Fifty years ago composer Milton Babbitt wrote an article in High Fidelity/Musical America describing the state of composition that began with the end of World War ll and is still continuing to be a problem for composers today. His article, "Who Cares if You Listen?" not only described the modern condition of the composer but attempts to justify why a composer no longer has a need for an audience. Before the end of this century it is imperative to finally answer Milton Babbit and ask our audience to come back. I want the "who cares" generation of composers to set this philosophy aside and join a new group of composers who are reaching out to their audience. I CARE IF YOU LISTEN!
It is true that the modern composer is a specialist, and is isolated from the public at large. It is necessary to affix blame and the composer's isolation from the audience has not been proven to be a desirable condition. Since WWll this has been the case. The composers isolationism has not been an advantage and it was not an inevitable consequence of a composer being a specialist.
The composer and the audience have parted company not because the modern composer is a revolutionary but an experimenter. As with most experiments when it has been proven to have failed then it is discarded. Instead the composer's failure has not been discarded but has been justified by claiming that the audience can not understand the greatness of the work. This is not similar to revolutions in mathematics and theoretical physics because they discard their failures, they would not be taken seriously if the continued to claim that wrong is right and right is wrong.
The claim that the composer has fallen from musical innocence because of the complexity of the music - this is absurd! Who wants to take the blame that in Adam's fall we sinned all? I would not want the title of Adam of the compositional world. As with Adam's fall, we sinned all. It is not Milton Babbitt, but the philosophy about the role of the modern composer and his audience; that is the problem. Milton was only courageous enough to state in writing the fallen condition of composers. I credit him for the courage of his conviction but I want all the other cowards who have been claiming to be composers/specialists to come out of hiding and confess-YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!
I do not agree that this condition is irreversible. The problem is not one about the revolution in music, its about a loss of trust. The audience can not trust composers. Its not about writing popular music, its about writing serious classical music that can survive the critics and still maintain musical value. The modern composer has been claiming that their music has value. The truth is that most music in the last half of this century has had little value, the real description of the music is that it is mediocre. The audience knows its mediocre and they will not trust us to deliver on high quality music because of the composers unwillingness to throw away the mind set that created this monster. As we want to trust a thorastic surgeon who is a specialist, the audience wants a composer who can deliver on quality music. I am surprised that lawyers haven't found a way to capitalize on all the musical mal practice. We wouldn't trust a surgeon with a history of killing of his patients as we should not wonder why we have killed off our audience.
A history of Western music has been a history of finding patrons, the Church, the Aristocracy, and finally, the Academics. The difference between the previous two patrons and the academic ones, is a musician was responsible to someone other than their own artistic values. An academic would claim that it was not possible for these other groups to allow musicians to be true to themselves. (I can see Bach, Beethoven and Mozart cringing at the thought that an academic would challenge their musical integrity!)
So what has Academia given us? Mediocrity, and a lot of it! People that can't play, that can't teach, that couldn't get a job teaching P.E. effecting the dreams of many aspiring young talented people. Teaching from a contrived list of what I call Academic stars, the ones not listed in Norman Lebrecht's book, "Who Killed Classical Music", serving as a musical compass to direct the path of future musicians. (I think Lebrect failed to mention all the culprits killing music.)
For example, who is Arnold Shoenberg and why do we spend so much time talking about him? So we can imitate him, which is the highest form of flattery for a teacher since most academic composers spent much of their lives writing serial music, rather than encouraging to explore the variety of ways to write music. (If the academics say they are open to new ideas, then why are all the old ideas expected of a composer on his dissertation? I not saying old ideas like two hundred years ago, I am saying the old ideas from the sixties.)
Now that the Shoenbergian phase of academia has passed, no one knows what to do. But this is not new, all academia has ever done is study what everyone else had been doing. Academia can't lead music, they can't even play music.
Now you know I can not be talking about every music school in the world, just most of them. Since the academic system is in place, how can we rise above the mediocrity? First, recognize that you are getting a mediocre education, see it for what it is and don't equate the handing out of a degree as proof of musicianship. Second, design a musical path for yourself that is continually at odds with what the academics tell you, most of what they tell you about being a performer or composer is wrong anyway. Finally, think of a new way to where music can become liberated from the Academics--its basically an old folks home with people of all ages in it now. Work to when we will have a new patron to complain about.
Who Killed Classical Music?
Maestros, Managers and Corporate Politics. By Norman Lebrecht. A Birch Lane Press
Book published by Carol Publishing Group. Pub. Price $24.95 B&N
Price: $17.46Have you ever thought about getting a music degree or discovered after completing your degree you don't have a concert career? Well, READ THIS BOOK! Learn to understand how the music world works. Not the fantasy fed to you by music teachers, friends, and others that you are the greatest talent since Beethoven, but how careers are really made and the state of the art as it exists today. This book does not live up to the title but it does get one thinking about the business aspect of music.
Lebrecht focuses on a few of the major companies that represent the biggest names in the business and how, in some cases, they are managed and owned by other companies that care little about the artist and even less, the audience. The goal, make money. Not from ticket sales necessarily but corporate sponsors and government funding. Is it true that these few companies have killed off classical music? I don't think so. This book is about Maestros, Managers, and Corporate Politics--a study of a few artists management companies. but not about the end of classical music. Though Lebrect raises many issues that need to be discussed in the music world, there is an entire music world not mentioned in this book, although the other music world is less prestigious. I am not talking about academic occupations (because they have done just as much as the few companies mentioned here to kill music) but performance careers.
Not every aspiring artists needs to be represented by Columbia Artists Management, International Management Group, International Creative Group (though it would be nice) there are hundreds of excellent management companies making money for artists although none of them are listed in this book. The reason, they are keeping music alive. They are not charging outrageous fees for themselves and the artists they represent. I applaud these other companies for all the work they are doing. There can be a music career for artists whose last name isn't Perlman or Muti.
So, pick up this book, learn something about the music world, but don't go away thinking classical music is dead. Remember, the first half of a career is learning how to play, the other half, learning how to make a living.
Imagine what it would be like to be Dean of a music school. Where would I go to learn how to build a successful music program? What makes a program great and how would I avoid what happens to most music schools where everyone on the faculty has a different view of what is good or why their own school isn't?
I would start with this book. Logan does an excellent job in documenting how a great music school is built. He leaves nothing out. All the ups and downs, in and outs of the making of a great program, all exposed. This is what I like best about this book, it's honest!
One point to make here. There were only a half dozen Deans of the school over its twentieth century and how each one made their mark on the school. Most schools go through many deans and one would think at a school that attracts the best and brightest faculty and students, no dean could survive. All those egos and talents that end up on a faculty, these were remarkable men. The performers who crossed the campus, all the best names in music. What is a future Dean to do? Read and learn. For everyone else, enjoy.
Mozart: A Life By Maynard
Solomon. HarperPerennial. ISDN 0-06-092692-9. Pub. Price $20.00 BN Price:
$16.00
Much has been written about Mozart's life from a variety of perspectives. However, none of the books I have read reach the depth of psychological insights not only his life and personality, but his father's, his sister 's and his wife, Constanze. Usually, historians focus on the tragic life of Wolfgang because his life was so short. After reading this book, I understood the tragedy is not only Wolfgang, but also Leopold and his wife, Nannerl, and Constanze.
Overlook our preconceived notions about the mythological Wolfgang and see that his family was not that unfamiliar from many tragedies played out by countless families today. Leopold literally and figuratively lives through his children. Exploiting their talents not only to gain money, but more importantly, to maintain a sense of self worth. Because, they are his flesh and blood.
Solomon demonstrates how the sins of the father destroy the lives of his own children, his wife, and eventually, himself. Not by suicide but by greed, jealousy, anger, envy, and manipulation. How his worst fears come true in an ironic sense of divine justice. For example, his eternal resting place is near Constanze Mozart whom he bitterly opposed to the point of telling Wolfgang that he heard rumors that she was a slut. Or the numerous illnesses Wolfgang suffered while touring as a child, which would eventually take their toll on him, all for the sake of the money his father was making off his son's talent.
Mozart's family was by all accounts symbiotically tied together. A psychological dependency best understood by modern families with the same personality traits. Or possibly any parent who feels their child is the next Mozart.
This is for now the definitive Mozart biography and a must read for everyone, especially a parent.
Schubert: The Music and the Man By
Brian Newbould. University of California Press.
Price: Paperback $22.00We often refer to the first Viennese School as consisting of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Schubert is overlooked partly because many musicologists classify him as a Romantic composer and not a member of the Classical school. The problem, Schubert is both as in many ways, as was Beethoven.
Newbould makes a good case that in either category, Classical or Romantic, Schubert is a major composer on par with the three greats of the Classical Era. Much debate in recent years has been around Schubert about his sexual preferences and the what I consider the creation of idiosyncracies appearing as major personality and morality traits. Newbould gives this the appropriate length, about two pages out of four hundred and ten. Newbould sticks to what we know about him, his music and genius behind it.
It may appear that I am defending this book. I am. A great biography without all the National Enquirer rumors. It avoids all the "reading into" Schubert that is popular today, and that makes it the Schubert book to have.
