Stop and prepare : Cage

[Preston]

Megan, just wondering, what is your avatar picture? It looks kind of strange, like an octopus or something, . Although, perhaps it is a bride laying over a funeral casket?

[Preston]

I think this is very true and sensible Preston. I admit my use of the term avant-garde is very blanket and general. I am referring particularly to electroacoustics and to the likes of Emin in the 'art' world. I respect Philip's approach because he has thought sensibly and intelligently about these issues and finds much to admire.

To me a great deal of the avant garde is false and a negation of all the values and beauty in music and art that so moves me. I cannot gain pleasure from listening to motor cars or aeroplanes or any noise. I find it incredible that people do gain pleasure from such things when there is Bach and Beethoven! I am only expressing my opinion and others are entirely free to think as they like without me thinking them demagogues.

Thanks, as is your post Peter.

Sensibly and intelligently, hm..., , in ways, but Philip, your first post on this forum, I think, was about two years ago, and it was about Emin! Since then you have not relented on the subject, and have made a massive amount of posts about pretty much the same belief, it seems. Calling people names, going off, etc. Not saying that your posts are not intelligent, though. Not saying that my posts are intelligent though.

Yes, it seems to me that the avant garde has turned from artists like Van Gogh and Picasso, to punk kids calling themselves artists? Perhaps, I am not completely clear on this subject though. Unfortunately, it almost seems that anything can be called art nowadays.

[Megan]

Megan, just wondering, what is your avatar picture? It looks kind of strange, like an octopus or something, . Although, perhaps it is a bride laying over a funeral casket?

To answer your question.
It's a weeping or praying angel. I chose it to remind me of Lent, also I like it from an artistic point of view, and also the natural way the blossoms have fallen on to it. Sculptures of angels for me are fascinating because they hold an air of mystery, mourning, joy, graceful, peace and other worldly.
A bit like music, eh?

[Preston]

Ah, now I see it, . Yes, I to feel that art and music are quite similar. There was a painter in the 1800's, who is still known today, I forget his name (think that it might start with John), who said that art, he was referring to painting, is feeling.

[Preston]

Found his name, John Constable.

[Quijote]

Philip you must stop being so dramatic with your use of words, apparently I am now a demagoue! Honestly you have called me every name under the sun in these debates simply because I express a dislike of the avant garde - please try not to be so personal in your attacks, I have refrained from using insulting terminology and childish name calling. You seem to fail to recognise that I am voicing a majority opinion - a majority not just amongst the public, but amongst the classical music public - those who perform, buy the cds and attend concerts. Yours is clearly a minority position.

I have hardly called you every name under the sun, Peter, and I have retracted the unwarranted labels. I think the majority of my posts are measured and neutral. Nevertheless, I wish to maintain a rigorous defense of contemporary music ("modern classical music") and I will not stand idly by and see my - informed - viewpoint marginalised by populist oratory techniques.

You are indeed voicing a 'majority' opinion (within the equally 'minority' position of classical music, as you have alluded to), but I fail to see what this has to do with our discussion, namely : can various musical genres claim artistic validity. I believe they can.

I am not 'putting words in your mouth' - you have expressed your admiration of Cage on this forum many times and your views seem to me very much in sympathy with his. I therefore wondered if you concur with him about Beethoven and if you also think the symphonies are best heard played altogether at the same time as he advocated? You say you don't which is fair enough, but doesn't that make you question the thoughts (or even the sanity) of a man who suggests such things? A man who wrote that "The Maoist model managed to free a quarter of humanity."

I have expressed my particular admiration for Cage's early works, and I have already told you about my irritation with some of his 'over conceptualisations'. You do not know where my sympathies lie at all; I merely say that Cage raises interesting - fascinating, rather - questions about how we may approach various art forms. You ask me to consider the sanity of a man who suggests what you mention above : I thought you preferred to keep off politics (cf. the Karajan/Wagner thread)? That said, on the "Let's chat" thread I will be happy to elucidate.

Many avant garde artists and composers do actually denigrate the past masters and Rolf Harris was responding to Emin's silly comments in this regard. Again I noticed no criticism of her views from you.

I think I don't really need to address Rolf Harris's view of Emin and modern art in general, though I do wonder what he makes of cubism and the abstract expressionism of the 1920s. Has he made any insightful comments about that era?

You say many avant garde artists and composers denigrate past masters. Are you saying that Rolf Harris considers himself an avant garde artist? And (apart from Cage) which composers denigrate the earlier composers?


PS : Did I say "demagoue"? Apologies for letting that one slip through the net.

[Quijote]

If this is so, then one can only presume that their ignorance creates in them some sort of cataract through which they will not try and peer. This must be because what they may discover would challenge them beyond their understanding, and so it is far easier and safer to dismiss it, in the even subconscious hope that they will carry public opinion with them.

If this is so.

Philip has already rested his case (post #66 - very handy, these post numbers), but I believe a telling remark was one he made elsewhere when he sort-of suggested that as much pleasure could be gleaned from studying a Beethoven score as actually listening to the music. I couldn't disagree more. The emotional response is gained soley from the listening experience, which is as it was designed to do. We can greatly admire the score but it cannot carry us away as the flow of sound can.

You are right, PDG, I only "sort of" said that (if one knows the work well). But as you rightly say, that can never be a satisfying substitute for actually hearing it performed live or recorded (if not, Beethoven would never have minded going deaf). Interestingly, you raise (perhaps unknowingly) the "what is an artwork" question again : is the musical artwork the score or the performance (or indeed the CD recording)? Do you think we tend to "reify" the score?

[Michael]

Philip has already rested his case (post #66 - very handy, these post numbers), but I believe a telling remark was one he made elsewhere when he sort-of suggested that as much pleasure could be gleaned from studying a Beethoven score as actually listening to the music. I couldn't disagree more. The emotional response is gained soley from the listening experience, which is as it was designed to do. We can greatly admire the score but it cannot carry us away as the flow of sound can.

I think it was Barenboim who said on Desert Island Discs (or some similar programme) that he prefers reading scores to listening to recordings. Score one for Barenboim. I agree with PDG, however, not least because I can't read a score. (And don't come back, Philip, trying to settle old scores. I have plenty of recordings - scores of them).

[Quijote]

[...] I admit my use of the term avant-garde is very blanket and general.

I note the comment. I will return to the Hallewell article later tonight, if time and energy permits.

To me a great deal of the avant garde is false and a negation of all the values and beauty in music and art that so moves me.

Putting aside 'values' for the moment, I would like to address (very, very briefly) the notion of 'beauty'. I don't know if you admire, appreciate or 'like' Picasso, but do you find his cubist works 'beautiful'? Do you find the Grosse Fuge 'beautiful'? Just to offer you a loophole from this unanswerable question, I do find the Grosse Fuge beautiful in formal terms.

I cannot gain pleasure from listening to motor cars or aeroplanes or any noise. I find it incredible that people do gain pleasure from such things when there is Bach and Beethoven! I am only expressing my opinion and others are entirely free to think as they like without me thinking them demagogues.

In continuation (partly) of the previous point, it gives me a certain (transitory) pleasure to hear the sound of two or more motor cars producing unexpected intervals, and it gives me a certain (transitory) pleasure to divorce that sound from its source and to hear, acousmatically, an evolution in its morphology (i.e. how that particular sound may evolve over time). But the 'pleasure' I may gain from such events is not of the same order when listening to Beethoven (or Bach, or Ligeti, or Boulez etc.). Once again, such reactions to essentially 'concrète' events are far removed from the electroacoustic music I listen to, which has progressed well beyond the musique concrète of the 1940s. I will have to explain in more detail recent trends in electroacoustic music.

[Quijote]

[...] I would however, like to ask the question, why would random sounds , ie, motor cars, aeroplanes, helicopters, pnuematic drills, the whine of a dentists drill, subway trains, pulling out of the station, be considered music? If these sounds were put in a harmonious order, then I would call that music.

Actually, a very pertinent question, Megan! Random sounds presented in such a way as you mention would be rather boring. However, if one could isolate ('divorce') those sounds from their sources (car, train etc.) one could focus on the 'sounds for themselves', which would, I argue, provide interesting material for composition : is the 'sound material' pitched, or rich in spectral timbres? Given such basic material one could easily put the sounds into some sort of 'harmonious' [read : 'structured']) narrative, maybe, for instance, combining/contrasting pitched material with purely timbral elements, and then mixing (in the studio) these elements into larger units that were more texturally organised. But all that is very basic and rather elementary, as is musique concrète.

Imagine instead the possibility of recording any sound (or indeed creating digitally any sound) and treating (process/transform) it in any way imaginable that goes well beyond the purely concrète) - suddenly you realise that the possibilities are infinite, and that compositionally speaking one could indeed combine such myriad elements into a 'harmonious' musical work. Its goals and structure would have nothing in common with Beethoven, clearly; it would be akin to comparing James Joyce's Ulysses with Elizabethan poetry, but we cannot deny the artistic validity of either (even though they are centuries apart).

If you let a chimp happily bang away up and down the piano keyboard, or randomly pluck away at a harp, would you call that music??

No, though Cage would have. He said silly things (sometimes). If however, the chimps were banging away on a 1920s Bechstein owned by a certain administrator (brrrr...), then clearly, yes! (Add relevant icon.)

[Quijote]

I think it was Barenboim who said on Desert Island Discs (or some similar programme) that he prefers reading scores to listening to recordings. Score one for Barenboim. I agree with PDG, however, not least because I can't read a score. (And don't come back, Philip, trying to settle old scores. I have plenty of recordings - scores of them).

Scoundrel, you are! Don't forget the story about Brahms who turned down an invitation to the opera (I don't know which one), saying he would have a better performance staying at home reading the score!!!!! Score one for Brahms (who outranks - [outscores !!] - Barenboim).
I believe your age is three-score and three. My age is three-score minus two-score and six (give or take a score or two).

Message for the FBI : haven't you arrested this DVD pirate yet? I suggest you lock him up for at least four-score and ten.

[PDG]

When I was about one score minus six, I was sure I read that Beethoven always kept a bust of Brahms on his desk......Turned out to be BRAHMA....

[Quijote]

When I was about one score minus six, I was sure I read that Beethoven always kept a bust of Brahms on his desk......Turned out to be BRAHMA....

When I was one score minus five/four, all I wanted to see was busts.

[PDG]

I hope that neither your wife nor German live-in woman are reading this stuff...

Actually, you do seem to have a fetish in this area. I well remember your fantasies about those lop-sided Amazon women before they set up their famous Internet company...

[Quijote]

I hope that neither your wife nor German live-in woman are reading this stuff...

Actually, you do seem to have a fetish in this area. I well remember your fantasies about those lop-sided Amazon women before they set up their famous Internet company...

Giggling too much to reply ... hilarious !