Tonight, in Herbst Theater, the New Century Chamber Orchestra -- good
string players with interesting programs -- "balanced" two dead and now
"safe" composers (Mahler, Adagietto from Symphony No.  5; Bloch, Concerto
Grosso No.  1) with two live and newish ones.

But David Diamond's 1944 "Rounds for Orchestra" sounded thoroughly pleasant
and in the mainstream, Charles Wuorinen's 1971 "Grand Bamboula" turned out
to be 12-tone for the timid, albeit with a driving energy that foreshadowed
John Adams and the better part of Philip Glass.

All this next door to Davies Hall, where in a couple of weeks, a dozen
concerts will celebrate the music of Stravinsky (who *used to be* "new,"
in spades) -- 12 full houses of 3,000 each, audiences eager to attend the
music of Igor the Popular and Comfortable.

This sequence of events past, present and future has prompted the formation
of some thoughts in one's brain, vague, unclear thoughts about the state of
"new music."

Can there be really new and "shocking" music (in a good way, as Stravinsky
used to be) now that the formerly stark, angular, jerky sound is accepted
and celebrated as commercially desirable? What can be "new music" at a
time when, at long last, Bartok is a "classic"? This is not a complaint:
I am overjoyed at the prospect -- the reality -- of the Stravinsky-Bartok
"mainstream" world, and I have no desire to subject my ears to punishment
for the sake of something "new." But there is something here I only sense,
and cannot quite get my head around.

At the Ottawa "Strings of the Future" festival earlier this month, music
that really impressed me (speaking to me, involving and pleasing) was that
of Kelly-Marie Murphy, 34.  And yet, Murphy's string quartets, from the
'90s, do not qualify as "new music" at all.  Original, individual -- yes,
but not new and unusual.

The best of 20th century music at the festival -- Janacek, Shostakovich
-- sounded comfortably "old," Zemlinsky, Dohnanyi, Korngold, even Webern
(of "Langsamer Satz") and Berg (of "Lyric Suite") too much so.

Really "strong" stuff came from Gyorgy Kurtag ("12 Microludes") and, gulp!,
from Thomas Ades, with his *youthful* "Arcadiana" -- the mid-20s composer's
legacy from his early 20s...:)

Unfair as it may be, I don't care for Ades mostly for extra-musical reasons
("Powder Her Face" is full of that peculiarly English cruelty that can stem
only from an environment otherwise prominently civil, even kind), and
"Arcadiana" didn't do much for me -- but it's undeniably newish in the
sense I am talking about.

John Adams is the only composer I can think about who straddles
"mainstream" and "new," his Violin Concerto, especially, containing that
certain something for today Stravinsky and Bartok audiences used to be hit
over the head a half a century ago.

I think the real question underneath these random and perhaps incoherent
thoughts is this:  Could it be that early in the next century, we'll just
run out of new possibilities in music?

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