A book I want to read: Taruskin's The Danger of Music - and Other Anti-Utopian Essays.

By -

Tom Service of the Guardian wrote a review of the book "The Danger of Music - and Other Anti-Utopian Essays" by Richard Taruskin. According to the review:

The book is full of broadsides against the lazy thinking of musical establishments: the modernist juggernaut that Taruskin sees as hijacking critical thinking about music in the academy in the mid-century, the sort of kneejerk reaction that, "if it's difficult and nobody likes it, it must be good"; the emerging practices of early music, and the idea that what Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner were up to in the 80s amounted to "authenticity" - Taruskin's elegant and brilliant rebuttal is that they are modernists, performers whose Beethoven and Mozart is of our time, not of the 18th or 19th centuries; and above all, the facile assumption of music's much-vaunted universality, and its supposed status as the highest and most ethereal of the arts. On every page, Taruskin reminds you how messy, dirty, and yes, dangerous, the works of western classical music and their reception have been.

These are the sorts of things I've been trying to say about Modern Classical Music and obviously no where near as elegantly done, or as substantiated. Still, it's nice to think that what I have been thinking isn't so far off from what other's far more respected in the field of musicology have been saying for 20 years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more