Even if it was true its hardly a triumph, I doubt some CIA pen pusher was ever pleased w/funding Nono's work.
- Boulez talks about "tensions" and yet the programme insists the early years were harmonious (no pun intended) before Ligeti breaks away.
- If the music was so tough why did it find a way onto film in the first place? Suggests it couldn't have been that challenging.
- They were hopeless on Stockahusen: the focus is on Boulez's music from the early 50s in Darmstadt. If you're going to talk about these two as a double act then you can't zig zag to the late 60s as they did w/Stock. In the 50s he wasn't yet the 'hippie' like figure, he wrote Gruppen and Kontakte (the classic example of how electronic music co-exists with acoustic music and provides a radically different experience in the recital hall).

Real miss was John Cage, who had as crucial a role as Boulez and Stouckhausen in those 'peak' years at Darmstadt. That he wasn't European isn't an excuse but it suits to talk about this stuff as an European phenomenon that will be saved by US commercial minimalism in the 3rd programme.

They could've talked about Elliott Carter instead of Copland as someone who made v challenging music that could be argued as a product of BOTH Schonberg and Stravinsky, and had a relationship w/Ives too.

Galina Ustvolskaya would've been a better example of a Soviet-era composer that wasn't Shostakovich...and an example of how a more challenging style was being written in those years...

Highlight was Birtwistle's "its their problem" comment, has that working class twang in it and actually points to the fact that Birtwistle, Maxwell Davis and Ferneyhough came from more humble backgrounds and had no problems moving in those circles.

There were lots of things scattered across: Boulez and Stockhausen teaching techniques at such a young age. These were YOUNG people who were excited and ran wild with ideas and who wrote their best music at that time, despite all the claims to lol maturity, although they never talked about how Nono the arch-serialist whose music changed the most out of anybody later on.

If the music was so tough why did it find a way onto film in the first place? Suggests it couldn't have been that challenging.

i was gonna make a similar point to this with regards to working class aversion to Classical music in another thread this week

Maybe audiences were more challenging back then, or more willing to be challenged.

the "CIA promoting radical art vs the stodgy old Soviets" is such a tired story now too, esp. since i've never seen any evidence of artists themselves having any direct involvement response to this. pretty sure Jackson Pollock never thought "fuck you socialist realism" while he was working.

Its hard to say how audiences change. I'd guess they are the same now as 50 years ago, i.e. far more dynamic and open to things.

When is this on, I keep missing it? And why don't they repeat it? Julio's keeping me up to speed with it and I'm sure his criticisms are all valid.

They do repeat it, can't remember when.

First broadcast is 9pm Tuesdays, last part next week.

oh god this broad with the assymetric haircut talking about metastasis is so dreadful

Ah, football's been on!

this is shit shit shit

Gillian Moore sadly doesn't get it. For all the formalised hard core maths bollocks in Xenakis there is a simplicity and directness to what he does a lot of the time and Metastasis is v much like that. Doesn't apply to the electronic music, which they didn't even bother with (so much for electronic music cast as "the avant-garde's greatest achievement", as in this could be understood and be utilised to make money in commercial pop!)

Even with a lot of complex music they bypassed the physicality of performance as a way of getting hold of the watching punter.

oh that fantastic John Cage clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U

can't find the right narrative to address this eh?

BBC Arts programming: 3 hours a year of getting modernist composition wrong, 20 hours a week of 70s rock

I can get on board with some of these critisisms, but tbh, I'm just enjoying seeing/hearing some music that's v dear to me on the TV mixed in with some stuff I feel like I should know more about. Also, most of this is new to my gf so it's been fun watching it together- bits have blown her mind "fuuuuuuuckkk that's some dark shit" re: a Shoenberg piece, ha :)

I guess I'm also enjoying this for the same reasons I enjoyed the book, it's covering stuff I'm less familar with and have always wanted to get in to. People on this thread have complained about a lack of Cage, Bartok, Conlon etc but I dunno, that's pretty much why I'm enjoying it, it's filling in some gaps for me.

Incidently, this is pretty much exactly how the 20th C was covered when I was at uni studying classical music a few years ago, and of course I would constantly be complaining "more Cage, more Nancarrow, omg you don't get Stockhausen at all, there was way more interesting stuff than this uptight concert hall bollocks, have you even HEARD of Tod Dokstader" haha, man, I was particularly annoying back then.

xposts

[I've always viewed Xenakis as hard core maths bollocks AND simplicity and directness. Like Wolfram's rules or summat.]

otm. The pieces played live have made me think "I really need to listen to more Messiaen" etc., which is a good thing for me at least.

i've said i'm happy to see/hear the clips. but y'know what? maybe back this shit up and devote some programmes to showing whole performances, or single composer documentaries, or just more more deeper deeper.

sure they could fit it in somewhere around Boney M: The Wilderness Years

btw, two EPs of more complete performances from the series on the iPlayer.

People on this thread have complained about a lack of Cage, Bartok, Conlon etc but I dunno, that's pretty much why I'm enjoying it, it's filling in some gaps for me.

What are your gaps: you've heard of Cage and Bartok but not Xenakis and Messiaen before?

Even with a lot of complex music they bypassed the physicality of performance as a way of getting hold of the watching punter.

For me, this made ALL the difference with Xenakis. Seeing a half dozen of his things performed completely transformed the music for me.

Can you paraphrase Birtwistle's 'their problem' comment? Just curious.

Birtwistle was asked about people who don't or won't get mdoern classical. He said that's 'their problem'.

ah. soundbites very much in character.

At that moment (and the bits where he talked about Marteau Sans Maitre) I had visions of Birtwistle presenting performances just calling it 'great' and 'frightening' with a smile and leaving it at that.

Would watch.

I've spent a lot of time with Xenakis, less so Messiaen, still hasn't really clicked for me. I love his ideas and his concepts but I haven't really 'felt' it yet.

I know pieces by and have heard of everybody in these programmes obv, but often I don't know a lot about them whereas with Cage, for example, I could tell you his life story, quote bits from 'Silence' and 'A Year From Monday', used to take mushrooms and listen to him for a weekend, I know his stuff pretty well.

My gaps are more like:

Non-canonical Shoenberg/Webern/Stravinksy, altho I've spent a LOT of time with Shoenberg's books (where he's actually rather funny, also, the best place to go for musical analysis of Beethoven imo).

Gah I dunno, the more I think about it, the more I realise it wasn't really filling any gaps in for me, it was just fun to watch and yes, Noodle Vague otm, MORE of this kind of thing.

Birtwistle was asked about people who don't or won't get mdoern classical. He said that's 'their problem'.

Nice one HB :)

yeah, otm

Somehow I can't imagine a writer being asked a similar question... unless it was by Kirsty Wark

I know pieces by and have heard of everybody in these programmes obv, but often I don't know a lot about them whereas with Cage, for example, I could tell you his life story, quote bits from 'Silence' and 'A Year From Monday', used to take mushrooms and listen to him for a weekend, I know his stuff pretty well.

Its not so much about life stories, more about how the chance procedures he was employing clashed with what Boulez was doing, and Cage was one of the first that stoood his ground, and with the help of David Tudor made quite a mark in those years in the early 50s. You can't overlook that and then talk about America's contribution to European music as money via the CIA.

Apparently Boulez and Cage were in v frequent and friendly postal correspondence during the early darmstadt time.

It has been published

Scurrilous rumours abound about the closeness of their friendship

He Hammers the Master

iirc, Boulez biography claims that there's no evidence of Pierre ever having been on a date let alone in a relationship with anybody

I want to read that correspondence, though, even though Boulez-in-print makes me uncomfortable

This won't make me popular on this thread but I prefer his conducting to both his composing and his commentifying. I like some of his music a lot (mainly Marteau, Pli Selon Pli and Rituel) but could live without it; whereas as a conductor he's fucking irreplaceable to me.

I've read some of the Boulez-Cage correspondence, Boulez is generally amiable unlike the usual persona (a nice quote I came across recently had André Souris describe the youthful Boulez as a 'little savage', 'full of a sort of anonymous rage') but I don't recall finding much of huge interest. Lots of "hey your new piece is quite good, I hope you like my new piece" and the like. But also v precise technical discussions that I don't have the knowledge to understand.

Also Cage was probably too nice to make for a good interlocutor in the gossipy shit stirring dickhead hilarity that I get the impression was rife in those scenes. Souvtchinsky one day writing a letter to Stravinsky saying how much of an arrogant jerk Boulez is then the next day writing to Boulez saying how important he is to him, Boulez saying that he barely spoke to Souvtchinksy for years when they were still writing weekly letters, &c &c.

xp i don't know about prefer but he is a major major conductor true, he's done my favourite version of Mahler's 8th for a start

that's my favorite mahler 8 too.

no Jon you're pretty otm. Several compositions of his rule my school tho

I think there was about 10 mins in my listening life where I cared about conducting as a thing at all...I think the 2nd Piano Sonata and Marteau are all time. The 3rd Sonata is also brill, really underrated. Saw a great perf by Ian Pace who is on this disc I've been meaning to hunt down, and as we're talking about the both Cage and Boulez...

Howard Goddall is touching on similar ground but I think I'll seek punishment elsewhere tonight.

I read the Boulez-Cage correspondence years back. Morton Feldman made it sound really juicy in his writings but yeah it's very polite and courteous.

These days I never bother with nor think about B's own compositions,but I listen to his Debussy one hell of a lot.

I'm with Julio, conducting means nothing to me tbh, OK so I'm disgusting savage, tell me about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y17-pJZ9nEg

i couldn't even pinpoint what it is about conducting per se but a good conductor shapes the performance and is a handy tag to identify a work that's still obviously collaborative. i've seen professional musicians talk about conductors as if they make a huge difference and i'm happy to accept that.

Oh nooo this discussion again? 90% of a conductor's job is "talking to the musicians" and the other 10% is "setting the tempo". I think xyzzzz_'s attitude is healthy as a listener, as there is that tendency toward creating false synapses between "what the performance sounds like" and "the backstory and the politics of the conductor". But conductors are like heads of state, they won't actually directly change the appearance of the country or what goes on there, but they will affect the way people talk about things

"Talking to the musicians" of course includes "suggesting points of articulation/accenting" and "balancing the sections against one another" and "setting the tempo" includes "controlling the rubato", so.

Boulez is one of those very few conductors because of whom the whole myth-making ~conductor~ thing even exists; I can't even think of half a dozen like him whose style is so identifiable by ear alone. Conducting should not be mythologized but there have been conductors who basically had some kind of fucking voodoo and B was one.

this roughly equates to the difference between being a romanticism/early modernism devotee and a post-war specialist, where for the latter it is quite rare to find more than a single recording of many orchestral pieces

boulez is pretty singular, even on these shitty laptop speakers i could easily identify the difference between say maaze's and boulez' 'nocturnes' within about five seconds

i suspect a lot of that probably owes to assiduous work by sound engineers who can ably record boulez' differentiation/spaciation of sound

i don't think anybody's backing an extreme auteur theory of the conductor here. just acknowledging that Boulez's done good work.

Xxpost

To some extent. Though if you include recorded/captured radio broadcasts you often end up with alternates aplenty. And the more popular postwar figures... I have at least 4 diff Lutoslawski 3rds and there are at least that many more in the catalog.

it's not a question of 'good work' it's that boulez is in aggregate terms more distinctive as a conductor than as a composer, since early stockhausen/barraqué/maderna/pousseur etc approach some fairly similar territory whereas there is no analogue for him as a conductor

I should mention that a few of Hans Zender's Mahler recordings display a Boulez-like 'hallucinatory clarity'

I think of Boulez's orch recordings the same way I think of Michelangeli, Zimerman, or Moravec's piano playing -- the balancing and pinpoint clarity is so fine it gets almost uncanny valley

boulez is deified in the conductor trade, i know someone who studied with him and has a level of infatuation that would be considered strange in another context

I think I misused 'uncanny valley'. Sorry. Should have just said 'surreal' instead.

if you have to use a proper noun as a musical adjective, it's better than 'silent hill'

If Boulez had embraced his resemblance to Marlon Brando and taken the Apolalypse Now razor blade route, this conversation wouldn't be taking place.

just heard a radio trail for tonight's ep..."post-war...blah blah...rediscovered melody and beauty...blah blah...all lived happily ever after" ugggh

so far this third episode is dumb and dull but then i suppose i know cage fairly well. is john adams really quite as much the fusty conservative in general as he is in the role he's fulfilling in this show?

suck it modernism, you lost, john adams and george benjamin won.

as i understand it.

these sorts of programmes are always terrible and there is no reason to watch them beyond dull curiosity

I am almost gonna miss the car crash. Almost.

He's v careful to say whether anybody lost or won, classical goes on making its sensuous and sumptuos noise. Dreadful.

Revived this thread bcz I get the impression this is the kind of thing Alex Ross likes to think he is doing in his writing when listening to this analysis of Beefheart's 'Frownland' (it might be worth its own thread)

I kinda like it once it gets past 10 mins when he actually starts talking about the music, he nicely explains the vocab to someone who isn't familiar, then breaks it down the piece into 7 blocks (still going on as I press the submit button on this post).