by
Frank T. Manheim
THE RELEVANCE OF
FUTURISM IN CLASSICAL MUSIC TODAY: WHY
CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS STILL HAVE TROUBLE
EXCITING AUDIENCES
Frank Manheim
Noted U.S. music critic
and composer, Greg Sandow, has made
the point in articles in Symphony
Magazine that contemporary
"classical" composers, with the exception
of Philip Glass in his Einstein on
the Beach, just haven't created
much public interest. Only peer professionals
and a small circle of cognoscenti are
really interested in world premieres
of new compositions. In America even
celebrated "audience-friendly"
composers like John Corigliano and John
Harbison are not really connecting with
general music audiences - no matter
how highly they may be praised
by music critics or leading professional
experts. Why is this?
Explanations as to
why contemporary composers aren’t scoring
with audiences include the abuses or
corruption of the art music world by
promoters or stars (Lebrecht), insufficient
exposure or other deficiencies in audiences
(John Corigliano, Charles Rosen), competition
by electronic and pop music, or that
classical music never had a strong hold
on the U.S. anyway (Joseph Horowitz’s
new book: Classical Music in America).
To me, these explanations won’t wash.
This article accepts
the more obvious conclusion that the
failure to excite audiences lies with
the composers, not with external circumstances
or audiences (e.g. Henry Pleasants’
book of 1955, The Agony of Modern
Music). More than that, I suggest
that the failure is rooted in a stigma
that is a relic of a nearly forgotten
early 20th Century revolutionary
philosophy that may still affect the
arts.
At the beginning of
the 20th Century revolutionary
ideas swirled in the air. Futurism was
a philosophy that embraced all the arts.
Futurism can be summed up as the idea
of focusing on the future rather than
the past. How can one evoke the future,
since it isn’t known? In music futurists
like the Italian composer, Balilla Protella*
took the approach that music oriented
to the future - to new, fresh ideas
and inspiration - could not be
expressed in composition that contained references
to familiar musical language, to melodic
or harmonic devices and rhythms
that evoked the past.
Revolutionary approaches
to musical composition in the early
20th Century were many and
diverse. One school involved new formal
compositional systems like Schoenberg’s
serial (12-tone) method that eliminated
the possibility of traditional tonal
melody. Pierre Boulez added randomization
of rhythm to this approach. Charles
Seeger’s "dissonant counterpoint" reversed
the roles of consonance and dissonance.
Other composers superimposed notes on
visual images, or created sounds through
unconventional means. Jacques Barzun
in his book, The Use and Abuse of
Art, cites the example of Knocking
Piece, in which two men banged on
a piano case with mallets. Other composers
like Karl-Heinz Stockhausen devised
elaborate mathematical or electronic
means of generating musical sounds.
John Cage challenged even the concept
of purposeful composition with his aleatoric
music, e.g. directing groups of musicians
to independently improvise cacophonous
sound for a given length of time.
All these approaches
had one thing in common: the futurist
concept of rejection of traditional
musical models familiar to and embraced
by general musical audiences.
The more extreme manifestations
of revolutionary musical styles may
be rare today. But a key corollary of
the futurist concept is still with us.
That corollary is expressed in the idea
that music which evokes strong response
in non-professional or average musical
audiences cannot contain new inspiration,
originality, and artistic interest.
I suggest that a futurist stigma
attached to music that generates excitement
or interest in audiences continues
to be accepted subconsciously even
by contemporary composers who utilize
neo-romantic or other conventional musical
vocabularies. Put a bit crudely, "it
really doesn't matter what style you
compose in - providing audiences can’t
really enjoy it". If they do, it suggests
that the composer is catering to popular
tastes and is not really interested
in depth and artistic creativity.
During the 20 years
of former avant-garde composer, Aaron
Copland’s "popular period" of composition,
he was careful to incorporate "arbitrary"
dissonances and other "erratic"
elements in his compositions as if to
say: "Yes, I am composing this
piece for the unsophisticated public,
but want to make it clear I'm still
a professional and a modern". A recent
Bernstein retrospective on National
Public Television pointed out letters
written by Copland to young Leonard
Bernstein, criticizing the "accessibility" of certain
early compositions, and urging him to
make them sound "newer" and "more interesting".
The dissonances in
Copland’s music that I refer to seem
to me ad hoc, rather than essential
parts of the musical ideas, as
were the magnificent dissonances
in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring,
or in the orchestral introductions and
intervals in Gershwin's folk opera,
Porgy and Bess. They involve
creative compositional devices that
may enhance music to the ear of professionals,
but add nothing to the enjoyment of
non-professional audiences.
Among the neo-romantic
contemporaries we often find compositions
that seem to continually build
up to a voluptuous romantic melody
or harmonic
effect - that never arrives. At
the last minute the composer always
veers away from delivering anything that could
really excite and transport audiences
as Dvořák did in Philadelphia in
1893 with his New World Symphony
- or as Respighi and Kodály many
decades later did in works like the
Pines of Rome and the Hary
Janos Suite and Dances from Galanta. Respighi,
Kodály, Holst, Leroy Anderson,
John Rutter or John Williams, composers
that establish immediate bonds with
audiences, are essentially ignored by
the music establishment.
The style of composition
that approaches but never reaches audiences
has certain benefits to composers. While
not actually offending and sometimes
becoming marginally interesting, it
meets the futurist prohibition on exciting
audiences, and can thereby
retain the approval of the establishment.
The kind of melodic inspiration
that Schubert and Beethoven possessed
is a rare gift. Excluding it from new
composition means that other more widely
available qualities, like skills in
handling orchestral instruments, structural
musical development, dramaturgic conceptions,
etc. can be substituted.
Structural musical
skills and technical innovation are
all important to contemporary music
composers and writers. But they count
little to even experienced and sensitive
nonprofessional audiences, provided
that the composer has the musical sensitivity
and skill to avoid obvious clumsiness
or musical gaucherie. Commentary
Magazine music critic, Terry Teachout,
for example, has pointed out George
Gershwin's growth in technical and compositional
skill as he progressed from his first
"classical" orchestral effort, Rhapsody
in Blue, through the Concerto
in F, and An American in Paris.
But ask the average American music lover
which piece he likes most, and I think
you will almost always find it's Rhapsody
in Blue, because of its stunningly
original melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic
inspiration.
So, to conclude, I
don't think we'll have broken the grip
of the futurists and returned "classical
music" to its rightful place of meaningfulness
to the larger music-loving public until
– it’s almost self evident, isn’t it?
– the ability to inspire audiences stops
being a demerit and again becomes valued
in new composition.
-----------------
*Futurism, the rebellion of the
life of intuition and feeling, quivering
and impetuous spring, declares inexorable
war on doctrines, individuals and works
that repeat, prolong or exalt the past
at the expense of the future. It proclaims
the conquest of amoral liberty, of action,
conscience and imagination. It proclaims
that Art is disinterest, heroism and
contempt for easy success. (B. Protella,
1909. http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/musicians.html)
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