Being Taken Seriously....

When I first went to Conservatory, where or even when is not important,
it seemed to me that the composition department was bent on trying to
produce nothing but people who could write like Hindemith, Bartok, Copland,
Prokofiev or Shostakovich.  In those years I didn't like these composers'
style all that much.  I preferred the styles of the Impressionists but
rooted in the late romantics, particularly Brahms.  I still have a
preference for these styles, though not exclusively so.  I found at that
time a tendency among the faculty there, and elsewhere, to decry the
limitations of the Brahmsian aesthetic.  I am certain that it continues
to this day, there and elsewhere.  Except nowadays they want you to write
like Crumb, Pendereki, Reich, Gorecki, Ligiti or even John Cage.

In my opinion, having tried the craft of composition only to the extent of
producing a mere 18 opus numbers containing mostly piano and chamber music,
there are other elements which must be there to produce a successful
composition.

It does depend I suppose on your message, but it is essential to get and
hold the attention of both players and audience and once seized, never
to let it go until the last note fades away.  When the music stops, there
is a brief but discernable pause of dead quiet, followed by deafening
applause.  When this occurs, you know you have them!  Your music has
carried the day or more as is more usual, the night.

A composer owes this much to his audience.  After all the craft of
composition is mostly to provide entertainment to others.  This has always
been and still is the case, despite all appearances to the contrary.  One
of the people who understood this well was Mozart, despite the fact that he
ended as a victim of his own financial failure.  He had said, "music must
delight" and had been successful earlier, much due to the delight people
took to his catchy, clever, well conceived, incredibly economical style.
But he was writing popular music for an aristocratic class of musicians,
which is one reason that the music, whatever was produced, succeeded so
well.  But all the great composers knew it as well.  Haydn certainly knew
it, as had Handel learned a few years earlier.  For both it happened to be
England.  Go where the money is.  Delight people with your music and you
shall earn a living thereby.  Some have been trying ever since to attain
these heights, but not with much success.

The times and society have changed the role of a composer such that he
is relegated to the same status as a poet, perhaps respected but not
absolutely needed.  If one has an idea of becoming a composer, being a
character out of late 18th or 19th century European society, well then,
better do it as a hobby in your spare time.  Don't quit your day job.  If
one is to write music, might as well go commercial and just write what
sells ice cream or automobiles, write for the movies, etc.  This is one
reason why movie music in most instances cannot be considered serious
music.  There are exceptions but few.  In the cases that matter, the music
has to be the equal of the movie itself.

Serious music is music that stands by itself.  It shares the stage with
nothing else, except in rare instances, vocal choruses and soloists, or
with dancers.  Serious music is written for no other purpose than to write
it, that in some sense, it must be written.  The goal of its creation is
in the mind and heart of the composer, though quite a few composers have
attributed what amounts to divine inspiration for their work, as though
through their music, one would be hearing the voice of God.

Throughout the really brief history of music, a few composers have
attempted to make social or political statements.  Then as now, this
strategy for a successful run of one's compositions over time is a
calculated failure.  Social or political matters are fleeting and always
dated.  Music lasts forever.  It can cast a spell that is timeless.  I know
of at least half a dozen masterpieces from the last three centuries that
are capable of doing this to an audience when played well; the enigmatic
second movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #1, Beethoven's Grosse Fuga,
the third movement of Brahms' piano concerto #2, the last movement of
Mahler's 2nd symphony, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, the
Rite of Spring by Stravinsky which I choose as the most important work
written in the 20th century!  That's quite a reach in style, but they all
have the ability to grab and hold the attention of all concerned, both
musicians and audience.

It is possible that someone could reinvent, revive, utilize or out and out
steal all kinds of thematic and harmonic bric a brac from this period and
tack it back together in some new way.  This was called neo-classicism
about eighty years ago.  They even banded together in France to try and
resurrect the older style.  But most of what they wrote sounds French, but
in a modern way, with here and there a sideways jeer or the sound of auto
horns in the crowded streets of Paris.  It doesn't carry the same emotional
message as the former classical style did for after all, Vienna was then as
it still remains quite a distinct city from Paris.

Of course since the time of Beethoven, the composer has also become
far more of an individual or has usually been expected to be so, though
occasionally a few band together with the idea of forming a "school".  But
the cult of individualism has put a terrific strain on many composers owing
to that they think they must come up with an original style of their own in
order to establish themselves as serious composers.

Critics, FAR MORE THAN AUDIENCES, have made or broken the careers of
composers for being too "derivative".  I've often thought that most of the
late eighteenth century composers sound derivative even if they hadn't that
intention.  Also, imitation was far less frowned on among composers in that
ear than it has become today.  If the critic's intention was to have the
conservatories churn out plenty of second rate Hindemiths and Coplands,
I guess they succeeded.

Meanwhile the audiences, so much more annoyed because no one has succeeded
in getting and keeping their attention long enough for them to get any
enjoyment on any level, have often faded away whenever anything from the
last 100 years is programmed.  The critics annoy them too.  People
generally don't want to hear any more of what bores them.  And let's face
it, some of the compositions of the last fifty years have been exceedingly
boring!

The solution is clear, the motivations are obvious, the challenges are
daunting, the calling is unique.  To be a composer, one must be able to
get one's message across using nothing but music.  In order to succeed,
one must have some true idea of what music is and how it works on the
hearts and minds, nay of the very beings of their listeners.

David Burton