About ten years ago, the father of one of my students, a professor of
classics, came by my studio while I was playing a CD. He had strong
opinions about many things, and almost as soon as he set foot into the
room, he started on tirade against the "unmitigated ugliness" of modern
music, and then proceeded to berate me for polluting the the air with
such deranged, irrational crap, with its "screaming dissonances", jagged
rhythms, vulgar harmonies, and complete lack of melodic sense. Moreover,
how DARE the composer defile the sanctity of the Latin mass by setting it
to such unspeakable noise. Or words to this effect.
There's a problem: this was not a piece by Lutoslawski or Ligetti (both of
whom I love, by the way), but rather the "Credo" from *La Messe de Nostre
Dame* by Guillaume de Machault (ca. 1300 - 1377). When I pointed this out
to him, he didn't quite call me a liar, but came close, 'till I showed him
the CD. Apparently, he didn't even know that Machault was a composer; he
thought he was just a poet. It didn't change his mind about the piece or
"modern" music, though. Funny thing; his favourite poet was T.S. Eliot.
I suppose he listens to Vivaldi while reading "Prufrock" or "The Waste
Land".
I wonder which composers he associates with Edvard Munch? Or Paul Klee?
Or Arthur Miller? Maybe the composer of the score of *Planet of the Apes*
(Jerry Goldsmith, wasn't it?) should have written a nice, pretty, diatonic
minuet for harpsichord, instead of all that atonal, 12-tone garbage for
piano? Just imagine: we could all smile beautifically, listening to nice
tonal ditties, while watching Charlton Heston fight a war with a bunch of
monkeys.
Leslie Kinton
The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto.
Anagnoson and Kinton piano duo website: http://www.pianoduo.com
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