fable's Q&A on classical music

[Mr Sleep]

How much effect has other media had on Classical Music, for instance the music used in 2001 a space oddesy was largely ignored previous to the movies release, now it is on every compilation album and played quite regularly on Classic FM and is always high on their top 100.

(my 2001 "fact" is hear say from a show i saw a couple of years back, it might be untrue)

[fable]

Originally posted by Rob-hin
What whould Mozart and Beethoven and all those guys think/say if they saw the music they loved so much, beiing used in Tom and Jerry etc. cartoons?

I suppose it would depend on the personality of the original, and the purpose for his/her music's use. It's hard to predict reactions. Wagner, who thought of music as High Art, particularly his music, would have probably been horrified at its transformation into cartoons. (Elmer Fudd running away singing, in tones out of the opera Die Walkure, "Kill the Wabbit, kill the Wabbit...!") Beethoven would have sued the various PR firms and their clients who have used his music to sell products. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, might have been amused, and simply gone to court to demand his cut of the residuals.

[fable]

Originally posted by HighLordDave
\Do you think that men like John Williams, Michael Kamen and others who have made a living and repuation composing movie scores deserve to be considered classical composers?

I have very little respect for modern composers who simply lift music from long-dead composers who can't sue, and present it as their own work. That goes for Hamlish (The Sting), Williams (Star Wars), etc. Nor am I alone in this opinion. In fact, many composers will have nothing to do with Williams and others like him, calling them thieves and worse.

But genuine film music writing in the classical manner is a very complex discipline, and many fine composers have taken part in this: Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Copland, Moross, Herrmann, Auric, Bliss and Thomson are some of the most highly rated 20th century composers who have worked on many fine film scores. Often, they've excerpted movements from these scores for publication and concert hall performance. In other cases, the works have simply been re-performed, complete, on recordings.

[fable]

Originally posted by C Elegans


Heh, I have a few myself, maybe 30 or so, they were terribly difficult to find and those I have I mostly bought in Russia. Should I ever decide to change my career and become a burglar, I know where I will strike first!

Only if you show up in one of your red lace bras.

Speaking about the Russian tradition, you know my absolute favorite music is Shostakovitch. What do you think about his autobiography, "Testimony"? I have heard claims that it is not authentic, but I never understood why it wouldn't be.

Shostakovich is one of my personal favorites, too. As for Testimony-- the Debate Rages On! There's an excellent little unsigned summation of the argument about Testimony over on Artsworld. Allow me to quote some excerpts:

"Testimony, Shostakovich's life story as told to the emigré Russian journalist Solomon Volkov, was claimed to be a result of conversations with the composer in the 1970s....The book revealed a disillusioned man, disappointed with the socialist regime; and more importantly, a composer who in his life and work openly criticised and satirised the system. This flatly contradicted the perceived image of the loyal Communist, who wrote music for Soviet public celebrations and in honour of important events in Soviet history, as well as scores for films which conveyed the Soviet point of view and glorified Stalin in heroic terms...

"Quickly two camps evolved. Following socialist nomenclature they were divided into revisionists (the "Volkovists") - defending the new image of Shostakovich as a crypto-dissident - and anti-revisionists, the "Taruskinites" (after their chief representative Richard Taruskin) presenting him as a cynical opportunist and sycophant. Over the last 20 years much ink, both real and virtual, has been spilled analysing the biography and his life, and his works have been painstakingly investigated for hints of open or hidden criticism...

"Those seeking coded messages in Shostakovich's music don't have to look very far. His wilful contortion of martial themes for example, his seemingly mindless and endless repetitions of Stalin's favourite tunes, and everywhere his dark humour and irony, were understood and interpreted accordingly by audiences under tyranny.

"In his Seventh Symphony, the Leningrad, a banal tune (the notorious 'invasion march') is repeated 12 times with gathering menace and brutality. Is it a picture of the invading German army, or of the horrific machine of oppression that Stalin created?

"The pro-Testimony lobby point to several claims made by 'Shostakovich' talking in the book which were proved true. For instance, the book referred to a satirical cantata viciously pillorying Stalin at a meeting of deputies in 1948, when Shostakovich was under public censure. The work was totally unknown at the time, but years later, the manuscript turned up: it was for a cantata Rayok, subtitled A Manual for Beginners.

"Anti-Testimony writers insist that Volkov faked the whole book. They talk about the opening pages of each chapter that Shostakovich signed, Volkov said, to prove the book's authenticity. Researchers subsequently spotted that the text on those opening pages was taken verbatim from official speeches by Shostakovich. The unsigned pages had all the juicy stuff, suggesting to them that Volkov had staged a confidence trick...

"The generally accepted conclusion in the West now is that Shostakovich's early enthusiasm for the revolution waned quickly, and from the time he was denounced by Stalin for his opera Lady Macbeth in 1936 to his final years of illness, he was a disillusioned and embittered man; and that Testimony, while containing some aspects of dubious provenance, is mostly true and certainly an authentic picture."

That summarizes pretty much my own view, as well. I see Volkov as an opportunist who took advantage of a truth: that Shostakovich, a loyal Communist, also hated the various regimes he lived under, particular Stalin, and wrote some music filled with satirical messages against the rulers. What seems odd in all this to me is that hardly anybody realized that Shostakovich was nose-thumbing the Soviet rulers before Volkov came along.

[fable]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
How much effect has other media had on Classical Music, for instance the music used in 2001 a space oddesy was largely ignored previous to the movies release, now it is on every compilation album and played quite regularly on Classic FM and is always high on their top 100.

Hmmmm...if I understand you correctly, the actual influence works the other way around: classical music has begun over the last couple of decades to have a considerable use (once more) in films, and as background in commercials. There's an enormous gold mine out there of the stuff to anybody who truly needs music to suit a specific emotional purpose; few people are simply aware of the resource. I keep thinking back to a film about Pol Pot's horrifying brutal and dehumanizing Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, called the Killing Fields, that was very popular: it used Strauss' Four Last Songs to provide a philosophical message. Then, there was the use of the Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, while Woody Allen re-used a film score composed by Prokofiev forty years before in his Love and Death.

I hope that answers your question. If I'm misunderstanding it, please try again, and I'll do my best to get it right this time.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Originally posted by fable
I keep thinking back to a film about Pol Pot's horrifying brutal and dehumanizing Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, called the Killing Fields, that was very popular: it used Strauss' Four Last Songs to provide a philosophical message.

I have the soundtrack to this film, IIRC the music for it was by and large done by Mike Oldfield, no?

[fable]

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
I have the soundtrack to this film, IIRC the music for it was by and large done by Mike Oldfield, no?

Yes, but--do you remember the composition that the Cambodian boy who accompanies the Western "hero" through the film listens to, all the time? The work he describes as having an unearthly beauty. Those were Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs, as he mentions. They are featured several times during the film. Rather than being composed to create an atmosphere alone, they also feature in the plot in a sense, as an example of the character's striving for something ideal, something that reaches beyond the horror of the environment.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Originally posted by fable


Yes, but--do you remember the composition that the Cambodian boy who accompanies the Western "hero" through the film listens to, all the time? The work he describes as having an unearthly beauty. Those were Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs, as he mentions. They are featured several times during the film. Rather than being composed to create an atmosphere alone, they also feature in the plot in a sense, as an example of the character's striving for something ideal, something that reaches beyond the horror of the environment.

Regrettably I have yet to see the film, and it's been a while since listened to the CD.
Another thing to do soon, methinks.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by fable
I hope that answers your question. If I'm misunderstanding it, please try again, and I'll do my best to get it right this time.

What i actually meant was to what degree do other media such as films effect the notoriety of certain classical compositions. Also is this a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? You have sort of answered my question anyway, but i thought i might clarify what i meant

[fable]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep


What i actually meant was to what degree do other media such as films effect the notoriety of certain classical compositions. Also is this a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? You have sort of answered my question anyway, but i thought i might clarify what i meant

I see. Well, films (also radio back in the golden age and television) can make classical compositions into overnight popular hits by the crossover phenomenon. Examples of this include the slow movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto #22 in "Elvira Madigan," of the opening bars of Richard Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Many people heard these pieces of music for the first time only by watching a movie, a tv show, etc.

The problem with crossover hits is that the 30 second sound bite people enjoy seldom represents the original well, so that while the movie may sell a particular classical (or jazz, or whatever) work, it often creates a sense of disatisfaction with the results. This doesn't make using classical works a bad idea in films, or selling the results as soundtracks a bad idea, afterwards. It just means that purchasers need a sense of reasonable expectation for what they're getting. Potentially, crossovers supply a great opportunity for buyers to expand their musical horizons. In actual fact, most people don't care to expand their musical horizons, and only want a few easily hummable tunes. I'd like to think that the opportunity to sample and understand something new and different is worth all the effort, but not everybody agrees with me on this.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by fable
I see. Well, films (also radio back in the golden age and television) can make classical compositions into overnight popular hits by the crossover phenomenon.

That is what i thought, thanks for the reply fable

[fable]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
That is what i thought, thanks for the reply fable

Sure thing. Hey, it's what I'm paid the big money for, here, open 24 hours a day to help with your classical needs. Any further questions along these lines?

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by fable
Sure thing. Hey, it's what I'm paid the big money for, here, open 24 hours a day to help with your classical needs. Any further questions along these lines?

*Mails cheque for $150*

What (in your opinion) is the greatest scandal of classical music, the one event that caused the most commotion.

[fable]

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
What (in your opinion) is the greatest scandal of classical music, the one event that caused the most commotion.

There have always been first-night scandals, performances of works that caused arguments and even fistfights among members of the audience. In the long run, however, the excitement died down. Some of the worst offenders are now standard repertoire, like Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

More long-lasting in its effects was the "Affair Ravel." Maurice Ravel--now universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century--studied at the Paris Conservatoire when it was a bastion of the kind of stuffy, conservative bureaucrats that only France seems to know the secret of.

Now, in 19th century France it was common for most enterprising students with acknowledged talent to apply for, and receive, the so-called Prix de Rome, a prize that supports the recipient modestly but sufficiently on a trip to Rome, for a year, where they were expected to study other aspects of the arts and send back one or two pieces of music demonstrating their increasing skill. Debussy and Bizet were among those who received the Prix de Rome, and profitted by it. Ravel, who submitted his early works (now acknowledged to be masterpieces) for consideration, was denied the prize *five times.* When he submitted his famous String Quartet the fifth time, and the judges simply returned it saying that he was now "too old" to apply, there was a huge uproar in the press. Here was a student, already regarded as one of the leading compositional lights of France, and he was being denied a prize in favor of pet mediocrities by a leading government institution.

The result was that heads rolled. The top job at the Conservatoire was given to Gabriel Faure, Ravel's teacher, and arguably the only open-minded musician at the Conservatoire. A quiet, amiable, refined man, Faure promptly began cleaning out the Conservatoire's dead wood, leading to him being nicknamed Caligula by the staff. The entire Conservatoire was reorganized. Ravel never did get his Prix de Rome, but it can be said that this single scandal completely shook up the French musical establishment and caused the loss of several senior level government posts.

[Gwalchmai]

1) Surely Beethoven’s hearing loss affected the quality of his music, don’t you think?

2) Why are orchestra members paid so little? So many State and local orchestras across the country seem to be floundering. Do you think this trend will continue and eventually we’ll be left with only a few major, under funded National orchestras? (My older brother was a concert cellist with a PhD from Yale. Unable to earn a moderate living, he quit and is now a lawyer *shudder*)

3) Have you ever been to the Santa Fe Opera?

4) What do you think of Peter Schickele?