...no, really......

I recently had the opportunity to see comments from a commissioning jury regarding a grant that was denied (not for me-- an incensed colleague forwarded them.)

- Over all, the jury was supportive of the [commissioning ensemble].
- They felt the support materials for this application were not up to the artistic quality they are looking for.
- They agree that Mr. X is an accomplished composer, however they feel he is limited to certain gestural language. His music is very reminiscent of film music.
- music is “well done, but what is the urgency for more music like this?” “what is the need or urgency for this new piece”
- “what is going to be new in this music”
- Great soloist.  The soloist could be taking more of a risk and it feels like the music would not be giving her that opportunity.
- The jury was not critical of the composer’s music but made the decision on the artistic assessment.
- Next time the project description can outline more of the risks, edge, what’s new about the project.

Does anyone in 2013 actually say "what is going to be new in this music" anymore?  Does anyone really still believe that unless music is completely lacking in direction and discourse it sounds like "film" music?  Do "artists" on juries really feel that they have the right to tell a soloist that they should be "taking more of a risk"?  Are there really composers out there who genuinely believe that there is something "new" about their own projects?

Musicians are the stupidest professionals.  If doctors or lawyers behaved the way we do, we would all be dead or in jail.

Many years ago, John Weinzweig told me something I have never forgotten:  the jury system stinks-- but it's the best we can do.

The Problem of Older Pieces

Recently, some good friends programmed a work of mine from more than 10 years ago and asked me to come to the concert.  I would normally say no out of hand, but because they were friends, I hemmed and hawed, and finally, when the day arrived, I just didn't go.  In fairness to me, I warned them that unless they heard from me, I wouldn't be there, but still, they were miffed.

I can't stand listening to old pieces.  There is a great deal of truth to the old cliché that your older works are actually works by a different composer.  I am not the person I was when I wrote my String Trio (which gets played a great deal) at the age of 16.  Commenting on it, introducing it from the stage, coaching it-- I might just as well be commenting on, introducing, or coaching a work by Beethoven or Shostakovich.  This music has nothing to do with me anymore.

I have observed with time that works of music have a life of their own.  It's another cliché to say that they are like children, but they are.  At some point, if a piece has been performed a few times, the composer has to let it go.  A piece of music has a karma which is distinct from the karma of the composer.  It will make its way.  Not only does the composer not have the responsibility to follow it, the composer does not have the right to claim it as his or her own anymore.  A successful piece becomes the property of something bigger, a biosphere of music.  Composers who can't let go become a liability.  There is only one way to play a bad piece.  There are many ways to play a good piece.  (I was never upset by the "early music" movement, because a masterpiece like Beethoven 7 can withstand performances by both Leonard Bernstein and Roger Norrington.)  A composer who does not believe his or her music can be interpreted in multiple ways has no faith in their work.

I still attend some performances of older works, but only rarely.  In fact, I am getting painfully close to avoiding even premieres, although that is for a different reason-- I can never hear anything good in a premiere, just all the bad things.

In the end, composing is process, not result.  Composition is personal.  The product is public.

Meta modernism

John Adams refers to himself as a "post-style" composer.  Franco Donatoni spoke about music having passed beyond the "school", and having entered an era of "personal style".  What both gentlemen mean is that the most interesting composers no longer belong to a definable stylistic school.  Certainly, different as they are (were), Donatoni and Adams both resist(ed) simple classification in their mature work.

I cannot think of myself as belonging to any discernible artistic movement.  Like most composers, I suffer from the fact that most people are fairly narrow minded and, frankly, rather stupid-- they hear one work of mine and label me as something.  No composer can be classified on the basis of one work.  Imagine hearing only the "Liebeslieder" Waltzes and Hungarian Dances of Brahms.  Imagine hearing only "Fur Elise" and "Wellington's Victory" by Beethoven.  Imagine hearing only "Hungarian Rock" and "Self Portrait with Reich and Riley" by Ligeti.  What label would you give these composers?

There are people who know only my lighter pieces, some of which have become very successful.  My Celebration Overture is the most performed piece of orchestral music in Canada, and it is very, very light, having been written for a community orchestra.  There are people who know only my first two symphonies, from performances at the Toronto Symphony, who think of me as a dangerously "modern" composer.  There are people who know only my educational pieces-- it frightens me sometimes to imagine that there are professional musicians who, adjudicating festivals and exams, have never heard anything of mine other than my Prelude and Fugue for Trumpet and Piano or my Song and Dance for Violin and Piano.

In Seattle last summer, my Piano Quartet was premiered.  Before the concert, the quartet and I did a presentation about the work, with excerpts.  After they had played some sections, I ask the pre-concert audience present, numbering perhaps 125 people, how many people heard the music as tonal, and how many heard it as atonal.  About 1/3 heard it as tonal, 1/3 heard it as atonal, and, presumably, the remaining third either didn't know or didn't care.

I don't care either.  I can no longer even think in terms of "tonal" or "atonal".  Music is a language that we now have free access to in every work.  Each new work makes different demands on the language that we use.  More importantly, composers who insist on being "tonal" or "atonal" actually reinforce the importance of the language they deny.  The composers who band together like members of a motorcycle gang and insist that they and they alone are the true "school" actually make their "opposition" more important by doing so.  We should no longer even think in these terms.  I am constantly astonished by this old fashioned religious zeal.  It is high Romanticism to imagine oneself as doing the only "true" work in music.  Music must go forward, certainly, but it is impossible to force it into a specific direction.  And what exactly does "going forward" actually mean?  I believe that any intelligent and thoughtful artist has to agree that, to be relevant, art must be contemporary.  We just disagree on what that means.

In a very real way, we are all now "post-style" composers.

Unfinished and unfinishable

Schubert left several major works unfinished, as did Schoenberg.  Schubert's 8th Symphony is not his only unfinished symphony-- the genuine 7th, in E, is also incomplete, although attempts were made to finish it.  He also left the great Quartettsatz as the only movement of a projected quartet.  Death did not interrupt him-- he went on in both cases to complete a massive 9th Symphony and 3 more masterpiece string quartets.  Schoenberg left many works incomplete, including Moses und Aron, a genuine operatic masterpiece, and again, it wasn't death that interrupted him.

At the risk of being self-important, I think I understand why.  It just flashed on me recently.

Take, for example, the Schubert Unfinished Symphony, No. 8.  The first movement is by far one of the finest things he ever wrote.  There is not a misstep in it.  Not only that, but it's far ahead of it's time-- parts of it sound like Sibelius, even Mahler.  But the second movement is just Schubert.  It's not even particularly good Schubert.  It's certainly not bad, but it could have come from any of his works.

I think he didn't finish these works because he couldn't follow up on what he had started.  The Quartettsatz is such a brilliant work, and again, so ahead of its time, that he couldn't add any more movements to it, so he went on to the next quartet.

The reason this flashed on me was that I was thinking about a few of my own works in which the first movement (or some single movement of the work) is so much better than the rest of the piece that I want to rip it out of the whole and discard the rest.  And that's just what I'm going to do.

When did that happen?

When did we start thinking that if there wasn't wild applause and a standing ovation at the premiere of a new work, that new work was a failure?  Why have both composers and administrators at the large musical institutions become obsessed with rapturous audience response?

Given that Toronto audiences will now jump to their feet after pretty much any concerto or Beethoven symphony, and then fail to remain in the hall after one curtain call at the end of the concert, what exactly does audience response at a concert mean anymore?

Many composers will scoff at this.  Composers who do not work for the large musical organizations don't expect wild ovations.  Or do they?  Don't they secretly hope for one, even if there are 50 people in the audience?

A connection with the audience is the purpose of the music.  But that connection can be made in many ways, some completely invisible even to professional observers.  How can we know what someone is feeling in the audience?

Good, solid premieres should be the goal.  New work takes time to find its way into the listening public's awareness.  We need to remember that the most important thing a premiere can accomplish is to make at least some of the audience want to hear the work again.  Indeed, I am a little suspicious of standing ovations and wild applause, precisely because they have become so commonplace in performances which do not deserve them.

My friend Joan Watson recently asked me for a "top 10" list of things a grad school composer needs to be successful as a professional composer.  This is what I sent to her.

1. Talent. You must be born with the talent to compose. Anyone can learn to compose acceptably, and moderately talented people can become better composers, but no one can actually make you a great composer if you don't have the talent to start with.

2. Skill. Composers must acquire every skill possible. There is no such thing as an “unnecessary” skill, and there is no such thing as “unnecessary” knowledge. Performers learn scales and arpeggios, etc., and the equivalents exist for composers. The acquisition of skill never ends. Good composers continue to learn and explore through their entire lives.

3. Passion. No one needs another composer. If you are not driven to be one, quit now. If someone can stop you from composing, you are not a composer. If you compose music only for class assignments while you are in school, you are not a composer. If you are perfectly happy with the music you are writing now and don't feel the need to change, you are not a composer.

4. Love of music. Listen to music. Know some music. Know standard repertoire. Explore unusual repertoire. Perform. Go to concerts. If you hear something you like, sit down at the piano and try to re-create it. Get a score and look at it. Try to figure out how the composer did what he did. Be involved with the music that already exists, because it is your best teacher. Many people, even some professional composers and teachers, insist that traditional repertoire is redundant, and that computers have made training in traditional repertoire unnecessary. This is not true. No great music will ever be written by someone ignorant of tradition. Ever. I guarantee it.

5. Flexibility. Learn to adapt, musically and personally. All great artists change through their careers. Not one great composer worked in one and only one language-- they all grew and re-invented themselves. Don't ever shut out a process or style because you don't “like” it. Every language and style is potentially a resource. You do not know who you are going to be 30 years from now, so you need to build the tools to support whoever that person will be.

6. Flexibility. Take whatever opportunities come your way. If you are flexible in the way item 5 implies, you also need to cultivate professional flexibility. If someone asks you compose Country and Western music for a play or film, do it. If someone asks you to write a ceremonial piece for accordion, bagpipes, and bass drum, do it. You will learn and grow. Do it for free, if necessary.

7. Humility. Great things have come before you. Great people have come before you. Respect them. Never put yourself before the art of music. Never use the art of music to aggrandize yourself. Serve the art-- do not try to make the art serve you.

8. Make an effort to be a complete human being. Art does not grow in a vacuum. The best artists are interested in everything. All the other art forms, religion, science, and philosophy are there to help you grow as a human being. The world is a fascinating place, and human beings are complex and extremely detailed. This is the well-spring of art.

9. Mentorship. No composer achieves anything unless someone believes in them. Select your teachers wisely, out of respect and commitment. Good teachers mentor their students beyond the basic process of instruction. Performers can also be mentors. And when you achieve success, take your responsibility to be a mentor to younger composers very seriously.

10. Luck. There are many people who can do the job-- not everyone who can do the job gets asked to do it.

The medium experience

I have been thinking a great deal lately about movies, because I love movies, and yet, like many people, take them for granted.  Even a cheap indy movie these days costs more than a million dollars.  And, like any piece of music, each and every detail on the screen is there because someone decided to put it there.  Even bad movies are made carefully and deliberately.

But the thing that has struck me lately is that there seem to be three kinds of movies:  ones that are immediately successful, ones that don't impress me one way or the other, and ones that are clearly bad.  The ones that don't impress or repel are what I have been thinking about.

Take a movie like "Outland", a Peter Hyams sci-fi from 1981, starring Sean Connery.  Here was a movie that opened to very mediocre reviews, and still commands just a 58% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Right from the beginning, I considered this to be an okay movie, neither a masterpiece nor a waste of time.  Over the many years we have watched and re-watched it, my respect for it has grown.  We watched it the other night, now that it has been released properly on Blu Ray.  Guess what?  It's a really good movie.

Some movies jump off the screen so positively that we don't dispute their value, at least initially.  With time, we start to question why we liked them.  "Casino Royale" is a movie that will, with time, come to be seen as actually quite a mediocre movie with many script problems.  I believe the same will happen with the current Batman movies.  I doubt that any such movie would drop completely out of sight, but we do re-evaluate them and gradually give them their rightful place.

Some movies seem so bad when we see them that there doesn't seem to be a question about it.  Of course, this is a matter of taste.  But movies which have obvious technical flaws, obvious bad acting, continuity problems, abominable scores, incompetent editing, etc., rarely, if ever, rise about these problems as time passes.  I can't think of one which has.

But remember the story of "Blade Runner", a commercial and critical failure when released, now regarded almost universally as a masterpiece.  "Blade Runner" was a "medium" experience, falling between the cracks of "good" and "bad" when it came out, which, with time, has come more and more into focus.  The details of the movie, the mood, the lighting, music, and yes, Rutger Hauer, have gradually convinced us that this is the real thing, an "important" movie.

Why didn't we recognize that when it came out?

Art is a construct, and all art, from the deceptively simple canvases of Rothko to the incomprehensible gibberish of Pound's "Cantos", is built on deliberate detail.  The artist put those things there on purpose.  Even Pollock's experiments with the random are done with intention, and with the instinctive eye of the painter.  Improvised music does not come from nowhere, it comes from the memory and instincts of the performers.

Art is detail (among other things), and we seem to be completely incapable of absorbing all the detail upon first exposure to a work of art.  I have always said that it is preposterous for critics to enter a theatre, encounter new work without preparing (by reading a script, or looking at a score, etc.,) and write a review.  I am a professional musician, and there is a great deal of music to which my initial reaction has been rather cool, which I have gradually learned to respect and even like.  I am not talking about works which seem like masterpieces upon first exposure (which are very, very rare,) but about the "medium" works, the works which don't lift you out of your seat on first encounter.

In some ways, isn't this music (and film and art and theatre and books) more important than the "masterpieces"?  Isn't art supposed to change you?  Isn't the gradual understanding and absorption of a work of art more important to our spiritual life than jumping to our feet at the end of the latest trendy "masterpiece"?

Perhaps I am thinking about this because, in addition to watching older movies lately, I am teaching a course on Alternatives, music which espouses different values from the accepted canon.  And one of the composers I have focused on is Busoni, whose work I have adored since the age of 13.  Alfred Brendel said of Busoni "His music glows when the right eyes fall upon it."  I completely understand why people don't like Busoni's music, but with the passage of time, I have come to realize that his music has probably had more influence on the way I write music than any other composer I have listened to in my life.

And for most people, Busoni's music is a "medium" experience.