Leighton Gill responds to me:
>>What's so simple about writing a string quartet?
>
>Who said it was simple?
You did, and I quote:
"Now he can't even write a simple String Quartet, without having to
incorporate theatrical gimmicks such as four helicopters."
Have you actually heard this work, or do you feel you don't need to?
>>By the way, what about string quartets with the addition of voice or
>>some obbligato instrument? Are those theatrical gimmicks as well?
>
>Of course not. The most obvious answer is that, say, a clarinet quintet
>has the addition of a clarinet, which is a musical instrument, whereas a
>helicopter is not.
You know, some very learned people in the 19th century claimed that the
triangle wasn't a musical instrument and used that interesting "fact" to
trash Liszt's first piano concerto.
>And later claims that Beethoven could not master quartet writing:
>
>>Talk to a string player. His parts get rewritten all the time.
>
>Yeah, right. His quartets are probably the most revered chamber works ever
>composed, yet they are so shoddily written that string players have to redo
>Beethoven's work for him? This is laughably implausible.
Not really. If you read carefully, you'd realize that I wasn't talking
about the merits of the music as music at all - simply on Beethoven's
mastery of string writing, which, if you talk to string players, is less
than idiomatic. Does it make a difference to the quality of the music?
Not at all. There are plenty of composers who do write idiomatically for
strings and who write dull music. To paraphrase Ives, if Beethoven had
really understood string technique, he might have become Paganini. The
point is, again, that even a master has difficulty mastering all aspects
of string quartet writing. Players learn to overcome these difficulties,
because the music's so good. Furthermore, most orchestral auditions for
string players include passages from Beethoven's symphonies, mainly because
they're NOT idiomatic and the committee wants to see whether players have
done their homework.
>>Neither Beethoven nor Brahms - as opposed to Dvorak - were string players,
>>but pianists.
>
>Well, here's the danger of not knowing what you are talking about. Anyone
>who has read his Thayer knows that Beethoven was a violist in the Court
>Orchestra in Bonn before leaving for Vienna, and there are accounts of him
>playing the viola part with the cellist Schuppanzigh in his duo "Mit zwei
>Obligaten Augenglasern."
Oh dear. My bad. But it certainly didn't manage to translate to the parts
he actually wrote.
>Oh, poor, Beethoven! You managed to compose masterpiece after masterpiece,
>but hang your head in shame because you have failed to impress Schwatrzo.
>If only you could rise to the musicianship of the great Stockhausen! But,
>then, it's not entirely Beethoven's fault because aircraft with rotating
>blades were not yet invented in his day.
Well, that's one straw man that won't get up again any time soon.
>Secondly, a "composition" fails to be music if it cannot be ruined by a
>musician's failure to carry out the composer's instructions. If a musician
>were to do a shoddy job of playing a Stockhausen work, how on Earth would
>anyone know?
The same way you'd know from listening to a Beethoven piece:
1. By knowing the score
2. By having heard the work several times before
3. By knowing the general style
Does any apply to you in the case of Stockhausen's string quartet? It
doesn't to me, because I've never heard the work, and I try to avoid
praising or condemning something I've never heard.
>If I were listening to, say, a Haydn Quartet for the first time, and one
>of the musicians, instead of playing his part, began to play notes at
>random, few would fail to notice that something was going horribly awry.
Only because they know the general style, if they don't know the score or
haven't heard the piece before.
>But if a musician were to do that in an atonal quartet (Stockhausen's or
>anyone else's), not only would few, if, if anyone, notice, but all four
>of them could do it and the result might even be an improvement.
Because YOU couldn't do it, only music nerds could? It's an odd situation
when someone has to apologize for actually knowing something. But even
this is an admission that someone could tell. So your point goes by the
boards. And, by the way, Stockhausen doesn't always write atonally. In
fact, some of his works are as do-mi-so as you could want. What has he
done in the string quartet?
>I've read that some of Stockhausen's works (as well as those of other 20th
>century hacks), are, in fact, mere random notes. Why do the players even
>bother tuning their instruments?
Because the randomness is "controlled randomness." The composer does
provide instructions as to how to go about generating those notes, although
he doesn't specify pitch or duration. Some people are apparently more
curious than others as to the result.
Steve Schwartz
|