The most difficult part of teaching classical music to non-majors for me has always been 20th century non tonal stuff. Over the past five years or so I came up with the idea of combining it with 20th century movie music scores, and that has become the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. One particularly effective example is playing a concert video of Ligeti’s Requiem with the class discussing how “weird it sounds,” then showing the same passage used in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But they love Herrmann and Jarre and North and Morricone and Ifukube, helps them get through Schonberg and Crumb and Glass and Poeme Electronique.
>> 20th century non tonal stuff.
The early part was very much an extension of the Romantic era with American cinema driving the well-known soundtracks thereafter.
My initial exposure to Glass was in my earlier twenties, and it was very painful. The ability to orchestrate isn’t necessarily a skill that can present beauty where it doesn’t otherwise exist. But it’s a skill nonetheless.
Did you know that Shostakovich was thoroughly dissatisfied with Bernstein’s production of his 5th symphony? A spectacular disaster of tactless celebration — paraphrasing of course...
>The most difficult part of teaching classical music to non-majors for me has always been 20th century non tonal stuff.
Very much an acquired taste, although, in the right setting it works. In the wrong setting it’s the musical analog of Vogon poetry. I also think that the classical orchestra is the last vehicle/format I can think of for this type of music.
In terms of micro-tonality, I’ve just recently discovered somebody named “Sevish” who is using electronic music to great effect. I highly recommend his work.
https://www.youtube.com/user/sevishmusic
Finally, a blast from the past - my take on a piece of modern music I wrote a decade or so ago. Since I wrote this I have found the film that the piece in question is a soundtrack to and in that setting it works.
The Cleveland Orchestra preforms Dream/Window by TÅru Takemitsu
A review 9/26/2010
I was riding in my car with the radio tuned to WCLV. It was announced that the Cleveland Orchestra would be playing a work by TÅru Takemitsu. Shirley and I looked at each other and we each said “Who?”. Perhaps it would have been better had I remained ignorant of this composer
A few days later, WCLV broadcast the entire performance. It appears that TÅru Takemitsu was commissioned by a Kyoto bank, or perhaps an industrial firm or civic institution to write a piece celebrating the city. I cannot help but think, that, upon hearing this work, the commissioner would have asked Takemitsu to return the commission and then commit seppuku to atone for the embarrassment he caused not only to the institution but the city and the artist as well.
The piece is entitled Dream/Window and purports to envision the view of a Japanese garden through a window and through the window of a dream. A 55 gallon drum of Windex would have done a great deal to help this piece, as the view from this window at high noon with not a cloud in the sky is darker than that of the deepest twilight, but then, after a good cleaning you would have seen nothing but dead flowers over-run by weeds.
Mind you, I like weird music, very weird music, hell, I make music myself that is so far out of the mainstream that most listeners would run out of the room rather than listen to another moment of one of my works. It gives me hope, though, perhaps someday my noodlings will be given a performance by one of the great orchestras on the planet as they are no worse (or better) than Takematsu’s.
I would probably like this piece by TÅru Takemitsu in another setting, as chill-out music or as a film score. It does not belong at Severance Hall in the company of giants, and, sadly, it was a colossal waste of the talented musicianship found in the Cleveland Orchestra. This is not to say anything bad about the Cleveland Orchestra, as I believe that their true genius shone through in this performance in that they were able to play such execrable music with such virtuosity.
Normally, the orchestra tunes up, the conductor comes on stage and the music starts. I can only assume that the orchestra tuned up beforehand, but after the conductor came on stage and started playing Dream/Window, it sounded like the orchestra was tuning up all over again, not that one could have easily noticed the difference when listening to this piece. This marks the first time that I’ve heard the orchestra tuning up just before the work was over. In fact, I wounder if the orchestra ever stopped tuning up throughout the performance.
Takemitsu was obviously a Trekkie, as in this piece the Enterprise quickly becomes lost in the Nebulous Nebula and nobody can find their way out. Not once did the Captain (or the composer) consult a road map, stop at a gas station to ask directions or use his GPS. While wandering aimlessly through this piece, the listener is, on one occasion, attacked by huge minor chords that go on for far too long, (as did this piece), and is occasionally aware of disembodied bits and pieces of melodies floating by outside the window, but which never stop in and say hello. One just knows that the Atomic Mutant Monsters will be showing up any moment now, and although a little change of pace would have been welcome, sadly, in the end they never did.
“Daddy, Daddy, are we there yet”?
“Shadup ya little So & So or I’ll feed you to Godzilla”
“Oh please do, at least I won’t have to listen to any more of this”.