Jeff Dunn discusses Charles Rosen on Modern music, with damning evidence
from Rosen's own pen.

>>Could someone perhaps give an overview of Rosen's concept or
>give a source;
>>where did Rosen elborate on elitism?
>
>Charlese Rosen is too careful to ever propound the glories of elitism in
>print; rather, a sometimes condescending writing style coupled with a
>steadfast advocacy of Modernist music as the only great music is what
>provoked my comment.

But you yourself give examples of him liking such examples as Rachmaninoff
and Tchaikovsky later on.  I find his view of Tchaikovsky chimes with mine:
that is, a composer far more innovative, radical, and wild than generally
perceived.

Also, red flags go up for me whenever I see someone complaining about
elitism.  My uneasiness springs solely from personal experience.  You see,
even I have been accused of being elitist, simply because I like what I
like and what I like someone else doesn't.  I'm accused of wanting to lord
my musical likes over everybody else, whereas what I really want to do is
share my enthusiasm.  People accuse me of elitism because I read Dickens
and listen to Vaughan Williams.  So really, one person's "elitist" is
another's "vulgarian." It all reminds me of the 60s when "establishment
pig" meant "someone who doesn't agree with me." In this case, an elitist
means "someone who likes music I don't connect with."

>"... History teaches us, however, that it is the art that is tough and
>that resists immediate appreciation that has the best chance of
>enduring and of returning."
>
>Rosen supports this thesis with the standard histories of composers whose
>works were reviled in their time but are now revered, counterpoised with
>examples and supposed examples of "listener friendly" composers who faded
>into obscurity after a splash:
>
>"Telemann is listener-friendly, and was considerably more popular
>than his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach; by the end of the
>eighteenth century, hwoever, he was almost completely forgotten,
>while Bach's reputation has never ceased to grow."

Telemann is also a hell of a good composer, if not Bach.  I don't see how
one can fault any composer for not being as good as Bach.  Who would escape
hanging?

>Rosen's essay was in the context of the '90s "war" on the Modernists and
>the so-called cabal of "Academic" composers whose "difficult" music drove
>the general audiences away from classical music.  He claims that "what the
>enemies of modernism cannot accept is the way the avant-garde have taken
>possession of the mainstream of the great Western tradition." Rosen
>disingenuously denies the cabal with:
>
>"As for [the] 'cabal', it never existed.  Conductors and solo
>performers program works they like to play.  Critics campaign for
>works they think have not been given a fair hearing."

I'm sorry, but, as I've said before, I think it's up to you to demonstrate
a cabal actually existed.  A cabal, incidentally, implies a conscious
conspiracy.  I doubt such a thing, even in academia.  It's true that there
was a dominant academic style 30 years ago.  I don't see any evidence of
that now.  And, even at the height of that dominance, mavericks and
moss-backs found employment in academia.  The idea of a cabal keeping down
latter-day Puccinis and Brahmses seems to me an article of religious faith,
much like the fundamentalist notion of secular humanism taking society to
hell in a handbasket.

>To sum up, my charge of elitism is in fact my apprehension of an
>attitude prompted by reading many of Rosen's writings on the contemporary
>music scene.  By now, I must confess I am biased against him.  Let it
>be said I recognize on bended knee that Rosen's reputation as a performer
>and student of past musical eras is deservedly outstanding.  It is his
>refusal to grant that ANY audience-friendly music could ever be worthy,
>his insistence that ONLY "difficult" music understood by an initial
>select few will ever last, and an overall Authoritarian attitude that
>makes my Postmodernist blood boil.

I agree.  Great music doesn't have to be "difficult" in Rosen's sense,
as any study of folk tunes and folk genres should show.  "Wondrous Love"
has nothing to apologize for, including the fact that it's not Beethoven,
Schoenberg, Boulez, Carter, or Bach.  So this is a half-truth Rosen
propogates.  On the other hand, it is also a half-truth to say that great
music MUST be accessible.  The truth is that almost every type of music
lets some people in and keeps others out, or better, that people comprehend
some things better than other things.

>Do you have to be a priest to know God?

Very well put.  Do you have to be a pure fool to know God?

Steve Schwartz