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Lately I had an enevergating discussions with a group of composers. Someone asked an opinion about Einaudi as a modern composer. The composers violently attaccked Einaudi's music and the poster, resorting to corny concepts about art and artistic value.

Their arguments principally (cloned from Boulez, Stockausen and Babbit) are that Einaudi has no artistic value, that nowadays whatever music which please people is artistically irrelevant, that music has evolved and post-tonal formalism is the only acceptable compositive standard, that music nowadays needs noise and dissonances to be artistic, that nothing can be of artistic value unless it is innovative and new (meaning, reinventng the wheel -language- each time), that people shold educate themselves in music in order to understand the real modern artists and that if music fails to communicate with non-composers it's because non-composers are artistically ignorant and inept.

The discussione degenerated when I pointed out how fundamentally ideologist, fanatical and proselytist are these discourses and how closely they resemble the many personal political, philosophical artistic ideologies and postulates which have attempted to reinvent a new universal paradigm for the whole world.

In other word how close to militant fundamental mohammeddanism, christianity, communism, fascism and nazism their personal philosophy was. And therefore how dangerous (even if at a different level in a different context) that could be.

Eventually I tried to explain that "philosophy of arts" fails to determine standard objective criteria to determine what is artistic and what is not and actually several art filologics consider a drawing from a 2 year old child the maximum artistic expression possible.

I wonder.
Have you ever met artistic elitists like that? How do you deal with them?

You certainly won't meet them on the internet. Google "artistic integralists" you get zilch.

I get integralismo translated as "fundamentalism" but then I also see "integralism" on google as a proper english word. Fundamentalism seemed too religious in nature.

It's trivial to deal with such people. Ignore them. Similarly for those who want a "return to tonality" or whatever.

As a composer one can just write whatever one likes. (This usually guarantees amateur status.)

As someone in the music business, one must supply what the money people want (no different from other businesses.)

With luck, one can do both. (I amd an amateur.)

I think the word you're looking for is elitist.

Leave the elitists in their ivory towers. That's where they're comfortable and can look down upon those who don't agree with their concepts on art.

Look ... the Beatle's were art. So is a single flute in the wind. And what does it all matter in the end anyway? All that matters is if the music touched you in some way. Something those from academia rarely experience ... if at all!

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Play New Age Piano
http://www.quiescencemusic.com

Imagination at work - is "All in a day's dance". In this day and age the greatest tax should be on our imagination.
We should be encouraged to be resourceful and rewarded for our breakthroughs.
Google "allinadaysdance.com" for illustration.

The problem is that you might disagree with a totalitarian philosophy, but still interact with the field where such philosophy is promoted. For example those who disagreed with nazism philosophies in germany, still wanted to have a role in politics and interact with it.

The problem with "leaving the elitists in their ivory tower" is that those ivory towers they have taken control of, are places in which others would like to interact as well. Leaving the elitists alone is a bit like claiming to leave the faith of "accademic music" to them and worry about other kind of music.

But there are many people who would still like to have a role and express themselves in accademic or "classical" music, even if they disagree with the totalitarian dogma.

Elitists claim that only as long as you're in their environment you can have a role in the history of more formal music and hence have the same role that , Schubert, Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok and others had.

But what about all those composers that are indeed interested in formal music, that want to have a role in the real of contemporary classical music, that want a chance to work with the legacy of other formal classical artists of the past?

And what if you actually want to save such music from what you consider a threat to it, a flawed ideological philosophy who have created a regimen where dissent is censored?

Of course, nowadays, everyone can write whatever one likes. The idea that one should only write atonal/serial/whatever music is very 60s and not generally accepted anymore (except maybe by those who actually were part of it back then). But that doesn't mean that everything is good. There's good, original music in a tonal vein (John Adams comes to mind), but seriously, Einaudi doesn't belong in that category. His "music" is unimaginative drivel because it's unimaginative drivel, not because it's tonal. I strongly believe that one should be free to call bad music (i.e. what one believes to be bad music) bad.

That kind of elitism only seems to exist in bubbles. Once you open your eyes, it quickly drops away.

Eric Ewazen has the respect and attention of many gifted composers and performers all over the US, yet he writes in a very tonal idiom. (Oh, and his day job is teaching at Juilliard.)

The highly regarded composition department at the University of Michigan has people who write ragtime and orchestral works about Superman.

Torke gets plenty of attention in concert halls with classical "rock" music.

Eric Whitacre writes beautiful music and is laughing all the way to the bank.

Lowell Liebermann put his personal stamp on Prokofiev and has entered the standard piano repertoire.

John Adams is also doin' fine.

And I don't care what anybody says, composers write music FOR people. Even the most transformational characters - Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schoenberg - wrote music for people to play and enjoy. They may have written for a broader or narrower audience, but none of them relied on academic philosophy to justify their work. They relied on the interest of other humans.

I tend to have the opposite oppinion then the one mentioned in the OP. Personally, I feel like art in general is going down hill. I love the arts, but if you look at the trends I don't really see anything promising. What is considered art these days I personally find really sad. People trying to do something new and different and failing at it. I am not going to ask anyone to share my view, but there you have it.

The funny thing is that people have been saying that for over a hundred years.

Consider Schumann's warning over the "Philistines" taking over the music world with vapid trash.

Consider the arguments between Hanslick and proponents of the "New German School."

Consider the differing opinions on the state of modern Russian music between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Consider important articles on the direction of new music written by Webern and Babbitt.

Consider the raging debates on Schenker's ideas, "New Musicology," Debussy's exoticism, Stravinsky's primitivism, the nature of Church music during the Council of Trent, Monteverdi and the "Secunda Practica," etc...

In other words, music has been decried as being in decline for the last few hundred years. I'm reminded of the famous quote by Mark Twain:

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

I think we're fine.

But you said Einaudi is unimaginative drivel, not "I think so". You expressed an objective judgement. I can't agree with you. The value of Einaudi music depends on your personal paradigm. If you have for example embraced a paradigm of complex music, Einaudi will certainly not fall under the realm of your paradigm. But what might be the paradigm of Einaudi and its audience? Minimal music, simple music, repetitive music?

I have seen for example read criticism againt composers who don't develop their theme. They propose a theme and repeat it over and over.
But what if the author does that on purpose, what if that his personal way to express himself artistically?

We just can't compare oranges and apples. The best apple will never be "enough orange".

I don't mean to be rude here...but what is the purpose of this post? Deal with elitists by simply ignoring them. In my opinion, music is the soundtrack of life. Who is to say one composer is better than the other?? geez..who really cares?

Einaudi "rocks" my world..so does Chopin, Gershwin and Eminem.

Where music is involved, there are not only oranges and apples, but bananas, onions and tomoatos...among others.

Perhaps I'm tired of reading this topic over and over again in this composers forum...It just goes on and on and on..

I suggest that we not perpetuate this discussion (as I just did.. sorry!). Modern composers should rise above this nonsense and embrace the diversity of other forms of music out there (or at least not use slamming terms to describe their works).

Hi Danny,

As usual there are valid points on both sides of this debate. I believe even Scoenberg admitted there was still plenty of great music yet to be written in c major. OTOH pastiche is still pastiche. Every composer comes up with an individual answer to the to the question, "What is my unique voice?" Some people earnestly wish to bless the world with more music that sounds like Chopin, though usually their efforts are not as skillful they are entertaining at least to their originator. Others strive to be totally new and different and invent a new language which only the most learned of musicians can understand. It seems to me that neither accomplishes much of value to mankind in the long run.

The greatest music seems to have a way of engaging many less sophisticated listeners and yet continues to yield surprises and meaning to those more learned. Such music has many layers so that it can be enjoyed at a superficial level, but if listened too many times with attention still engages the active mind. The human brain seeks to find order. If music contains only unrelenting dissonance it sounds like noise or chaos. It is in the variations between dissonance and resolution, between chaos and order that the listener finds art.

Kreisler mentioned many excellent composers that work within a relatively tonal idiom, yet their work would never be mistaken for Schubert. These composers have found a way to be original without relying on that old standby shocking dissonance or rhythmic chaos. In a sense I find that those who earnestly believe that only dissonance can express our modern world are simply unimaginative.

So Danny try that argument on these folks, the avante garde is both pastiche and passe.

From my perspective the answer depends on the context. Clearly if this discussion takes place in the world of academia it has to be addressed appropriately. If it takes place in a more general context one is free to ignore any position that seems to be extremist (unless, of course, one agrees with such a position).

The composition of music, like literature, offers an infinite realm of possibilities. I happen to prefer music that has a clear rhythmic base, melody and harmony. I find most atonal music or music that has no rhythmic base to be incomprehensible. At the same time I recognize that there are people who like such music and I would not deny them the pleasure it brings them.

In short, there is room for many different types of music. I find that opinions that would limit music to a particular genre, era or instrumentation to be self-serving and certainly not worth my time to discuss -- I'd much rather be playing or composing music!

Ed

I think the problem is that contemporary modernist music focuses on "form", whereas most of us when listening music focuses on the "content".

I think there are alternative levels of appreciation other than what could be defined as a "primitive emotional and sensorial" appreciation, but such levels are usually dedicated to the experts of that field.

Now consider fitness. Consider the feelings one normally gets from working out and the motivation to improve one's health and body. One might casually witness two expert trainers, in awe like young children, about a new set of plyometric coordinative forms that might address the miofibrillar spreading of the interesetion of the deltoid by decreasing the normal sarcoplastic growth.

Clearly you would not share their enthusiam and focus again on the psychophysical effects the working is having on you.

Considering this scenario there are two things I'm sure of:

1) Even though the experts find new stimulus in discussing and exploring technical aspects they still enjoy the more "primitive" feelings of working out

2) No trainer would ever claim that the "stupid average person" should "follow a course in motory sciences" in order to be "less blind" and start "appreciating" physical activity at a more "technical and knowledgeable levels" instead of being "entrapped" in an "ignorant primitive superificial appreciation".

In every field expertise allows to see stimulating technical aspects that would be invisible for someone who doesn't have such expertise. This is also true for composers.
They might have the kind of expertise to appreciate music at a more technical level, but they keep experiencing all other human activities and task at a more basic level.

It's no wonder then that we hear so often that a musician enjoyed a cryptic piece of music because he listened it while reading the score. Hence he noticed in the score all the technical nuances that the ear alone couldn't tell, suddenly seeing the "structural beauty" of the piece.

Most of contemporary music concerts are exactly like a lecture on new models of radiatior circuits and their installation. They're about the form, the structure, the technical aspect of someone area of expertise. They can be stimulating at a technical and intellettual level as long as you're an expert and interested in that kind of exploration. But you wouldn't expect anyone except technicians to attend it. You wouldn't expect anyone except technicians understanding and appreciating the lecture.

The problem is that the essence of music is not just in its form. And while I have the knowledge to appreciate the technical aspects of a composition, I'm still more interested in its emotional and cultural content.

That's why I'm not convinced at all buy the very snob argument that people should educate themselves in music in order to understand new art, or that "those who don't understand" should be blamed insted of "those who don't make themselves understandable"

To blame a person for looking at the content of music and ignoring the structure is like being a linguist and blaming a person for caring for the content of a discourse rather than the structural analytical syntax and the evolution of language. Or like being a technician blaming a kid for caring only about the content of the videogame rather then the pixel resolution solution in one particular frame.

I think that videogames are appreciated both by simple players and experts at a basic level: playing. There is another alternative level of appreciation for the experts which is the whole creation of a video-games, the technical aspects and nuances.

I believe that there could be lectures about the technical aspects of how certain videogames are structured which would be cryptic to the most avid video game players. But I believe they can't become the standard of what creating video games is supposed be.

Imagine if videogame creators startet to create videogames devoid of content and unplayable but nonetheless works of technical genius. Imagine that instead of selling and distributing them, they would discuss these "games" in boring high-technical lectures.

This is exactly what I believe contemporary music has done. They created highly-technical musical lectures for experts and blame the ignorance of people, who still look for content.

It's no wonder then that the contemporary music ideologies have become so dogmatic. When you focus exclusively on form and neglect content and viability, you can't recognize any value in music which utilizes technical aspects only as means to convey ideas.

If you still care about content and consider technical nuances an "interesting intellectual game" for experts, you can appreciate that someone might use lot of colors in painting because he needs those, and that someone might ditch colors because he doesn't need those for his black and white painting.

But if all you care is the form and the compositive structure, then "lack of colours" doesn't appear anymore as a style choice to you but as an obselete and unoriginal lack of complexity and technicism. That's understandable, the piece indeed lacks in that departmente but only because its focus is the content.

So when I read that Einaudi is a drivel and inimaginative I can't help but think that the "problem" of Einaudi is that his music lack "colors" because he doesn't need them, because he wants to write in black and white.

That makes Einaudi a true artist who has understood once and for all that technical means are tools we use or not according to our creative needs, and not the focus of some highly-technical and over-intellectualy game.



Do you study composition in accademy?
When you belong to the accademy environment you feel a lot of pressure. Many students are praised for their elitism and advantaged even if they don't have much talent, while many are thrown out of the accademy in the middle of their formation because they are not elite enough. A lot of public money from the minister of arts are given to meaningless avant-guarde (anyone remember the violinist who perform naked underwater and the man who filmed himself while cutting off his penis?) Audience is made to feel inferior and brainless and you have to fake many accademic behaviors just to maintain your position and have a chance. And in Europe the situation is worse than in America.

So I still need to discuss this, to find alleys, to find strategies to employ in dealing with all this closed-mindedness and artistic snobbery.
Ignoring issues never work. You can't heal a disease from ignoring it. You can't save yourself from wild beasts by ignoring them. You can't solve an economic problem by ignoring it.

Nicholas,

I minored in music in college and only took a couple of classes on composition so I never faced the problems you describe. At the same time, I did note in my previous post that if this discussion takes place in academia it needs to be addressed seriously. Unfortunately, I suspect that there is no real way in which this can be adequately discussed as it will degenerate into a religious argument. When positions such as you describe are espoused it is clear that such an individual has taken an extremist position and rational arguments will not sway such a person.

From an academic standpoint it's necessary to avoid close-mindedness as that precludes learning and interferes with teaching since it precludes dialogue.

I'm afraid I don't have any real advice for you.

Ed

I thought about the topic of this thread a little more. The basic problem I believe is that there are two opposed philosophical perspectives in modern music making and composition.

One perspective (mine) is that a composer is a music maker. He uses technical means to create music according to his creative needs and intentions. Music is created to fulfill a personal and collective expressive need, to communicate at a personal and social level.

The other perspective is that a composer is an acoustic experimentalist. He discovers new technical means for the pleasure of analyzing the nature of sound itself. He is more a scientist than an artist. Music is created to fulfill a scientific need of dwelling into the acoustic structure of sound particles. It's no wonder that a composer like Xenakis had practically no music training and such ample scientific training. Taken to its extreme this perspective would create musicians that needs intensive scientific training but no music training, in order to be composers.

Those of us who still think of a composer as a music maker, a writer in the language of music, and not a laboratory scientist of sound, are considered obsolete ruins of romanticism and anachronistic reactionaries.

Lately a famous university teacher claimed that the modern composer will be able to thrown away his piano and whatever musical instrument. Music will be made with the computer and spectrum analyzers.