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This just strikes me as some kind of holier than thou mandate that is similar to this whole concept of people's "rights" and "fundamental worth" and so forth. Things "should" be this way and you "should "do this or that. I respect people as much as I can and I think love and warmth are to be spread to all, but when it comes to these transcendental ideas of true love and true beauty and true justice, etc., I am just philosophically stuck.

Growth and maturity, as far as I can tell, comes from a mixture of pain and joy. Real artistry does not always appeal to a sense of enjoyment but from the entire range of positive and negative emotions. Certainly you do things in life that you do not enjoy yet you do them because you think you must? Have your parents ever scolded you and you felt horrible afterwards? In religion, does God subject you to things you hate and yet you know you must go through them?

For the record, I have listened to a lot of music that I am uncomfortable with or that makes me feel odd because I think the art is important and that it should be respected. Whether or not it brings me joy or sorrow is another matter. I do not listen to it all the time, but I do actually find a lot of meaning and power in abstraction such as Xenakis' works.

I ALSO think that if the youth was told about this kind of music, and the extremes of which it has been taken, (rather than bouncy Mozart themes as a representation of "classical music") I think a lot of the youth would find meaning and energy in it. Take a look at the metal and electronic music that has been coming out that tons of people are listening to. They relate to it. Adolescence is a happy time for no one.

-Colin

Questions:

Can a work of art exist in a vacuum of art, or can it only be art in relationship to other art?

Does this sound artifact created by Xenakis relate in any way to the body of sounds we call music? Does it fit into any tradition of music?

Does it engage in a dialogue with the works of Palestrina or Beethoven? Does it cause us to rethink our understanding of Ives? Does a knowledge of Punk Rock, Hip Hop, or Heavy Metal, have anything to do with appreciating this work?

Does it fit into any tradition of music whatsoever?

How?

Tomasino

I don't know anything about the composer or the piece, and I don't mean to offend anyone... But how can that really be considered music?

P.S. It reminds me of what I write when I get bored and spaz out on finale and put random notes for each instrument.

Well, since it's clear that people do think of it as music and think of the composer as one of notable 20th century composers, it looks like you've got your work cut out for you, doesn't it?

Incidentally, just last week, the San Francisco Symphony did one of his pieces.

Hmm. So most do not enjoy this piece, but still remain respectful of the idea of it. I wonder if anyone actually listens to this composition for pleasure as you would other types of music (classical, jazz, pop, etc)? Or is it that it's just a "cool" idea?

I can't help but think the latter more likely, since I have failed miserably in trying to understand what beauty Xenakis might have seen in this "music", and I must comment. Shouldn't beauty be a composer's first priority? To me, that's what music is. Even when I personally do not like a piece, I can still recognize the beauty it may hold for others. I know that people hold different views on what is beautiful, but as I've said, my thoughts are that this composition may be cool but is not pleasing. Music composed just for the sake of originality? Then could you not call ANYTHING music?

Oh, by the way, I apologize, playadom. My mistake, I thought the link was posted by pianojerome. Now, how did I make that mistake? I must be more sleep-deprived than I thought. And yet here I am, still addicted to this forum...

I hope I did not offend anyone. It's just my personal opinion .

Well, his compositions certainly aren't ...

As my .sig indicates, Herr Mozart thought differently. I know whose opinion I value more.

Matthew

Ha ha ! I do actually find Ives recreation for my ears; I really do enjoy it. I have loved his music since I was a kid. Mind you, I cannot take seriously all that heavy philosophical analysis he wrote about it, good fun though it is to read. Mozart, on the other hand, I cannot fathom at all, despite trying hard to for years because everybody keeps on saying I should like it. I suppose one day I shall suddenly see the light; then again maybe not.

(off topic stuff...)
Ives is a lot of fun, and where would I be without his three magnificent piano sonatas, particularly the 1st. It's one of those marvelously dense, gigantic essays which always say something new and exciting every time I listen. Oh, I never noticed that before... you know, that kind of experience. (And please, let us not complicate things by going into the dodgy variants in performing it which the great William Masselos grappled with.)

My prof at uni, btw, gave a fine performance of the Three Page Sonata.

Mozart? Well I wouldn't worry too much about it. A very good friend of mine -fine pianist and conductor- has no patience anymore for the operas, violin concertos or symphonies. He frankly hates them.

But just the other evening, the 13th piano concerto came up on the radio. I was busy at the computer, yet as soon as Mozart's secondary theme in the 1st mov't arrived, I dropped what I was doing and listened in rapture to the rest of the concerto.

I've been asked what is my favourite Beethoven symphony. My reply: whichever one I am listening to. Well, I could say the same of the Mozart piano concertos.

Why not start with them? For many people, those delectable works -and very difficult to play well- have been a gateway to Mozart's gloriously divine genius. Then you could investigate his choral music... just a thought.

Back on topic... As for the Xenakis, well I gave it a listen. I'll admit there are other works of his which have been more accessible to me, though I can understand where people on this thread are coming from. Colin, as usual, makes great points... his posts should always be read.

I studied some Xenakis at uni -quite thought provoking to say the least- but it was all more of a sense of duty. At least I had been exposed to it. That is always good... and to this day, there is little music I simply can't listen to (street Rap for example- Sam will probably take me to task for that... fine), but when all is said and done, we do need to make our choices.

I don't begrudge anyone for fancying Xenakis, yet currently (key word there) I'd rather investigate Mozart's handling of the exposition in his 13th piano concerto. Take a glance at the Dover score... and marvel. Someday I'll be open to marveling at Xenakis.

Yeah, the first sonata! That was my first Ives purchase. It reminds me of one of those naive, parallel perspective landscapes (which I also like very much) - lots of things going on and, as you say, a new corner of the landscape opens up with each listening. I have Noel Lee's old vinyl recording of it and I think it's the best one I have heard so far. MacGregor's doesn't grab me as much; I think she rushes things and misses a lot of rhythmic detail.

...that's the point.

Assuming for a moment that value is the result of quality and not of simple demand, I would describe the system as a sort of many-sided dynamic.

A few things before I jump into it: I'll talk about value, since it seems to be easier; I'll do certain other insidious things in order to facilitate this tedious process of writing down my thoughts. I don't expect anyone to appreciate my contributions who doesn't put in some effort in order to do so.

(1) The greater the depth of the given work of music, the greater its value. Just as a small child finds wonder in simple everyday things, so may an inexperienced adult find wonder in such works of music that a more experienced listener would quickly get tired of. Depth is the quality of lasting wonder.

(2) The greater the number of people who can relatively easily appreciate the greatness of a given work of music, across times and across cultures, the greater the value of the work. As a side note, the value of such a great work would seem to be more dependant on our biology and its implications (such as death) than on the zeitgeist of any given place or period in our history.

(3) (This is a double point.) The more difficult it is to achieve the aesthetic effect of a given hypothetical work of music, the greater its value. The rarer its aesthetic effect, the greater its value. By "the aesthetic effect of a work of music", I don't mean emotion (which is a quality manifest in the perceiver, not the work); rather, I mean the whole structure of sound when competently perceived. Achieving such a perception may in some cases require a few listens with the help of the score, even for the most experienced listener.

For example, Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" was difficult to compose, requiring much knowledge among other things rarely found in humans. Its composition also required careful design. It would not very soon be composed by metaphorical monkies randomly scribbling over many pages of once empty paper. The aesthetic effect of "Hammerkalvier" is also rare, because of the distinctiveness of the work. Mind you, it is not distinctive in the way a blood stain on a shirt is, it is distinctive in the way Thomas Jefferson was. For another example, if a work produces the aesthetic effect of noise, howsoever pleasant, it has not much value, as such noise is relatively easy to produce by any capable pianist or organist (through improvisation, for example).

(4) The more worhty the purport of the work of music, the greater its, uh, value. I'll attempt to explain the implications of this almost circular reasoning. Or maybe I'll just do a Jerome, and ask a few pointed questions. Does the work of music sing of the angels and demons? Or does it show you uninspiring things about the world around you, such things as suffering, things which you could see better by looking out of the window (assuming you have one).

To conclude, a work of music will be the most valuable when it is both easily appreciated and deep as a bottomless well, as well as being distinctive and heavenly. Surely a difficult combination of qualities, and one very much worth trying to achieve. I think Beethoven would be a suitable paragon here.

It's a classic philistine posture: "I don't get it, so therefore no one else does, and furthermore, if they say they do, they are just pretending in some way or another."

I have to say, this exclamation made me laugh: "Then could you not call ANYTHING music?" The answer is, of course: yes, you can. Or more precisely, a composer can. What's the problem?

Of course, you can call anything you like 'music'. But if you make a habit of doing so, the word loses its meaning.

"There's glory for you!"

Best wishes,
Matthew

Strange...I've been doing it for years, and the word hasn't lost any meaning at all, but rather, has gained quite a bit. No loss, much gain - what's not to like?

YMMV, of course.

I envy your open-mindedness, wr. I wish I could be that accepting. But after all, I'm just a young student with a very limited musical knowledge. Maybe your wisdom will come to me with time .

Meanwhile, I think I'm gonna stick to classical music :p .

I guess I too envy the open-mindedness of some people; they simply enjoy life more. As far as this music though, I'm afraid it is grating noise to me, and the more I hear it the more I am repulsed by it. Perhaps if there were some explanation as to why it's artistic or viable as music, we folks might appreciate it, at least to some degree.

But people will feel this way towards every kind of music, and it shouldn't be taken personally. It is a waste of time to endure convincing someone else to find merit in your taste, if only for the sake of it, when it could, and should, be spent listening to the music you enjoy in the productive commune of like minds!

I don't know that I'm particularly open-minded - all I have done is take a small interest in the music of my own time. Maybe when, over a period of decades, you deliberately expose yourself to all sorts of composers' works (and read up about them, even if just in liner notes of recordings), you do learn something about how to pry open your mind just a bit. I'm not sure how that works, although it makes a kind of sense. But I have run into people who are far more into "difficult" music than I am, and I feel pretty closed-minded compared to them.

Just so you know - I did NOT take to Xenakis' music as a duck takes to water, but learned how to listen to it over a long period, probably years. But I did know all along that I had a pretty strong interest in getting it eventually, since he was an important composer during my lifetime, and I figured I owed it to myself to make the effort.

In case it's useful for anyone, here's something I do when I run across music that seems incomprehensible to me and that I have recordings of. I play it in the background a few times, while I'm occupied with doing other things, loud enough to hear but not loud enough to occupy front and center of my thoughts. Then I put it away for a while (like months) until I feel the impulse to check it out again. Usually, it still doesn't make sense, and I do the background thing once again, and put it aside again. And I follow that cycle until, eventually, like magic, it clicks, and all of a sudden I hear it as music. I've heard of other people doing the same thing, and they all swear by this process. And, here's the good part, it's fairly painless. And that moment, when you realize that something formerly incomprehensible has transformed itself into music, is indescribably delicious.

I do this too, and have done for many years. And yes, it works. Sometimes I feel almost guilty about it, that it's a sort of insult to the composer not to be giving the music full attention, but you can see it as just becoming familiar with the idiom.

I did listen, and I quite enjoyed the visual part, and with quite low volume it did not hurt my ears.

Rach3.Freak said :
I agree.
In fact it reminded me of something. When my children was younger (about 5 and 3 years old) I bought a cd-rom called "Making music" (by Morton Subotnick).
There you could choose instrument by color and "draw" music with pitch on Y axis (in half-note steps) and duration on X axis. The result played was of course "computer sound" but still ok.

Especially my 3 year old son made some very interesting compsitions this way, and we all enjoyed the process and the results a lot, but I would be a little careful to call it art....

But I guess every playful soul will enjoy making things like this

Ragnhild

Works like this Xenakis example (or such as Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge) are musicologically interesting in terms of pushing the boundaries of sound production and form. They are experiments and exercises in aural permutations and structures, which is all fine and dandy. However, the audible results are as artistically artificial (and as implied by Ragnhild above, immature and childlike) as the methods used to create the 'pieces' in the first place. They fail miserably as music or indeed art, due to their inherent unlistenability and inability to excite (in the majority of listeners) any emotions other than confusion, irritation and boredom. A certain section of the musical establishment may well believe that they should find artistic value in the self-indulgences of such 'composers' and attempt to spread this belief by programming such works for concerts. However, just because a piece is publically performed doesn't actually mean it isn't in fact a pile of unadulterated garbage. I suppose some people might learn to 'enjoy' becoming confused, irritated and bored by such noises. After all death/thrash metal bands sell lots of CDs too...

Time is a harsh critic, and in a hundred years time, I would wager that people will still be performing and listening to such pieces as tonally and rhythmically varied and adventurous as Prokofiev piano concerti, Shostakovich symphonies, Scriabin late piano sonatas, Britten operas, Hindemith chamber music, Messaien organ music, etc. However it is indeed highly probable that the compositional efforts of Xenakis, Stockhausen, Varèse, Boulez and other such characters, will have faded from the musical firmament as irrelevant blips of mid-20th century madness within the general scheme of Western art music history. Well, here's hoping anyway

Michael B.