Last January I posted questions here as part of my Composer's Salon series (A few years ago I organized a number of physical Salons, before 'life' got in the way). Well, I'm almost finished reading Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, a survey of 20th century "classical" and it got me thinking about posting some questions/thoughts. Anyway, that has lead me to try the Composer's Salon again as a way to ask questions and seek answers and thoughts. This time I promise to be a bit more regular with different topics (when I finish the book, I'll certainly have things to add)!
Joe
Style
"What makes the history of music, or of any art, particularly troublesome is that what is most exceptional, not what is most usual, has often the greatest claim on our interest. Even within the work of one artist, it is not his usual procedure that characterizes his personal style, but his greatest and most individual success."Charles Rosen, The Classical Style
I. Composer Daniel Lentz says, "style is really just learning how to repeat yourself, sometimes endlessly. If you keep changing your language and what you do, which is a very noble thing to do, nobody will know who you are?" Do you agree with this statement or not? Do you strive for a coherence or singularity in your musical language? What characteristics would define your own personal style?
II. While viewing the MOMA Matisse-Picasso exhibit a few years ago, I was struck by the incredible virtuosity and diversity of both artists in all types of media. How they were able to create, borrow, steal (Matisse once called Picasso a 'bandit'), from many sources (including from each other), yet both artists remained completely unique and individual. I was reminded of Wassily Kandinsky's discussion of Matisse and Picasso in his Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (Of Concerning the Spiritual in Art). Speaking of Picasso he says: "Tossed hither and thither by the need for self-expression, Picasso hurries from one manner to another. At times a great gulf appears between consecutive manners, because Picasso leaps boldly and is found continually by his bewildered crowd of followers standing at a point very different from that at which they saw him last. No sooner do they think that they have reached him again than he has changed once more." If this is true, what characteristics make each individual work a Picasso? What makes your own compositions consistent (or 'you') from piece to piece? Or do you seek 'unity in diversity'? Does it matter to you?
III. One salient feature of today's composers is an incredible access to diverse music from all throughout history and all throughout the world. With such eclectic knowledge, John Zorn says in Francis Davis' Bebop and Nothingness, it is the great film composers that offer a way to distill and organize a coherent language from a montage of diverse material. In this way Zorn says, "the great film composers are the precursors of what my generation is doing today." How do you feel about this statement? What other ways/techniques are composers (including you) grappling with such diversity and access (and excess?) of influence?
IV. With practically anything now permissible in music and art, is the notion of a 'style' still relevant? Do terms such as jazz, classical, alternative, world music really mean anything in our hybrid, hyphenated culture of today? Are those terms representing a living language or are they the Sankrits and Latins of music (i.e. once common languages that are only used today in specialized ways)? If those terms are not relevant, how can we discuss the music of today?
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