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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
A composer and Harvard professor wonders whether his craft has been left behind by a world with no patience for Great Art.
Oct 2, 2002 | If recruiting for composers were done in the want ads, nobody in their right mind would sign up.
WANTED: Contemporary "classical" music composers. Preparation should ideally begin before age 7. At least 15 years of eye-straining, backbreaking, unpaid or even costly efforts will eventually be met with, at best, hostility or, more likely, with indifference. Financial prospects vary from nonexistent (in many cases negative) to mediocre. Only one out of several thousand applicants need even dream of a subsistence income from their music. Potential bonus: A small percentage of applicants may be offered greater financial security in return for training future postulants in a well-organized and highly successful structure similar to that of a pyramid scheme.
Yet in spite of the seeming irrationality of the choice, an unending stream of young men and women consecrate themselves to writing a sort of music that they know from the outset will never be popular, for an audience that does not want what they have to offer. Maybe it's like what they say about cigarettes: Unsuspecting youths are lured in before the age of rationality. Or maybe all kinds of lies and false promises are made. In any case, this curious situation deserves closer scrutiny.
There are lots of discussions in the world of "serious," "classical" or "concert" music (whatever you want to call it) about the so-called rupture between composers and audiences. Much of the writing about this rupture falls into the following seven broad categories:
1) Composers attacking audiences for not making the personal investment necessary to "understanding" their art.
2) Critics bemoaning the inaccessibility of today's composers.
3) Critics lauding one or another newly arrived "revolutionary" composer, whose revolution usually consists of using the classical instrumentarium to produce works that sound like pale imitations of popular music, or like something a particularly hopeless student of Brahms might have come up with. (Pandering is considered both positive and progressive in this context. It's like lauding as revolutionary a sex therapist who advocates "rediscovering the missionary position.")
4) "Serious" critics beseeching listeners to make the personal investment that the composers mentioned in Category 1 just berated them for not having made up until now.
5) Pessimistic pieces about the future of "classical" music, usually citing the poor demographics for season-ticket holders or donations to major musical organizations.
6) Optimistic pieces hailing some organization or composer's marketing efforts that seem, at least temporarily, to have successfully hoodwinked some sought-after market segment (usually young concertgoers). In the saddest version of this story, part of the ever diminishing resources dedicated to culture are expended on a multimillionaire rock star performing pop tunes with orchestral accompaniment in a so-called effort to reach new audiences. (Perhaps this outreach is effective in winning some orchestra patrons over to pop music.)
7) The ever popular "human interest" profile, apparently meant to convince us that if the composer is likable, hating the music is somehow petty.
While potentially interesting, none of those approaches gets to the heart of the matter. I would venture that the real issue at hand is not the music itself and that therefore no stylistic discussion -- no matter how intellectually probing or unabashedly populist -- will address the underlying subject: the position of art in contemporary society. Now, talking about art is almost as hard as talking about music (which is essentially impossible). But we can't address either the reasons that composers are drawn to writing this type of music or the reasons that audiences reject contemporary works (or are totally indifferent to them) without confronting the A-word head-on.
By focusing on the blame game -- is it the fault of the composers or the audiences? -- we ignore a fundamental difference between what composers think they're offering and what audiences think they're getting, or think they should be getting. Traditionally, most composers have held a deeply felt, almost religious belief in "Art." I know I do. This is what leads us to the profession despite the unpleasantly poor hourly wage it brings most of us.
We believe that if through determination, hard work and talent, we are able to make truly great works of art, sooner or later people will grapple with these works, come to see their value, and develop the sense of awe we feel in the presence of true masterpieces.
This is not to say many composers are certain that they themselves are writing masterpieces. The belief has more to do with the possibility of masterpieces and a confidence that such works will inevitably, even if belatedly, be recognized. Ultimately, we share what some may view as an embarrassingly corny and idealistic view of art: We believe it enriches the world, whether or not the world knows or cares. This belief depends on the idea of intrinsic value.
Faith in the value of art depends on a second, less obvious, premise, just as most religions' beliefs in a divine creator are predicated on a belief in an immaterial human soul. To believe in art, one has to believe in abstract criteria of worth or value. This notion, which is profoundly out of fashion today, has formed the underpinning of artistic endeavor in the West for a long time.
Here's what I mean: A great work is still great even if fashion or society or the cultural institutions of the time reject it entirely. There are essential qualities in the form, shape, phrasing, ideas and a million other harder-to-isolate elements of the piece that, when combined, will ultimately determine the worth of the art object -- its greatness or lack thereof.
Franz Kafka died virtually unknown, a total failure. But he was a great writer even before his work was discovered by posterity. A Rembrandt hanging in the forest would still be great, even if no one ever got to see it. Partisans in the "culture wars" of the 1980s and early '90s tried to attack these notions, but that battle mixed up the issue of what should be in the canon of great art with the question of whether there should be a canon at all.
