Posted on 07/19/2008 6:07:08 AM PDT by Borges
After 40 years and 1,500 concerts, Joe Queenan is finally ready to say the unsayable: new classical music is absolute torture - and its fans have no reason to be so smug.
During a radio interview between acts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a famous singer recently said she could not understand why audiences were so reluctant to listen to new music, given that they were more than ready to attend sporting events whose outcome was uncertain. It was a daft analogy. Having spent most of the last century writing music few people were expected to understand, much less enjoy, the high priests of music were now portrayed as innocent victims of the public's lack of imagination. If they don't know in advance whether Nadal or Federer is going to win, but still love Wimbledon, why don't they enjoy it when an enraged percussionist plays a series of brutal, fragmented chords on his electric marimba? What's wrong with them?
The reason the sports analogy fails is because when Spain plays Germany, everyone knows that the game will be played with one ball, not eight; and that the final score will be 1-0 or 3-2 or even 8-1 - but definitely not 1,600,758 to Arf-Arf the Chalet Ate My Banana. The public may not know in advance what the score will be, but it at least understands the rules of the game. There is no denying that the people filling the great concert halls of the world are conservative, and in many cases reactionary: reluctant to take a flyer on music that wasn't recorded at least once by Toscanini. They know what they like and what they like is Mozart.
(Excerpt) Read more at music.guardian.co.uk ...
I agree wholeheartedly, except that I believe it started long before 1930. It actually goes back to the alienation of the intelligentsia from their own society in the 19th century. They hated their own society, its members, what they believed in and anything they enjoyed.
Initially this was confined to a very tiny group of avant gardists, but it has gradually spread down and out into society as more people acquired an “advanced eduction.” One of the best ways to prove you’re a member of this exclusive group is to express your hatred for your own society.
For artists, this meant producing stuff most people couldn’t understand and didn’t like. They even invented a term for this anti-art: transgressive. The audience proves its membership in the “hate our own society” club by pretending to like and enjoy transgressive art and literature.
The odd thing is that we’re about to have an election in which the haters of America will probably win, as at least for the moment they appear to have a majority. For some reason they don’t appear to be able to recognize the incongruity of hating a society in which they are in the majority.
Queenan’s a funny guy. Thanks for posting.
"Crap"? "saccharine"?
You haven't been listening.
Our choirmaster at church is also an avant-garde composer (he's actually recorded.) His stuff is way above my pay grade, but it does make sense.
Probably because he knows and loves the classics, including Mozart. We sang the C major "Spaurmesse" for Easter -- and it is neither saccharine nor crap, I assure you.
He’s got a point. Some of the modern stuff makes my ears bleed.
Shore thang! Ole Freddie sold 25 million LPs in 1848!
Look up Terry Teachout’s comments on this article in today’s WSJ.
Agreed particularly with regard to music. I don’t much like ANY music that is created today. It’s all boring and forgettable.
No; they can all recognise that the difference between noise and music is harmony, something sorely lacking in 'new music', whether classical or rap.
Look back in history, no matter when, you'll find that 99% of 'popular music' is crap.
Today is no different.
To some degree video games as well. There’s a Japanese composer, Nobuo Uematsu, who basically is to games what John Williams is to movies.
Leni
I think this explains why new "classical" music does not get listened to--It is exactly the opposite of what music is supposed to be. Instead of a harmonious arrangement of sounds that please the ear, mind and soul, new music is at best boring (Philip Glass) and at worst downright upsetting.
Great article.
Yes and it's "funny" that the Guardian has picked him up.
Borges, I’m being sarcastic. Mr M was as radical as most “new music” is today.
JO: You have just written America’s epitaph.
DO: No “Requiescat in pace”?
JO: More like “lacer seorsum”!
Yes, I made an attempt to read a few of the responses. Unpersuasive and as boring as the music they defend.
Phillip Glass's greatest contribution to the world was posing as a model for Chuck Close.
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