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Really interesting and excellent essay,
Dennis -- and please don't read a single iota of irony into my
statement. You make some rather fascinating
pronouncements, such as your premise that (and I
quote:)
Really? Merely citing your quote
will do, arguments to the contrary are probably flowing with fecundity through
the minds of anyone even as cerebrally-feeble as
myself. I was
also taken by your line - with your own italics, not mine:
Am I to interpret that philosophy to
mean that if I were to (say) write a work completely in the
'old-fashioned' idiom, formal structure and utter sound of the Brahms
Fourth and call it "Music of our own time" simply because it was
newly written by me -- it would meet your criteria by being of
worthy value? And would therefore be sanctioned by you as
being performable? Inarguably? Conversely,
if a new work of mine is not old-fashioned, but breaks down all doors and is a
true, avant-garde masterwork? What's the statute of
limitations before it -- and I become a mere not-to-be-performed DW(A)M and my
work is then never to be performed again, ever ever ever? My
death? And if I were to die tomorrow, what
then? The work is merely a day old and yet I -- I am a dead
composer of the past! What then?
Hhmmmmm. Please don't mis-interpret my
reaction; again - in response I find your piece to be absolutely
fascinating. But I can only respond with my premise of:
thesis/antithesis -- perhaps the outcome needs to rest on
<synthesis.>
I hope to not be glib in interpreting your
argument thus: you seem to believe in throwing out the baby
exclusively because it's older than the
bathwater. We differ; I believe in keeping both and seeing how the
kid grows up. You argue that we must simply break the shackles
of all music from the past simply because it was written by DWEM.
Toss it all; play only music by
the L(iving)R(ainbow-complecked)U(universally-geographically-distributed)N(on)-S(exually)-C(ategorizable)
or: LRUN-S-C. Play their music exclusively <because> it's by
LRUN-S-C but not because any other criteria, such as if it communicates, if
it is of somewhat more- than-narrow artistic value, if -- it's -- (uh-oh)
good.
I'll keep programming music by whomever,
written whenever....if -- it's -- (uh-oh) good. Who gets to decide what's
good?
Easy! ME. You want to decide what's good? Great!! Play your idea of
good, create an ensemble and have them
play your good, and have a great
time! If old is good,
GREAT! If new is good,
GREAT! And if someone can pry me away from my font key, even
better.
Best,
Les
Les Marsden
Founding Music Director and Conductor, The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra Music and Mariposa? Ahhhhh, Paradise!!!
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