Andrys Basten replies to me:

>>...  Almost every composer subsidizes himself or herself.  If there's so
>>little chance of earning a living, let alone supporting a family, on what
>>a composer makes from writing classical music, why should a composer cater
>>to anyone else? Why shouldn't a composer write according to personal
>>interest?
>
>But a plea is not a command, and so composers can of course do what they
>want.  I think the question is if a composer wants to survive, to support
>a family, by his/her music (though, as you suggest, that's an improbable
>situation), that the audience is probably to be considered, that's all, in
>at least some of the output.

I wish the world ran that way, but excepting film composers, almost no
composer, of whatever stripe (radical, conservative, middle-of-the-road)
makes money at this.  It doesn't seem to matter how considerate the
composer is of most of the audience.  Aaron Copland started making decent
money when he began to conduct, as did Stravinsky.  Vaughan Williams had
family money, as does Elliot Carter.

>No one's stopping anyone from writing whatever they want.  I think David
>was just asking for something that wasn't totally beyond the realm of the
>average person in a classical-music audience, as at least part of the
>output.

Some of it is, some isn't.  However, a lot of the audience isn't very
enterprising either.

>>...  Read Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective to find out all
>>the nasty things in print written about now-beloved composers by their
>>contemporaries.
>
>I have, and know almost no one who loves classical music who isn't very
>acquainted with that,, but these are composers who were experimenting and
>in some works alienating those behind them while also continuing to compose
>other works that helped them make a living.

There's also the rise of the passive listener, home electronics, and the
dominance of pop.  Before the twentieth century (or, more accurately, the
tail of the 19th), if you wanted music, you had to make it or buy a ticket.
The pop industry was intimately tied to the classical.  The 1890s changed
all this, with the rise of publishers exclusively devoted to pop.  The
industry became sharply bifurcate with the realization there was a whole
lot more to be made from pop.  Brahms, Dvorak, and Grieg, for example, made
their money from sheet music of songs, piano works, and two-piano or piano
4-hands arrangements of their orchestral works.  In Brahms's case, he also
made money in the Viennese stock market.  Because that much fewer people
play the piano with sufficient skill any more, sheet music is no longer all
that lucrative.

>>Brahms was condemned in much the same terms as Andrys slams present-day
>>music.
>
>Why generalize so easily? Where did I slam present-day music? I only said
>that composers should not depend on their audiences to study music theory.
>More on that further down.

I would answer that composers don't depend on this.  Your "slam" - although
I admit to overstatement - is that composers write music that depends on
technical knowledge for its appreciation.

>I was referring to a paragraph by Aaron that, in a succession of paragraphs
>detailed David's flaws in his personal perspective and spoke to what Aaron
>seemed to think were David's excuses for not spending more time on studying
>music theory ...

I agree that Aaron was simply giving helpful advice in a particular
instance.  I thought that you had generalized this to the State of Current
Affairs.  Sorry if I misunderstood.

>>I liked Schoenberg and Webern, for example, before I had any idea what
>>they were doing technically.  I had, on the other hand, heard a lot of
>>modern music.
>
>And many just don't react the way you have.  Obviously you are way ahead of
>the average classical-music listener.

I wouldn't say that at all.  I'm not "ahead." My tastes merely differ.
There's lots of music that flies over my head from all periods.  I just do
not see why we're treating modern and contemporary music as a special case.
I found Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, Schumann, and Mozart extremely hard to
get into, but it never occurred to me to say that these folks depended on
my technical knowledge.  Indeed, I knew pretty much what they were doing
technically.  I just didn't see why they wanted to do it.

>>audience will probably be angry or bored stiff.  It's like expecting an
>>audience of monolingual Anglophones to appreciate a reading of Chinese
>>poetry, exclusively in the original language.
>
>And that's how much of the audience feels.

So why not pull up one's socks and start doing the work? The reason I
don't learn Chinese is because English translations satisfy me right now,
and I'm fundamentally lazy.  The reason, I suppose, most people don't try
to understand contemporary music is because they have other music readily
available that satisfies them, and they're lazy or have limited time and
funds.  That's fine, but don't look wistfully off into the distance and
wonder why "composers aren't writing for us."

>Yes...  But there is also something going on in that when audiences go in
>to hear commissioned works, too often they will hear works that perhaps
>mirror these times while their hearts are back in the 19th Century.

See above.

>And so now we have some composers who are writing what others call
>"reactionary" works in that they are tonal.

That's too easy.  Right now, atonal/serial works are probably
"reactionary." But who cares about a label or a technique?

>So it's a matter of taste and emotional responses where paying audiences
>are concerned.  And they WANT to like new pieces.

Obviously, they don't want it badly enough.  They just feel guilty, for
some reason, about not liking new work, and guilt leads to resentment.
If you're satisfied with what you're listening to, why should you change?
This isn't a test.  On the other hand, don't blame the music.

>No matter how particular premieres might have audiences in former
>centuries, they at least were excited to go hear the latest work by
>someone.  Not so these days.

Well, entertainment options were far more limited and people were more
active as listeners.  Brahms, for example, published all his symphonies
*first* in 2-piano or piano 4-hands arrangements.  People bought the scores
and worked their way through them.  By the time they got to the premiere
of the orchestra version, they probably were far more familiar with the
music than the average concert-goer today is with even repertory staples.
Grieg's publisher used to run up a flag on the outside of the building to
let the public know that a new work by the composer was available.  He
often sold out the initial run in a day.

>>Until this situation changes, that segment of the audience who prefer to
>>whine for the Next Rachmaninoff (I like Rachmaninoff; I may even like the
>>Next One), rather than pull up their socks and make a serious effort to
>>engage what's out there, can spit in the wind, as far as I'm concerned.
>
>Perhaps it's that attitude which is a factor in turning audiences away from
>modern output.

I prefer to blame audience laziness, guilt, and resentment.  Let's face it:
we've had nearly 100 years of modern music, 50 of contemporary.  How many
people can name ten living composers in their own country? They turn away
from *all* modern and contemporary music, precisely because they don't know
much of it.  Otherwise, they'd resent this or that particular piece.  I've
no doubt that particular pieces have turned them off, but that brush is a
bit small to tar thousands of composers over close to a century.

Steve Schwartz