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The future of classical music

richardg said:
What about the instruments? It seems a bit constrained there? And what about putting string sections through a flanger, for example? I suppose it has been done but adding stuff like that does not spring to mind.
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Stockhausen was doing that sort of stuff before rock musos even knew what a flanger was! Try Mixtur (5 orchestral groups vs. a ring modulator).


This was 1964!

Remember the whole notion of electronic music came from the classical world. They invented the technology and techniques. No way in hell people like Tangerine Dream through to Squarepusher or Aphex Twin could exist without Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, GRM studios etc. They predate Moog, Buchla, Arp etc.
 
John Cage and the prepared piano, Wagner inventing the Wagner Tuba. The development of string instruments. The iron framed piano. Just a few examples. Bartok inventing the Bartok snap, Penderecki exploiting strings to make block chords or clusters. Stravinsky overturning the traditional hegemony of the orchestra and making brass and wind the main players.
You’re missing the fundamental point though that the development of Western Art Music is mostly about tonality, not of adding effect. Certainly until Rite of Spring which is really the first piece where the main focus is rhythm.
Comparing classical to rock and roll though is much like comparing apples to a Tunnocks Tea Cake. Yes they’re both spherical, yes they both taste nice, but they’re fundamentally different, and whilst we can eat both, they serve different purposes.
 
lordsummit said:
You’re missing the fundamental point though that the development of Western Art Music is mostly about tonality, not of adding effect.
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One idea in music of the second half of the last century is radically idiomatic instrumentation. I mean, the music is derived from the physical properties of the instrument on the one hand, and the possible physical relationship between the player and the instrument, and its history, on the other. So you have music which really redefines instrumental possibilities, like Pression by Helmut Lachenmann


And more recently Eleane Redigue's work, which really is based on the specific overtones produced by specic players on specific instruments, so for example this was developed in colaboration with Rhodri Davies and his harp and his bow -- Radigue using the computer to look at what was going on with all the partials when he played and get some inspiration from that. Only Rhodri Davies is licenced to play it.

 
mandryka said:
One idea in music of the second half of the last century is radically idiomatic instrumentation. I mean, the music is derived from the physical properties of the instrument on the one hand, and the possible physical relationship between the player and the instrument, and its history on the other. So you have music which really redefines instrumental possibilities, like Pression by Helmut Lachenmann
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I’ll be honest and say I find these pieces gimmicky. There’s certainly a large aleotoric element to them, and the idea that one player is licensed to play a piece rubs against the grain. The thing about notated music is that it enables performers to explore the same notes and find different answers. Doing that appears to assume that one player has all the answers, no-one else need apply.

I may be wrong, but I can’t see those pieces being transformational, they’re part of an archetypal movement which seems to have largely burnt out, I suspect then20th century will be full of them in hindsight, and it’ll all be Wagner’s fault.
 
windhoek said:
Will we ever see a return to grand-scale symphonies that last anywhere between 45-90 minutes (or longer)? My favourite symphony that was composed closest to now of that sort was Shostakovich's 5th symphony. Apparently, Philip Glass has composed a number of lengthy symphonies but that's as much as I know.
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Currently listening to Kalevi Aho's 11th Symphony, composed 1996-1997. He's written six more since then!
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/aho-symphonic-dances
 
lordsummit said:
I’ll be honest and say I find these pieces gimmicky. There’s certainly a large aleotoric element to them, and the idea that one player is licensed to play a piece rubs against the grain. The thing about notated music is that it enables performers to explore the same notes and find different answers. Doing that appears to assume that one player has all the answers, no-one else need apply.

I may be wrong, but I can’t see those pieces being transformational, they’re part of an archetypal movement which seems to have largely burnt out, I suspect then20th century will be full of them in hindsight, and it’ll all be Wagner’s fault.
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Let me be more forthright - these "pieces" are just utter pretentious b*ll*cks! (IMHO of course!)
Had they appeared in Monty Python's Flying Circus 50 odd years ago, we would all have laughed.
 
lordsummit said:
There’s certainly a large aleotoric element to them,
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I think they are very fully notated, with no element of discretion or chance. The score for Pression is here

https://issuu.com/breitkopf/docs/eb_9221_issuu


lordsummit said:
I’ll be honest and say I find these pieces gimmicky. they’re part of an archetypal movement which seems to have largely burnt out,.
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well the Radigue is very recent. But it does seem to have its antecedents in, for example, Dumitrescu and Scelsi. This for example (just discovered by me)

 
gustavm said:
Let me be more forthright - this is just utter pretentious b*ll*cks! (IMHO of course!)
Had this appeared in Monty Python's Flying Circus 50 odd years ago, we would all have laughed.
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If my answer’s pretentious why then are two interpretations of the same piece different? Why are classical pieces not set aside after the composer gives someone the thumbs up?

I suspect you didn’t read my earlier post. It’s commonly accepted that a consequence of Wagner’s exploration of tonality was that 20th century composers spent an inordinate amount of time trying to escape his influence. Once one person had worked out how to destroy tonality in it’s conventional sense, composers have spent the last hundred years searching for other answers. As always your mileage may vary. Hence the timbal explorations Mandryka posted, Serialism or Minimalism. These have all to some degree struggled for longevity because even a three chord pop song spends its life heading back to its tonal root.
 
lordsummit said:
If my answer’s pretentious why then are two interpretations of the same piece different? Why are classical pieces not set aside after the composer gives someone the thumbs up?

I suspect you didn’t read my earlier post. It’s commonly accepted that a consequence of Wagner’s exploration of tonality was that 20th century composers spent an inordinate amount of time trying to escape his influence. Once one person had worked out how to destroy tonality in it’s conventional sense, composers have spent the last hundred years searching for other answers. As always your mileage may vary.
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Sorry - I wasn't referring to your post as pretentious- I was commenting on the cello piece in particular - just making a more forthright condemnation than yours.
 
mandryka said:
One idea in music of the second half of the last century is radically idiomatic instrumentation. I mean, the music is derived from the physical properties of the instrument on the one hand, and the possible physical relationship between the player and the instrument, and its history, on the other. So you have music which really redefines instrumental possibilities, like Pression by Helmut Lachenmann


And more recently Eleane Redigue's work, which really is based on the specific overtones produced by specic players on specific instruments, so for example this was developed in colaboration with Rhodri Davies and his harp and his bow -- Radigue using the computer to look at what was going on with all the partials when he played and get some inspiration from that. Only Rhodri Davies is licenced to play it.

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Yes, those will really persuade the unbelievers. Possibilities redefined. I'm converted.

But I'm going to save time & money by listening to a diesel truck or a jet engine and get the overtones from that to inspire me.
 
lordsummit said:
They’re aleatoric. Pitch and meter are vague, and often left to the discretion of the performer.
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I can hardly see that score! So much of it is indeterminate pitch and I think the score is fairly tight about where he wants the cellist to put his hands. The "big event" is the long note at about 5.30 on that clip from youtube -- and I've picked up somewhere that it's explicitly D flat in the score, but I may be wrong.

Re the Berio, that's a graphic score I think, rather than the tablature type score of Pression. Lachenmann is pretty good and specifying what he wants the cellist to do with his body and the bow.

Lachenmann did this for voice and piano, I don't know what the score looks like


By the way, I can't help think there's something in common between Lachenmann's music and Tony's favourite -- Pierre Henry. Just, Lachenmann uses a cello, Pierre Henry uses electronics.

 
The piece you linked to is also a graphic score. There are some clear notated elements, but there is much room for discretion on the part of the performer. In many ways it is similar to the Berio. The Penderecki Threnody is notated very similarly, W the the stave not being used unless he had something specific in mind.
 
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