At it again --I mean I'm blogging again

Once a composer has been sonically politicized anything goes.  I've said this before about the Paul de Man bruhaha.  Same here. I agree with Philipp and Colin, yet they are as I am ( I think I avoid this) dismissed as partisans so my post takes the measure of the times and finds that this is not an unusual practice at all.




Sadly, I must disagree. The perspective at said “salon” is not level headed at all. Rather it is a strictly one sided affair. Fine.
Nor do I find it interesting when supporters rally round the flag or when detractors,well detract. This isn’t the first time that; “what you see is not what you get.”
Nor will it be the last.
I suppose it might get my dander up to have it implied that even “stolen” music is much better than any “original” serial music. Nope.
On the other hand what of all the professional enabling of famous songwriters to create concert music and opera? Naturally these folks don’t read or write music. Nor are they actually inspired to compose these works themselves. They have handlers. Then we get to read the reviews critiquing the orchestrations that they did not create, harmonies they did not write, vocal lines that “professionals” also made for them. 

Is this any worse?

_______________________

March 2, 2012 at 7:37 am

“Golijov had full permission to use the music he used.”
There is certainly nothing wrong with making money off the work of others. Nor becoming famous by the work of others. Truly, who would turn down that opportunity to be presented by major orchestras? Not me. Anyway ghostwriting or for us ghostcomposing is a well know professional activity (mostly associated with films and popular music). It seems that brand names can count more than the product.

As far as I can see the only problem is; does he fairly compensate his subcontractors?

new york times-about musicology

Ok so I read this in the NYT. A symposium in honor of  Richard Taruskin.  (With whom I mostly disagree).  It seems that there is some gnashing of teeth over the "Barbarians at the gate."  

I don't understand the correlation that new blood in the profession  means the marginalization of the trained composer.  

Why?  

This seems to be two different issues; the story and who is telling it.  Are Musicologists trapped by exclusive authenticity to create a party line?  Or be single issue?  Mr. Berger has a point (point of view) as does Ms. McClary (outreach).  Still, like multiculturalism excluding the poor, something is left out here.  Something remains hidden.  Yet the end result is the same; trained composers and their work are marginalized.   

In the past Musicologists presented the truth, now they only lead you to the truth.

thwarted -the essence of the ring

It seems to be at the heart of  Wagner's Ring. Everyone thwarting everyone else. Or trying to.  Interesting that neither the Greeks nor the Romans tell the story of the end of their gods.  The Norse do. Its a sad tale as the Gods lose the will to fight. Yet the Rhine Maidens avoid this. Aren't they gods?

Also sad is the rhetoric of the classical light composers. No longer satisfied with creating highly successful easy listening music also need to position their soft music with hard speech that excludes all other musical approaches evidently.  At one time rock bands or their handlers used to say that "if Mozart was alive today he'd be in a group like the Dave Clark Five." Now University trained composers are inspired to say that Mozart got it wrong.   

Sad indeed.

Acid Bath

perculator

submerged

thoughts on blogging for FJO

Frank J Oteri recently suggested to me that blogging was like a newspaper and my penchant for criticizing my peers reflected poorly on me, burned bridges and made all composers seem stereotypical cranks etc.  It stung. So perhaps it is time for me to reassess my activities. The comments below are my first thoughts on the matter--more coming. PF

About blogging:

One problem with blogging is that no matter how hard the blogger tries there is always an element of avatar, a created or distorted persona, in the post.  This distortion ranges from small to large scale.  So, it is unlike a newspaper because a paper not only projects a unified outlook but only publishes articles edited to reflect that outlook.  Blogs do not.

Blogs can be an equalizer for the powerless, but the reverse is also true.  Powerful folks can pretend, and that bugs me.

As for criticism of my peers, many times I try humor to get to the heart some misrepresentations.   What I discovered is this:

The field of music composition has absolutely no sense of humor about itself.*  Many of my humorous posts were misinterpreted and even complained about by folks trying to sell us the Brooklyn bridge. Well perhaps just lease it. Several of my readers told me some folks just don't get it. 

So I say this:  of the thousands of people who blog, few, if any, really converse.  The conversation in blogging is pretend; the distances between us are not closer but farther apart.  

In one case I think I did fine service for our profession.
This was when I took exception to a troll (a person, anonymous of course, who posts only to be mean) while another blogger tried to dance around them. I came to the point!


Troll: "None of you have what it takes to compose a Rachmaninoff 2nd"
Phil: "Commission me and find out."

* My first professional work was a satire on composers and performers "Meditations and Satires" a Fromm Commission.  It went over all right and off a cliff. Oddly a few years later it was performed at the behest of choral festival at Tanglewood and was a big success. Have you heard of that?

2 things -spoils for the rich.

Well it seems that Cincinnati opera new works went for glamor and Hollywood.  Again trained composers locked out.  

It seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy to have Philip Glass, a millionaire composer bought and payed for by billionaires, to speak for the "occupy" movement.