Talk:Contemporary classical music

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Contents

[edit] Contemporary Classical Music Reception and Popularity (or lack thereof)

How about adressing the central problem of modern serious music, which is, of course, the fact that 99.999% of the population hates this stuff. It is a sterile artistic movement, propped up by the music departments of tax funded universities. If you go to a symphony concert, where people buy their own tickets, or a classiical station with more than a few hundred listeners, you will hear baroque, classiical and romantic music, or highly tonal 20th century music by composers too "pedestrian" to be included in this article, such as Bernstein, Copeland, Gershwin, etc.

The music is "innovative" and "cutting edge" but has failed to connect with audiences.

Irrelevant, due to NPOV.Galassi 10:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Worse than irrelevant, this is inaccurate! The reason Bernstein, Copland and Gershwin are not included in this article is because they don't belong to the period in question (post-1975). This article DOES indeed list the highly tonal composers so beloved by this commentator, and while there are indeed a number of pieces the population at large may find completely unpalatable, a number of them are being received by these audiences with genuine appreciation and admiration. Take the music of Reich, Glass, Adams, Golijov, Adès, Bolcom, Rzewski, Rochberg, Schnittke, as well as any of the choral composers listed in the article. To say that the population "hates the stuff" simply demonstrates one's own ignorance of the material.

A discussion of the reception of contemporary classical music is not irrelevant to this article. However, such a section requires a level of objectiveness and familiarity with the subject which the above contributor apparently lacks. 76.166.183.198 00:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion of a list of "major works"

According to who? The referencing, if there is any, is not explicit. A neutral point of view is required. Moreschi Talk 12:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. And why are British composers so prominent? --Kleinzach 14:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
British composers are now so prominent because the revision I made recently happened to add quite a few of them. (I also added a fair number of examples from other countries, mainly European ones, which is where my expertise lies.) The previous complaint was that the list was divided into "American" and "Other nationalities". Please feel free to add examples of "major works" from composers of other nationalities.--Jerome Kohl 16:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand these concerns. Because the material is at times so recent, we must accept the idea that the "canon" is in the making. This doesn't mean that we must shy away from making a list.
I believe this section is necessary because it transcends the categories that make up the article. Thus a major work that doesn't fit as a perfect example of any category will still have its place in the article.
What does "major" mean? First, the word "major" has the virtue of NOT meaning "good." Thus a work that I do not like may still have its place in this list.
The inclusion of a piece in this list is not really a matter of taste, but a matter of sociological polling, as it were (!). My sense is that a piece that conforms to one of more of the following parameters should be considered for inclusion in this list:
1) outstanding originality (such that the piece in question essentially creates a new "style" or sub-style, that one needs to be aware of),
2) major influence on other composers (who may seek to imitate some aspect of this work in their own work),
3) major critical success (in reviews by critics, major prizes such as Grawemeyer, Pulitzer prizes),
4) major success (the audience at large attends performances, and/or buys the recordings).
A major work becomes certifiably "inescapable" once many different people of different generations, "schools," and tastes end up recommending "exposure" to the same exact piece.
Agreed, this is seldom clear at first. Agreed, this is fundamentally random and potentially unfair. At the same time, this selection process is extraneous to Wikipedia, and it would be foolish to refuse to acknowledge the existence of such pieces. Whether or not these works are ultimately "worthy" (by whatever scale one chooses), or will eventually be kept in the "canon," there is something valuable in getting a snapshot of what the contributors understand as the current canon. This list is likely to remain in flux, as composers move in and out of favor over time. As anyone who uses one should understand, a dictionary (or an encyclopedia) collects not truths, but facts that, as a society, we more or less agree upon. Facts (such as populations sizes, who is the president of what nation, and, more relevantly, whether such a person is a hero or a villain) remain endlessly in flux, as new information is gathered (or created), as old information is disproved, discredited or lost, and as our culture changes. We do not seek to transcend history with this list. Since it will be years before scholars synthesize a canon for the present, can't we, in the meantime, start today a portrait of what music is (and has been) in the period in question?

[edit] Too much emphasis on American music?

I find the text rather centered around composers from the usa and perspectives of that continent. It briefly mentions European composers who are considered figureheads of certain movements f.ex. Helmut Lachenmann. I feel that the article mostly talks about different branches of minimalism and lighter types of contemporary music. Also it doesn't talk enough about composers from Asian countries who compose in European forms, because that is a very big part of the landscape of contemporary music nowadays. I also think the article doesn't talk enough about more recent movements such as new simplicity and such. Just wanted too get it out there.

--Gudmundursteinn 08:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neo-romanticism?

I've moved the following text here:

The resurgence of the vocabulary of extended tonality which flourished in the first years of the 20th century continues in the contemporary period, though it is no longer considered shocking or controversial as such.

because this is the entirety of the section on neo-romanticism. It contains no mention of the term, what the term's relationship to the text in the article is, where the term came from, etc. Until it does contain these things (some of the other sections on contemporary music terms are missing similar information as well), it is just confusing. -Seth Mahoney 18:23, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Post Classic Tonality?

I've moved the following text here:

Other aspects of post-modernity can be seen in a "post-classic" tonality that has advocates such as Micheal Daugherty and Tan Dun.

With no mention of what "post-classic tonality" is, this section is basically meaningless. -Seth Mahoney 18:25, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New sections

I have moved the content related to festivals and films to their own new sections. Hopefully these will become new pages in Wikipedia, so they could simply be related to this one through links (and focus more on general introduction and styles within this article)

[edit] Experimental

I don't think George Crumb qualifies as experimental. I would rather put names like Cage, Feldman, Alvin Lucier, La Monte Young etc.

He's cited as "experimental". This isn't about what we think, it is about what we can document. If you don't think he is, write an article, and if it gets enough play we can cite it. But until then, stick to the sources. Stirling Newberry 17:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article Title

The title of this article (Contemporary classical music) is strange. Why not call it 'Contemporary music' (now used as a redirect) ? -- Kleinzach 08:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The distinction still seems necessary to me. Contemporary music in general includes any music of the present time, including commercial, pop, movie music, rock, jazz. The function of this article is not to give an account of what is going on currently with these styles of music. You do have a point, however. There may be a need for a "contemporary music," or "music today" page, that tries to make a summary of the different schools that are out there. Actually, the page already exists: music genre.

[edit] Influence on Popular Music

I think that the article needs a section about the influence of “contemporary/cultural” music in the “popular” music scene. Of course, you had “peasant” tunes in Mozart and “pop” gigues in Scotland in S.XVIII. But pop music of our days is a very big part of everyday life. I think important for occasional readers to have a glimpse of the roll “classical” music a an experimentation field (not it’ only importance, of course). And the impossibility of the existence of Radiohead, or even Sgt. Pepper’s -and, of course, free jazz and Astor Piazzolla- without previous classical composers. May be it adds nothing to the concept, but it will add to the social meaning of the subject.

[edit] Discussion in 2003

Surely "contemporary music" is just any music being written at this moment in time - I don't think the phrase is used in a special, technical way to describe a particular style or whatever. Or am I wrong? --Camembert

Good question. But I guess we need some label for modern non-pop music. I am trying to think of some good examples, but I find the stuff so dreadful that for me it is a hopeless task. -- Viajero 06:53, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps just a description that "contemporary music" encompasses music that is generally outside the mainstream pop music or something like that will suffice? Dysprosia 06:58, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Well, OK, people tend not to call the latest Britney Spears offering "contemporary music", I'll grant you that, but can we really say anything on the subject beyond "it's modern concert music", or whatever? I mean, this stuff about it being "associated with individualism, globalization and modernity" is just nonsense, isn't it? Use of the term "comtemporary music" isn't, I think, limited to any particular style within what you might broadly call "classical". Arvo Pärt, Harrison Birtwistle and Philip Glass all write "comtemporary music", but they're very different. We already have modern classical music - maybe this should just be redirected there? --Camembert
I just took a look at modern classical music, a term I don't much like either (it seems like an oxymoron). (And ugh, another long, undifferentiated list... Who compiles these things?... and why?...) For better or worse, the term Contemporary music is an established expression, used in concert schedules, program books, and like, so I think it is worth sticking with. I merged the text from modern classical music with this one and spun off the list to List of contemporary music composers. Everyone satisfied? -- Viajero 12:22, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Not really. Whatever else "contemporary music" might be, surely at the very least it has to be contemporary! We've got Ravel - who died in the 1930s - on list of contemporary music composers, and we've got Schoenberg - who died in 1951 - on this one. I don't see how these composers are "contemporary". I really much prefer modern classical music or 20th century classical music, but if you don't like the idea of calling these guys "classical"... well, I don't know what we're to do. --Camembert

Well, I think a short discussion of a few notable "contemporary" composers here will be useful, to get an idea of what is meant by "contemporary music"...
What about "contemporary classical music", by the way? Dysprosia 12:57, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
"Contemporary classical music" would still have to be "contemporary" - so I mean, no Ravel, no Schoenberg, not even Cage, really (he's been dead ten years, after all). I mean, all music was "contemporary" at some time or another, but if we're going to use the term in a meangingful way now, we have to use it to mean music by living composers, music contemporary with us - Birtwistle counts, Boulez just about counts, younger composers like Thomas Adès definitely count. Schoenberg doesn't count. 20th century, yes. Modern, I guess so. Contemporary, no. (Apologies if I'm preaching to the converted here, I just want it to be absolutely clear where I'm coming from.)
Here's what I'm going to do: move this to 20th century classical music (which is, after all, what the article's about) and expand it a bit; replace what's here now with a stubby thing on truly contemporary music; move list of contemporary music composers to list of 20th century classical composers. We'll see how it turns out. --Camembert
Sounds good to me :) Dysprosia 13:46, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Seems ok. I still think that list ungainly; what term can ever cover in a satisfactory way composers as diverse as Richard Strauss, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Pierre Boulez? For me, modern classical music begins approx. with Schonberg; anything before him belongs in the 19th C figuratively speaking. Right, on another list ;-) -- Viajero 13:58, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Camembert, I just noticed there is a List_of_classical_music_composers broken down by era. There is a section called " Modern Classical era". Maybe list of 20th century classical composers can be merged there. -- Viajero 15:51, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I've thought about doing that before, but it seems like hard work! I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually, unless somebody else wants to do it, hint hint ;-) --Camembert

[edit] 1975 or What Is Contemporary?

Shouldnt there be at least an attempt at a rationale for choosing the cutoff date? One might get a first impresion that the retreat of modernism is a watershed, with In C (1968 or so?) and Rochberg (also starting in the 60's) repesenting "contemporary" trends and Boulez perhaps being some kind of dinosaur or anachronism... I feel a bit of a dinosaur myself for remembering when "New Music" competed with "Classical Music of the Atomic Age"; even then there seems to have been a fairly arbitrary 30 year rule. Sparafucil 09:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree that 1968 is a more plausible watershed year than 1975. (FWIW, though, Terry Riley's In C was composed in 1964. Furthermore, it seems to me that minimalist works like this are better regarded as Modernist than Postmodernist, on the basis of their intensely constructivist character and close relationship with—if not outright derivation from—the procedures of certain European serialists of the early 1950s.) Certainly we observe a sea change in the work of many already established composers after the (political) crisis year of 1968: Ligeti and Stockhausen both "return to melody" in 1971 and 1970, respectively; Cage returns from his extreme indeterminacy to more traditional compositional procedures at about this same time and Henze and Cristóbal Halffter reach their crises of political conscience; even Boulez is seen (after a fallow period in the late 1960s) to start on a new path with ...explosante fixe.. in 1972.
Though the year 1975 may have been mooted in part because it is at a "tidy" quarter-century mark (you know, "On 31 December 1974, all the Modernist composers died"), I suspect it may also be in part because of the rise of a younger generation who did not generally come to public notice until the mid-1970s. I am thinking here amongst others of the New Simplicity composers in Germany and English composers like Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Howard Skempton, and Christopher Hobbs, as well as some composers born a decade or two earlier, such as Louis Andriessen, Alfred Schnittke, and Arvo Pärt, who nevertheless only achieved their international fame (and/or mature style) starting in the mid-1970s.--Jerome Kohl 00:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Before we have a definition of what the "contemporary" in "contemporary music" means we have to define what a contemporary source is. These sources will help us determine the cutoff point. Hyacinth 20:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Now you really have got me confused, Hyacinth. In my experience, "contemporary source" is a term from historical studies, meaning a document dating from the time of the even being discussed. (For example, when writing about the French Revolution, Talleyrand is a contemporary source, whereas Thomas Carlyle is not). Could you explain a little further what you are getting at?--Jerome Kohl 21:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
By "contemporary source" I meant one which is dating from the time of our discussion, a "current source".
All sources describe their subjects as present or history. We need current sources to define which music and issues are relevant as "contemporary". Once those are established we can define the beginning of "contemporary music" according to the beginning of those relevant genres. Sources which are not current may be determined relevant based on their description of music and issues found relevant in current sources.
For example, a book published this year describing contemporary minimalist music would indicate that minimalism, though decades old, is a contemporary movement or genre. Any reliable source, current or not, about minimalism could then be used to date the beginning of minimalism and by implication contemporary classical music.f
Our first step then, is to determine which sources we accept as current. For example: are books from the early nineties current?
Fortunately or unfortunately, as the determinations become circular, this may be answered in a manner similar to above. If minimalism is established as a relevant topic of current sources then all sources on minimalism are relevant and thus contemporary sources for contemporary music.
For example: if a current source describes minimalism as relevant to contemporary music we can then consider any source on minimalism to be current (contemporary sources to "contemporary music" as defined by current sources, rather than contemporary sources regarding music before what we now consider contemporary/current).
However, without using current sources to define "contemporary music" we have no basis for determining what "contemporary music" is, contemporarily.
Hyacinth 21:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The terms "contemporary music" and "contemporary classical music" were not first coined or applied to such music in the mid-1970s, so the lead is inaccurate. It in fact dates back to the end of Late Romanticism in the early 20th century. Some works of the 1920s, such as Copland's Piano Concerto, Ornstein's early piano pieces, Cowell's early cluster pieces, Ballet Mecanique, etc. are quite "contemporary" in sound while dating from the earliest decades of the 20th century. Badagnani (talk) 08:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What we need is the distinction that exists in the visual arts: modern vs. contemporary.Lute88 (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. It would be nice, of course, if such a distinction existed in the realm of music history, but this is not the case, and Wikipedia WP:NOR policy prevents us from inventing an undocumented parallel to a different subject area. Even if this were not the case, there would be many problems. For a start, in the visual realm the beginning of "Modern Art" is placed variously (1) in 1855, the year of the Paris Exposition, (2) at the Salon des refusés in 1863, (3) with the announcement of the invention of photography in 1839, and even (4) "Some have persuasively argued that the origins of 20th-century art go back as far as the 1750s, when the 18th-century Enlightenment sparked an aesthetic rehabilitation that would gradually replace elaborate Rococo artifice with soberer form and greater sincerity of feeling" (Sam Hunter, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler, Modern Art, Revised and Updated 3rd Edition, New York: The Vendome Press, 2004, p. 9). When I studied art history, 40 years ago, "Modern Art" was reckoned to follow "Baroque Art", and began with the Neoclassicism of David (and no music historian of that time would have used the term "modern" to apply to what they called the "Romantic" era). Whether things have changed in the meantime is not really relevant. The point is that music historians reckon "Modern Music" to begin substantially later: after the First World War, or at the beginning of the 20th century. Some (like Schwartz and Childs 1998) regard "contemporary" (meaning Debussy or thereabouts to the present) to be a larger category than "modern" (the latter running from the Armory Show of 1913 to the beginning of the Second World War), while others hold the reverse to be the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.255.184 (talk) 06:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Luigi Russolo's The Art of Noises was in 1913 (the same year as The Rite of Spring) as well, and his first concert was a year later. I daresay his music would sound as modern as any avant-garde music today. Badagnani (talk) 06:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

To return to the beginning of this debate ("Shouldnt there be at least an attempt at a rationale for choosing the cutoff date?") I answer that there shoud be a rationale for some sort of cutoff, by date or otherwise. Without any rationale our category is unverifiable original research. Hyacinth (talk) 02:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The term is very widely used in the literature to refer to pieces dating from after the end of Late Romanticism (i.e. the important 1913 works mentioned just above). Your comment seems to indicate you didn't consider those comments. Badagnani (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Did anyone say "yes" before me? Are you saying "no"? Hyacinth (talk) 01:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I guess I was saying that the line between Late Romanticism (of the late 19th and early 20th centuries) and the first "modernist" pieces is pretty well documented in the literature. Badagnani (talk) 01:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Was tonal music "shocking"?

This does not seem to be a good edit (at least without first discussing), as it distorts the original meaning of the sentence. It cannot be denied that "serious" composers in the post-World War II period (and particularly in the 1960s and 1970s) were expected to compose in a serial style. Badagnani (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It can be denied. To prove it so: I deny it. Please demonstrate this serial fascism existed. Hyacinth (talk) 01:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The first thing I think of is the Philip Glass quote (you probably know it), I think from Cole Gagne's Soundpieces, about how everyone had to write these "creepy gray serial pieces" during that period. Badagnani (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, it was in the John Rockwell book (I think it's called All American Music). The quote was supposed to have been uttered by Glass in his segment from Robert Ashley's Music with Roots in the Aether (1976):

“ I was living in a wasteland dominated by these maniacs, these complete creeps, you know — who were trying to make everyone write this crazy, creepy music. ”

Badagnani (talk) 01:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Very nice quote! Hyacinth (talk) 02:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the gist was that if anyone did anything different, they'd be ignored, or their composition instructors wouldn't accept their music as valid -- and they'd certainly never win a Pulitzer Prize for Music! Badagnani (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

A claim which of course has been thoroughly debunked by Joe Straus's Musical Quarterly article on "The Myth of Serial Tyranny". The fact is that "tonal" composers have always dominated the new-music "market" (such as it is), gathering the bulk of commissions, grants, and recording contracts. The point here being that it has not been established that anyone writing "tonal" music ever shocked anyone. Even the Glass quote doesn't address this claim—it only says that "dominating maniac creeps" (weasel words if ever there were any—who exactly was Glass claiming dominated his "wasteland"? William Schuman? Leon Kirchner? George Frederick MacKay?). I think that there may have been times and places where that did happen, but this article does not identify those places and times, before suddenly coming out with this "no longer was shocking" statement. "No longer" requires proof that it "once was". I'm sorry, but I stand by my edit.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence for the statement that "'tonal' composers have always dominated the new-music 'market (such as it is), gathering the bulk of commissions, grants, and recording contracts," so it comes across as an opinion -- and it certainly doesn't address the Pulitzer issue at all (let alone the Grawmeyer or any other similar prizes). In the U.S., clearly the "top" schools for "prestigious" contemporary composition would have been the northeastern Ivy League schools, plus some of the Big 10 (UIUC, etc.); I don't see why you have to ask which universities were the primary ones for contemporary classical music, because they're well known. Badagnani (talk) 07:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm tempted to weigh in here, but it's hard to do without committing the sin of "original research". While tonal music was written and accepted widely, there were specific places -- particularly institutions -- where if you dared to write a C major chord followed by anything other than the sound of an exploding mortar round, you would be laughed off of campus. I was there; it was that way. Making a list of such places would be an interesting, but difficult undertaking, since reliable documentation would need to be gathered. Some places were much more open to "experimentation with tonal styles" than were others, and it had largely to do with the stylistic characteristics of the music written by those in leadership positions on the faculties. JMHO. Best, Antandrus (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly my point. In case it has gone over anyone's head, the names I mentioned (Schuman, Kirchner, and MacKay) were the powers that be at Juiliiard, Harvard, and the University of Washington during the early 1960s—the period when Glass felt he was being coerced into writing a style with which he felt uncomfortable. He obviously was not enrolled at any of those institutions, whose composition departments were well-known at the time as bastions of conservativatism (Kirchner at Harvard was perhaps more "progressive" than the other two). I, too, "was there" at the time (the mid-1960s), but obviously not at the same "there" as Antandrus, since it was emphatically not that way where I was, and "experimentation" was never a word we would have applied to "tonal styles", which simple were. Universities were not the only venue for new music, either (except perhaps in the US, and we are all familiar, I think, with Stravinsky's devastating blast from about 1969 about the state of American new music). New-music festivals (or festivals featuring a new-music component) were perhaps at least as important. Darmstadt and Donaueschingen were one thing, but Three Choirs and Cheltenham were something else again. In the US, Tanglewood was at that time (and is perhaps still) the most prestigious, and "tonal" (I use the word advisedly, to mean "an-atonal") music there was never, ever "shocking", or even the occasion for comment. As to committing the sin of original research, I am astonished that you seem not to know Joe Straus's article (to which I referred above), so I guess I had better put it into the bibliography and cite it. He has not just personal opinions, but statistics on grants and commissions, as well as faculty makup at the larger US universities including who was granted and who denied tenure. Of course, his data applies only to American institutions, but it is a start.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Badagnani's request

OK, so let's "discuss it first". Is Phillippe Hurel even a Romanian composer? The name sounds French to me, and he is a redlink. I've never heard of him, so why is he notable enough to include, as opposed to a dozen or two dozen other spectralistes?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I see that there's a separate article for that style. It makes sense to only list the very most prominent ones in this section of this article. But your deletion made it seem as if you didn't feel this person was a spectral composer, but a search shows that he seems very much to be. Badagnani (talk) 06:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Not sure why you want to spell my username in a different way than it actually is spelled. Badagnani (talk) 06:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the misspelling,which was the result of a bad memory-trace. I'm afraid this affects all of my multi-lingual ineptitudes (I don't immediately see the (supposed?) Italian root of the name, and substitute vaguely remembered patterns. I have now corrected the spelling of your handle on this thread). I thought I was perfectly plain that my deletion was based solely on WP:N, not on whether or not this composer was/is a spectraliste. If you are arguing for an indiscriminate inclusion of any and all composers who are (or may alleged to be) spectralistes, I will be happy to oblige with a list of two or three dozen more names. But first, may we please establish whether we are dealing here with a Romanian composer, or a French one, and whether or not he satisfies the standards for WP:N?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I never heard of the guy and see that he is mentioned in the Spectral music article. So on to the next thing. Fun project! Badagnani (talk) 07:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)