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Post by fuguestate on Nov 1, 2017 1:01:24 GMT
Generally, I love Beethoven symphonies. Except for #3. People rave about it all the time, but I find it a tedious bore. Also, #9 is good except for the choral part, which is also what most people rave about. And #7 is pretty awesome (esp. the finale, one of my favorite finales of all time), but the slow mvmt is a bore, though everyone raves about it. I guess my tastes are just very unpopular.
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Post by Dave Dexter on Nov 1, 2017 1:37:42 GMT
Even the great composers are generally known for only a relative fraction of their whole output, it's not heresy to say you find such-and-such boring! Those guys were quite capable of overegging the pudding.
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Post by lawrence on Nov 2, 2017 2:44:05 GMT
Dave, Really like the piece you are working on but came too late to comment. My point: The repertoire of the modern symphony is up-side-down. We hear about 90% old music and 10% new. I was going to say that the symphony is the only art form in this predicament but MCanales informs us that opera is in the same boat. Literature, theatre, movies, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance nearly every other form of art lives in the present. The earliest remembrances of my grandmother are when she is at the piano playing Chopin and Rachmaninov from a book titled the Modern Repertoire. Because to her these composers were contemporary. My mother played Roger William's Autumn Leaves, and Christian Sinding's Rustles of Spring contemporaries of her time. What will my future grand children remember me playing. The newest piece in my piano repertoire is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, now some 90 years old. Where are today's Chopins, Rachmaninovs, and Gershwins. They're out there but not being performed or published. Instead we have avant garde and atonal music which is neither easy on the fingers nor the ears.
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Post by Dave Dexter on Nov 2, 2017 23:53:15 GMT
This is where we differ, as I recall, because to my mind today's classical composers are those working in soundtracks. Sure, there are trends that are easy to dislike and some unremarkable or wasted opportunies (a great deal in fact), but there's an unbelievable amount of new, essentially classical music being produced month by month. Even if only 1%, or 0.1%, is truly excellent? That's still enough to keep you happy for a long time, and the good stuff is published and performed almost immediately. And I don't just mean bombastic Strauss-inspired noises - the range of soundtrack composition is enormous. Put it like this, I'd love to simply be a classical composer, but it's much harder to find work there, so I'm aiming for scoring. There are doubtless many well-known composers in the field who consider themselves classical composers merely working to commission for various projects - much like many "classical" classical composers did. Were you talking about my piece? If so, thank you. Dave, Really like the piece you are working on but came too late to comment. My point: The repertoire of the modern symphony is up-side-down. We hear about 90% old music and 10% new. I was going to say that the symphony is the only art form in this predicament but MCanales informs us that opera is in the same boat. Literature, theatre, movies, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance nearly every other form of art lives in the present. The earliest remembrances of my grandmother are when she is at the piano playing Chopin and Rachmaninov from a book titled the Modern Repertoire. Because to her these composers were contemporary. My mother played Roger William's Autumn Leaves, and Christian Sinding's Rustles of Spring contemporaries of her time. What will my future grand children remember me playing. The newest piece in my piano repertoire is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, now some 90 years old. Where are today's Chopins, Rachmaninovs, and Gershwins. They're out there but not being performed or published. Instead we have avant garde and atonal music which is neither easy on the fingers nor the ears.
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Post by lawrence on Nov 3, 2017 2:57:52 GMT
So you are insinuating that the symphony is dying because all the best composers are shunning it for higher paying film scores. I think symphonies are shunning the best composers because they are caught in some kind of time warp. If someone is writing classical sounding music it can't possibly be as good as the old masters, and therefore it is not worthy of performance. Beethoven would not get his 10th symphony performed today. The truth is symphonies play a lot of crappy modern music. Arthur Fiedler made a career at the Boston Pops playing top forty tunes. Imagine a highly trained and talented musician performing Up Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon. But things will change. They always do.
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Post by Mike Hewer on Nov 3, 2017 9:07:47 GMT
There are plenty of examples of Symphonies written in the last 50 years. Due to the language barrier, they are not popular in the widest sense, but some of the greatest musical minds of late have applied themselves to the symphony and produced wonderful music if your ears are so inclined. Tippet, Dutilluex, Lutoslawski, Gorecki, Matthews, Mcabe, Kernis, Bernstein, Maxwell Davies, Henze, Simpson.....etc. I think Lawrence has a point about attitudes. It is funny and yet tragic that some musos in the UK call a concert that has a modern work programmed between 2 popular works a s**t sandwich. Not all musicians feel the same though, because once they get familiar with a great new work, they begin to see its real worth. I believe untrained audiences could also get to the heart of a piece and make a reasoned judgement based on familiarity. However it takes effort on the listeners' behalf and might not fit in with their believe in what music is supposed to be.
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Post by king2b on Nov 3, 2017 10:47:03 GMT
Do any of you think that it could be an an idea for the conductor to walk the audience through a new piece by playing bits and giving guidance before playing the piece through in total.
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Post by Mike Hewer on Nov 3, 2017 11:14:12 GMT
I do Kev. I think BBC radio 3 in the UK have done or still do this. They often have an interview with the composer of a new work that's about to be premiered. Also in the UK there is often a pre-concert talk, given by the composer in order to add some illumination on the new work. I'm sure all of this helps, but such is the animosity these days to anything new, the only people present at these events are in the main, the most ardent supporters.
Another factor in audience perception is the degree to which the composer has broken with tradition - break all the bonds and it becomes very difficult for someone to comprehend a piece, even with pre-premiere analysis.
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Post by Dave Dexter on Nov 3, 2017 11:18:23 GMT
So you are insinuating that the symphony is dying because all the best composers are shunning it for higher paying film scores. I think symphonies are shunning the best composers because they are caught in some kind of time warp. If someone is writing classical sounding music it can't possibly be as good as the old masters, and therefore it is not worthy of performance. Beethoven would not get his 10th symphony performed today. The truth is symphonies play a lot of crappy modern music. Arthur Fiedler made a career at the Boston Pops playing top forty tunes. Imagine a highly trained and talented musician performing Up Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon. But things will change. They always do. Not exactly. I'm not saying there are no new classical composers or works, but as you framed it, I think the next crop of them as recognised by most people are soundtrack composers. The Williamses (as you spit) and the Zimmers (as I spit) and all in between. That's where the live performances of new classical music come from and that's why film and videogame scores are routinely voted highly in classical music lists. It's not a case of shunning symphonies for money, it's a case of pursuing the avenue where you're more likely to get things performed. Media composers often take the opportunity, when established, to write something else.
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Post by Dave Dexter on Nov 3, 2017 11:21:51 GMT
Do any of you think that it could be an an idea for the conductor to walk the audience through a new piece by playing bits and giving guidance before playing the piece through in total. Alasdair Malloy does kid-friendly educational concerts. I've been to one and whilst it was a little embarrassing (every other person was a child or an adult accompanying one) he was great at explaining basic concepts and demonstrating instruments through certain pieces etc.
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