tpter1

I agree somewhat, Manny. But here I must depart a bit: Strauss, Beethoven, Vivaldi, I agree never had those devices for electronic accompaniment available to them. However, Beethoven deviated seriously from the norm of his contemporaries in his musical adventures. This was, as we know, cause for major reproach from his critics who felt his music was bombastic, unplayable noise. But he was such a master at development of small ideas; of taking small melodic fragments or even seemingly non-melodic ideas and turning them into wonderful, beautiful and moving expressions, working counterpoint on par with J.S. Bach.

However, when Strauss incorporated the sonic scape he uses in Ein Alpinsinfonie, painting masterfully scenes that you could close your eyes and visualize, he was in effect using instruments in ways not yet thought of. This must have been disturbing at those first few rehearsals to those involved.

Making use of taped electronic accompaniment requires from the composer a great deal of thought, and presents a great challenge to the composer: he is stripped of elements of pitch and rhythm in some cases, (much like a photographer working in black and white) and must rely on his ability to manipulate sound logically to convey his message. In Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gesang der Jungling (Song of the Youth) we are immediately plunged into a lonley and desolate world; purity and truth are the only salvation. The first sound is like when you dive in water; the feeling is much the same and is followed by a pure boy soprano's voice, distant and reassuring.

It would be very easy for someone to abuse electronics, aleatoric techniques, and extended techniques and call themselves a composer. But I do not think their music would stand the test of time as Beethoven et al have.

So...for me, anyway, the artistic message is similar, although the method of delivery varies. It goes beyond sounds and silences for sure; meaning must be there. It must touch you in some way; be it disturbing, pleasing or whatever. I must come away from a piece feeling something. I don't know that the Cage piece or any other conception piece (you can't really say he "composed" 4'33", now can you?) of his does that per se; yet they do challenge our notion of what music really is, so his message is conveyed.

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-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting

wrbandel

[The first year and half of the performance was total silence]

And THAT's considered music. I wish I could go to a gig, hold up my horn not playing, and still get paid for it. Oh, but I am playing music, the silence is my interpretation of the song.

trickg

Once when I was in High School, my longtime mentor and friend, Mr. C were going to collaborate and have me "perform" John Cage's "piano" piece 4:33. In case anyone is wondering what this is, basically a person sits at a piano, lifts the cover from the keys, sits there in silence fo 4:33, closes the lid and then leaves. The idea is that the music is created from the ambient sounds in the room. Anyway, my friend is an accomplished classical pianist and were were going to arrange to have another piano in the room and while I was sitting there placidly, he was going to rip out either a Mozart or Mendelsohn piano sonata on the other piano. Unfortuantely, we never did it.

In my opinion, the bizarre works by John Cage are nothing more than novelties with the sole purpose for giving himself notoriety as a composer that he would have otherwise been unable to garner for himself with real compositions, but that is just an opinion, of course.

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Patrick Gleason
email me at: trickg1@hotmail.com

"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
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