Deservedly unsung............

[Latvian]

In my opinion, these opinions of Boulez are baseless, untrue, and need some rebuttal. So ok, Boulez didn't write in the manner of Beethoven, Brahms, Raff, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mahler and the gang. Tunes are not his thing. But having attended live performances of some of his music, especially those based on spatial sounds from many directions, the music can be quite mesmerizing, provocative, intoxicating, scary even, and beautiful. There are a lot of composers some of you probably hate: Ligeti, Leibowitz, Messian, Reich -- but have you really tried to hear what the composer is saying?

Well put. I might add that sometimes you need to hear the composer explain what he's doing (assuming there is a valid explanation rather than pretentious hyperbole). At other times, it helps to immerse yourself in the music, especially if there are early works that are more approachable and give you someplace recognizable to start from. A prime example is Messiaen, whose early Offrandes oubliees I find ravishingly beautiful. When I first heard Turangalila, I thought it was great fun, and was seduced by the colors and harmonies. His later works were a mystery to me. However, I kept at it, through my appreciation for those initial works I heard, and gradually came to admire a great deal of his output, and truly love several works that would be on my "desert island" classics list. Hearing the composer play some of his music himself many years ago was also inspirational and edifying. I'm not saying anyone should force themselves to endure endless attempts to grasp what truly mystifies, irritates, and/or sickens them, but it's worth giving it a try if you can find a work to start from that has some bit of appeal.

Now, if someone could explain to me what there could possibly be to like about Milton Babbitt's music... 

[fr8nks]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[kolaboy]

Perhaps Franz Hünten. Perhaps...

I've only heard a handful of his piano pieces, but they are tedious, at best. There may be a towering masterpiece in manuscript molding away in some steamer trunk, somewhere - but I doubt it.

[X. Trapnel]

Can it be that nobody here has ever heard the music of Richard Nanes? I would also submit a couple of symphonies by Alemdar Karamanov, one of which subtitled "Blessed are the Dead" might better be called Blessed Are the Deaf.

[Dundonnell]

Oh dear

A debate about Boulez and discussion about the merits of his music and his audience

I certainly would not characterise my friends who appreciate Boulez as "pretentious snobs" even if I cannot join them in their appreciation. I actually envy those, including clearly some members here, who can get inside the music

The only (and definitely final) thing I would add is that as I get older I find that there are scores, no, hundreds of 'unsung composers', living or deceased, in the USA, in Scandinavia, in the Baltic countries, the Balkans, Russia, Japan, etc etc of whom I had never heard and of whose music I was in total ignorance.

In my naivety I considered myself quite knowledgeable as far as 'unsung' symphonists, for example, were concerned. Since joining this site I have discovered the folly of that assumption There is so much music out there yet to be heard. I know that I shall only scratch the surface however many years are left to me. In that time, therefore, I shall go on happily exploring the music written in an idiom I happen to like

If therefore you will please excuse me.....I shall pass on devoting the time and effort to explore and attempt to come to terms with the music I don't happen to find attractive or accessible

[jerfilm]

Heaven knows, I've tried to understand and enjoy the atonalists and serialists.  55 years of concert going.  But my ears, my personality, my brain, I don't know what - simply don't tolerate such  compositions.  It simply makes me nervous and I have to suppress the urge to simply walk out.  I can't help it, it's just the way I'm built.

I recently finished The Learning Company 48 lecture DVD course on How to Understand and Appreciate Good Music and while Professor Greenberg makes a very good case for the reasons why these styles evolved and what the composers were trying to say, he gives no clue as to how one can sit down after a stressful day with a pint of good ale and enjoy such music.   I have asked dozens of music lovers the same question - and it seems to simply boil down to each of our personalities, our psyches, whatever.  Some seem to love it, some can tolerate it and some simply can't.......I fall in the latter catagory.  Like Colin, I envy those that do.  Apparently I'm missing something.  Sadly for me.....

Jerry

[semloh]

Heaven knows, I've tried to understand and enjoy the atonalists and serialists.  55 years of concert going.  But my ears, my personality, my brain, I don't know what - simply don't tolerate such  compositions.  ......

Jerry

Me too, Jerry, but unlike you I don't envy those who do enjoy it. I reckon it's best just to accept that we are all different, and there's always going to be music we prefer and music we can't stand. 

As to 'deservedly unsung composers', well there are a few in the American music thread but I can't recall exactly who.... and best left that way, I think! 

Has this thread survived long enough for thal to now pay up on his £5 wager?? 

[Alan Howe]

Has this thread survived long enough for thal to now pay up on his £5 wager?? 

...just what I was thinking. Actually, I think it's going remarkably well. Shows how stimulating this site can be if we are willing to have our minds stretched...

[Ilja]

Well, lots of other conductors conduct Boulez' music. I know several who do...
And as for "estranging art from its audiences", a rare performance of Pli selon Pli in London was, I am told, made to a full house ...

My problem is not with Boulez the composer or Boulez the  conductor, but with Boulez the ideologist - who deems any type of music other than his own as unacceptable and the target for active sabotage. To be honest (and this might be a good topic for a different discussion) I have often been amazed by the amount of intolerance exhibited by musicians towards anyone of a different opinion. Sure, there are similar cases in painting and literature (e.g.), but ideological militancy appears to be especially rife among musicians.

[Jimfin]

I completely agree, Ilja. I am happy to listen to modernist and atonal music with an open mind, and I like some of it, but it is not the only way to compose. Schoenberg invented his system in order to open up new avenues, not to close down possibilities. Didn't he say 'there is still plenty of good music to be written in C major'?

[Latvian]

Can it be that nobody here has ever heard the music of Richard Nanes?

Sadly, yes. His insipid Nocturnes of the Celestial Seas is near the top of my list of "undeservedly sung." I keep a copy of the LP to play excerpts for musical friends who may be unaware of this travesty and need a good laugh. Keep in mind that the only reason this composer was "sung" in the first place was that he was wealthy and could afford shameless self-promotion.

[Jimfin]

For me, Ronald Corp's children's opera "The Ice Mountain" is either deservedly unsung or undeservedly sung, depending on whether Corp is considered unsung. I really enjoyed the Dutton release 'And all the trumpets' and still do, finding it full of drama and beauty, but the opera was insipid and sickly sweet to me, and I can take some pretty sweet stuff

[Alan Howe]

Oddly, Boulez has been conducting a lot of repertoire which one might not normally expect him to do - e.g. Liszt piano concertos (with Barenboim), Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Bruckner 8 (which ends in a blaze of C major). Wonder why?

[markniew]

The question is the meaning of the term "deservedly". If we take it literally we might come to the funny conclusion: there are lots of unsung composers/names. They have been so successfully unsung that they were never /have not been so far performed and registered 
and here we discuss our musical tatses and habits and that is completly another issue

[jerfilm]

Who does get the 5 GBP?   Or does each of us who has participated? 

Jerry