I think now it might be a mistake to write-off Alma Deutscher as a passing 'child prodigy' of classical pastiche. I was very ambivalent and somewhat sceptical initially when she came to notice because it was not really the sort of thing I listen to most of the time, though I am certainly not unfamiliar with 18th/19th century output.. Can't deny her sheer talent though.
There's something here that has not been taken totally seriously in 'real art' classical music for perhaps over 100 years: dedication to pure, unselfconscious, largely diatonic melody in a non-ironic or offbeat way. Yesterday a day-old video popped into my YT timeline of her talking to camera from home, about this and that and answering questions. And the promise of future videos about improvisation. The thing that struck me is that she now has a pronounced German accent!, probably from living in Vienna? Or her dad's accent?
The thing with her has been the utter insistence that her music isn't merely a 'retroactive', chocolate box imitation of a dead 18thC musical idiom. She presents it as absolutely normal that you would write using these time-honoured techniques of partimenti, traditional counterpoint, 18th century harmony, clear-line melody etc. Whereas other composers who obviously loved melody (Shostakovich, Weinberg, even Schoenberg) had to hide it. Drop it in in snippets and dress it in post-modern packages for it to be 'art'. She's giving it unvarnished. What to make of it? She's known for this remark when being told that "some people have said that she should not compose beautiful melodies in the 21st century, because music has to reflect the complexity and ugliness of the modern world."
"But I think that these people just got a little bit confused. If the world is so ugly, then what's the point of making it even uglier with ugly music?".
Well she's 16 and has been bathed in this 18th century musical idiom and I think people believe (or believed) she will end up stuck in it and actually has no conception of anything outside it, but I'm not so sure. In 2019 I saw this 'Waltz of the Sirens" (video underneath) where the opening understands perfectly well the idea of dissonance as a tool - could be in a superficial way, but I have no doubt about her grasp of musical idiom. And to think this girl does this type of orchestration and her age! That violin concerto of hers at age 8 or 9 has a sort of orchestration some undergrad music students can't even manage. The question is will her determined 'melody' approach tilt some of the balance away from what has been seen as a heavily academic sort of music which fails to connect with most people? Or is she just going to be one among a handful writing classical-revival music? If you watch anything watch the piano waltz at the bottom, especially when it passes past the exposition section.
Video from a day ago:
Waltz of the Sirens:
Ludwig Waltz No.2:
