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- Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
- Path: sparky!uunet!das.wang.com!wang!miyazaki!rmc
- From: rmc@wang.com (rmc)
- Subject: Re: Regarding the Questionable use of the Word -> Advance
- Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.
- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 20:05:51 GMT
- Message-ID: <RMC.92Dec21150551@miyazaki.wang.com>
- In-Reply-To: idealord@dorsai.com's message of Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:59:21 GMT
- References: <m6oZVB3w165w@dorsai.com>
- Sender: news@wang.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: miyazaki.wang.com
- Lines: 37
-
- idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) asks:
-
- > I would just like to briefly mention my interpretation of the discussion
- > of "Advances in Music Composition" as being biased towards a teleological
- > interpretation of music history. Where are we going, people?
-
- > I still feel that the late string quartets of Beethoven are
- > infinitely more "advanced" regarding real human musical expression than
- > anything I've heard from this century. (Bach's Art of Fugue, too).
-
- 1) I find the Bartok quartets "speak more to me" than the Beethoven
- quartets. Last i looked, they were from this century.
-
- 2) I find that the various pieces by George Crumb setting the Lorca
- poems to music far more sophisticated in their "real human expression"
- than the entire corpus of Beethoven's vocal music and the Italian
- operatic composers, combined. Maybe even just "Night of the Four
- Moons" all by itself. (Although then one should ask the question "Why
- 'Night of the Four Moons' and not Ravel's 'Chassons de Medecai'
- (sp?)?"). Last i heard, George Crumb was alive and still composing.
-
- 3) When i posted things i thought were possible advances on
- composition technique, i included techniques by Crumb and Wuorinen
- that were simplifications rather than complications. Face it, some of
- us find the chordal progressions an uninspiring way to structure a
- piece. Not just "academic composers", but "listeners" as well. For
- chamber music, the contemporary groups in Boston seem more active and
- well received than either the classical or early music chamber groups.
- (Symbponic music is still the BSO, whose fully classical concerts are
- better received than the mixed contemporary and classical concerts).
-
- 4) Go talk to Gunter Schuller some day about the problem of academic
- support for composers - he has some ideas on alternate funding. As
- does Milton Babbit for that matter.
-
- R Mark Chilenskas
- rmc@wang.com
-