Classical Column. The Composer Speaks: Pablo Santiago Chin
Paraphrasing Berg’s article “Why is Schoenberg ‘s Music so Hard to Understand?”, it seems that this question is more relevant today than ever before if it is to be applied to “abstract” music.
I use the term “abstract” after hearing a professor of composition of a prestigious American university expressing his regrettable opinions on avant-garde music. The mentioned professor (and composer) believes that Shostakovich’s music is more human and expressive than Boulez’s music, and supports his argument in the fact that Shostakovich is played all around the world while Boulez is only played in selective circles.
First of all, what do the words “human” and “expressive” mean for this professor? Isn’t this a terrible and deliberate generalization of such misunderstood words? Such a statement points towards a popular tendency today to encourage the “pretty”, the “easy”, the “excessively accessible” and to exclude the “innovative”, the “different”, the “progressive”, the “truly creative”.
Isn’t this “musical racism” in a sense? What’s even worse in the above statement, is the supportive argument (more people listen to Shostakovich than to Boulez = Shostakovich is more “human” and “expressive” than Boulez). Doesn’t this argument reveal how this tendency towards the “easy” responds to marketing and mass consumption? So, Shostakovich sells more than Boulez, then Shostakovich is more expressive! … How sad! (here I must clarify that I love Shostakovich’s music).
Why such sensitive composers (as I found them) as Boulez, Lachenmann, Ligeti or Grisey (among others) are so hard to understand?
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Pablo Santiago Chin is a costarican composer that resides in the city of Chicago, Illinois.
I don’t agree that the professor’s comments necessarily assert “easy” equals “good,” and I certainly don’t believe one can make the leap to opposing “pretty” with “progressive.” This post makes generalized statements—statements likely based on some deep-seated self-consciousness—and takes them much too far.
There is plenty of complex, contemporary classical music that is simply excellent. (“Rite of Spring,” for example, certainly isn’t “easy,” but is exceptional nonetheless, and can’t be called anything other than “progressive” in the truest sense of the term.) Boulez simply doesn’t meet this standard. Long story short: ultra-rationalism produces simply terrible music. Not music that cannot be understood, because it can—in fact, it can be understood quite easily by those with even very limited musical training.
It was an interesting experiment, but an ultimately failed experiment. The same can be said of other 20th century musical experiments: Cage, for example, or early minimal music. These, while at first intellectually stimulating and philosophically intriguing, simply don’t have “staying power.”
This is not a view to be considered, questioned, an ultimately rejected. It’s a simple and inevitable conclusion.
I have to say that I was completely shocked to learn that the Second Viennese School and it’s later 20th century disciples is no longer being “considered” and “questioned.” I was shocked even more by the fact that we have even narrowed it down to a “simple and inevitable conclusion.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy for one minute that any of these composers wrote terrible music or that there music has failed in some way. I know of people from bith that have naturally appreciated and even loved this type of music, my wife included. For them, it is simply the most refined, and beautiful music in existence. I realize that some people will never appreciate these composers works, but for the life of me, I cannot understand it.
The pointillism in Weberns 5 pieces for Orchestra alone brings up such vivid musical imagery in my mind that I often find myself playing it in my mind.
I think it comes down to what type of music you crave. Personally, I’m grateful that I have music that is as colorful and energetic as these “ugly” works. When you can get past the idea that these composers wrote terrible music, and you start actually listening to the colors they have created, an entirely new world opens up. To me, that is just as valuable and valid as tonally based works.
I hate to start up the old elitist argument again, but Twinkies and Donuts are also pretty popular and “accessible.” Does that mean they are good for you?
To make a long story short: Twelve Tone music is criticized for it’s “unnatural” formulas, but western tonal music is just as “unnatural.” The entire history of western music has essentially been incremental steps towards morne natural music. Schoenberg and friends have come the closest to this. Nobody criticizes the birds which sing their off- kilter tunes. When you stop worrying about the formulas involved, you can start to hear the actual music being expressed.
My prior comments quite clearly named the ultra-rationalists (e.g., Boulez) and the avant-garde opportunists who had no intention of creating music that would ever be listened to over time (e.g., Cage). At no time did I mention those in what might be truly termed the Second Viennese School (e.g., Schoenberg, Webern, et al.); the works of these composers—along with the nationalists and many other 20th century composers—are simply excellent and stand the test of time. My comments don’t deride atonality in general, or even the Twelve Tone approach, but other very specific subsets of these.
If you mean to suggest Boulez or Cage are in the same league as Stravinsky or Schoenberg—or even Ives, Debussy, or Copland—I would humbly suggest you do some intensive listening. It’s not about creating something “natural;” it’s about creating something of passion. Put on a recording of a Boulez Piano Concerto; it is simply intolerable, not because it has no tonal center, but because it has no heart. At all.
This is, of course, a subjective debate in many respects. But not in every respect. Some would call elephant dung smeared on a religious icon art and it may be, in much the same way that Cage or Boulez can be considered art—that is, intellectually stimulating and philosophically intriguing, at least initially. But to place such a piece alongside works of, say, Cézanne or Picasso is simple absurdity. Subjectivity and postmodern relativism are not one in the same.
I think part of the issue is that I was referring more to the first post, and the professors opinions than your post. My only objection to your post is that you stated that Boulez and Cage’s music has been rejected.
My complaint is with the professor that states that Shostakovich is a more human or expressive composer simply because he is more popular.
I also would not put Boulez or Cage in the same league as Stravinsky, Messiaen, or Schoenberg. However, I do enjoy the formers work, and believe it has a strong place in the history of music.
I think the bottom line is that it is too soon to say what music will and will not stand the test of time. I’m sure you would agree that this is something that only the future can decide. I think the jury is still out on this, and it will take more time before an honest judgement can be made.
In many ways I agree with you, and I feel Boulez held on too strongly to a tradition which had already moved on to other things. On other hand, I do not believe that his music was lacking in passion. Passion is as much a responsibility of the performer as the composer.
On J’s comments,
You seem to forget that your cited “Rite of Spring” was the biggest scandal of the whole 20th century (not only in music but in the entire artistic scene) when it was premiered. It was treated perhaps worse than how you are approaching Boulez and “his league” now. Stravinsky simply challenged the culturally established and passively accepted musical values of the time as much as Boulez and Cage (among others of course) have done it. Certainly, Boulez is today more widely performed than 50 years ago, and nothing seems to indicate that he will be less performed in a near future.
Curiously, for the ancient Greeks there were not boundaries between music and science. The whole origin of Baroque music was inspired in the Greeks, and later, the evolution of functional tonality with its known consequences would follow up. What is the susprise about music as phylosophy now? How do you define heart in music? isn’t phylosophy a form of human expression too? Isn’t sonata form as much an intellectual constructive tool as a total serialization of musical parameters or as consulting the I Ching to make compositional decisions?
It would be worthy to remember that Stravinsky called “Le Marteau sans Maitre” “the only truly significant work of this new age”. A very deliberate comment, but a well deserved acknowledgement to Boulez’s work who you are despising.
Ultimately, the main argument here is, as Kevin pointed, how popularity is unmorally and indiscriminately used as a way to judge on artistic value, and how that fits so well in today’s world of global economy and politics.
I concur: popularity must have no voice in artistic value. My comments have nothing to do with popularity, and I should have clarified that point in a previous comment. That said, it is still the case that ultra-rationalism produces a result that is music only in an academic sense.
Yes, serialization and indeterminacy are both “intellectual constructive tools,” and both can be used with great success in music. What limits the potential for success with these tools? Just a simple matter of degree. Composers might do well to recall the old truism: “All things in moderation.”
Art is reflective of the emotions tied to the human condition. If the results are—to one’s ears, mind you—completely random (both ultra-rationalism and indeterminacy carried to its most extreme end produce this result), to the point that the music could have been created by computer software and sound just as “good,” then in what way does this reflect the emotions of the human condition?
I am not calling for a ban on Boulez. I am not even saying that the ultra-rationalists and opportunistic avant-garde composers should have never been. Art is about experimentation, and the more experiments we attempt, the better. By the same token, as in the world of science, experiments fail more often than they succeed. Learning from failed experiments is invaluable. Clinging to them as if they were successes is fruitless.