Dear Alex Ross, Thanks for the early Bjork history. Very interesting! (And thanks for your blog and work in general.) 2 minor points of disagreement with things you've said here... read more

I'm struck by the way most of us have been treating history very elastically. Instinctively, we look to the past to explain the present and predict the future, and because, as Richard Einhorn points out, we have such a great historical span at our fingertips, we take a very long view. That's potentially as misleading as having no sense of history at all. Einhorn sees a history of music "flattened" by the instant availability of everything, which may be the case for composers but is not terribly useful for critics. At the same time, focusing too much on precedent makes it difficult to see what is really new.

To say, as Charles Ward does, that sampling was tried centuries ago, is a little like saying that an automobile is just a glorified covered wagon. Sampling technology has given composers a radical new tool for the manipulation of sound, different in kind from borrowing or allusion. Hip-hop and Steve Reich's "City Life" are not equivalent to a Renaissance parody mass. Precedent is not equivalence.

Scott is right: Popular music is not new, but "pop music" with a global reach is. John is right, too: There is a fundamental difference between Debussy's exotic dip into gamelan, or Stravinsky's into ragtime, or Mozart's into "Turkish" music (really, now!) and the cultural blender in which virtually every composer lives today.

Those two things - global pop and the availabilty of music from so many times and so many places - are connected, and they come as close to a big idea as I think we're going to get. You can decry the corporate monopoly of pop music (which I gather is fading in any case), but  the same channels that bring Britney to Bangladesh also bring banghra to Queens.

It's interesting, too, how parochial most of this conversation has been. Aside from Bjork, virtually every musician we've named has been on the Anglo-American axis (and Bjork sings in English and lives with the artist Matthew Barney). but Surely one of the major incubators of popular music in the last 40 years has been Brazil? And we can't really get a complete picture of classical contemporary music without knowing a little about, say the Azerbaijani composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh? (Okay, she moved from Baku to Berlin a few years ago.) There is no longer any one musical center - or even three -  where everything of interest originates.

Listening to minimalist music in the ‘70s, it dawned on me that Steve Reich’s polyrhythms in Drumming and the punchy, ametrical rhythmic patterns of Phil Glass’s Music in Fifths offered a context in which one could create a new performance practice for the tempo clashes I loved in the musics of Ives, Cowell, and Nancarrow. I started exploring this territory in 1983 in a piece called Mountain Spirit. Over the next ten years, I learned that a lot of other composers born in the ‘50s had had the same idea at around the same time: Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Mikel Rouse, Michael Gordon, Ben Neill, John Luther Adams, David First, Lois Vierk, Art Jarvinen, Evan Ziporyn, Diana Meckley, Eve Beglarian, Larry Polansky, and to some extent Nick Didkovsky. Other composers developed related ideas in electronic media: Joshua Fried, Ron Kuivila, Carl Stone. Playing with tempo clashes of 4 against 5, 8 against 9, 13 against 29, and so on, this music was not at all minimalist, but in a way a complete subversion of minimalism. By 1991, I had written an article about the remarkably similar techniques used by these composers, unbeknownst to each other, and afterward the Big Idea we were all working on acquired a controversial name: totalism. We didn’t premeditatedly concoct this Big Idea: it appeared on the horizon of the collective unconscious and drew us all in.

There has been, in this conversation, some criticism of composers writing music for music’s sake, writing music that deals in merely technical issues instead of meaningful social ones. But in the early development of a Big Idea, this emphasis on technique is entirely necessary. You can’t suddenly, by sheer dint of will, write a political opera in a style only five years old. I’ve been heavily influenced by some of my contemporaries, especially Mikel Rouse, Bill Duckworth, and more recently Beth Anderson; and by that facile, threadbare word “influence,” I mean I stole from them both techniques and what I can only call a way of listening. I also heard things that I didn’t think worked, and attempted to correct other people’s failures in my own music. We all listened to each other, stole from each other, veered away from each other’s miscalculations. This is how a new style develops, and the value of a Big Idea that attracts a lot of composers is that a new musical language grows up that is not merely a product of one creative mind, but a collective contribution of many composers. (After all, to offer another of our historical parallels: the classical symphony began in the 1720s, but not until Haydn and Mozart started stealing from each other around 1780 did the style coalesce into something lasting. Mozart and Haydn wrote a hell of a lot of string quartets and piano concerti, heard for many years only by small groups of cognoscenti, before they were finally accomplished enough to write Don Giovanni and The Creation.)

In any musical language, some composers will eventually transcend the merely technical aspects, and some won’t. (Haydn and Mozart transcended, Wagenseil and Wanhal didn’t, but that doesn’t mean the latter pair’s contributions weren’t helpful; Wagenseil was Haydn’s first model.) In the case of totalism, most of us have attempted to write larger works of some social significance. Branca wrote symphonies for electric guitars which have an immense underground following. Mikel wrote a technologically sophisticated opera, Dennis Cleveland, based on a talk show format, which has been performed at Lincoln Center, around Australia, and elsewhere. Ben wrote a big multimedia piece about AIDS, ITSOFOMO, and has since become a rather successful crossover artist in the ambient field, even applying his style to commercial work. Gordon and Adams have had considerable success on the orchestra circuit and with recordings on Nonesuch and New World. I wrote a political music theater work about racism, Custer and Sitting Bull, which I’ve performed more than 25 times on three continents. With the single exception of myself, all of these composers had some background in pop or rock music, and many incorporated aspects of that music into what they were doing; if you want tempos to clash, a powerful backbeat is a good starting point. Some of these people wouldn’t call their music “classical” with a gun to their head.

Clearly no one in this forum thinks this is a Big Idea except me, but the jury’s going to be out for many years yet, and the record I’ve painted above is hardly that of a tree falling in the forest with no one hearing it. Except for Gordon and Adams once in a blue moon, classical critics are not going to run into any of this repertoire at their local Orchestra Hall, but that’s neither our fault nor our concern. In strictest terms, totalism was a ‘90s phenomenon, and many of us have moved away from this particular Big Idea in its purest form. The musical language has not entirely coalesced yet, but it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere at all without a lot of energetic cross-breeding.

Yet to read many of the recommendations from critics here, the message I see being sent to these composers is: GIVE UP. Imagine if this forum had appeared in the 1950s, and been read by Harry Partch while he was still struggling to create his microtonal orchestra in the face of massive institutional indifference. Partch would have read that he was a tree falling in the forest unheard, his recordings collected only by a handful. “Stop wasting your time on pure-music pieces like Castor and Pollux that just develop your new scale," he'd be told. "Imitate the pop musicians, Harry, that’s where the energy is. Quit bucking convention. CONFORM.” Had Harry listened, he would never have written Delusion of the Fury, never have become famous in the 1960s, never have become an incredible inspiration to subsequent generations of musicians. He did hear such messages, and ignored them. If this is truly the message that classical critics want to send to today’s composers: no composer worth his salt is going to pay the slightest attention to your recommendations, thank god.

And where were these Big Ideas, so central to their time, in the classical music of the '50s? Nowhere, I'd say. Where was existentialism? Psychoanalysis? The Beat Generation? - Sandow [ouch! take that, Harry Partch, who was the Kerouac of music]

I mean, maybe there's a big idea seizing those who write poetry in Urdu as a hobby, but can it legitimately be compared to chorale preludes on Lutheran hymn tunes or the birth of the symphony or "the music of the future" or even Serialism, back when? Trees falling unheard in forests, etc. - Rockwell

If I were a composer, I'd want to see what I could learn from each of these discoveries. I'd be particularly interested in how relatively simple harmonic designs go hand in hand with dizzying textural complexity. Pop music is full of fresh ideas about tonality. In this area, classical composers are lagging behind. - Ross [ALL classical composers? ALL? You've heard every one?]

It is beyond me why we would feel the need to search for big ideas--or worst yet, predict the next one--at a time, like now, when none is obviously rising to the surface. - Delacoma

[And I recall a comment about how pop music is more technologically sophisticated than new classical music, but to the relief of several thousand electronic composers, it seems to have been wisely withdrawn.]

It’s always easy to blame the composers, because, in any given generation, 90 percent of them are not going to write music that deserves to be remembered forever - as true in Mozart’s generation as today. Any well-founded generalization about composers will inevitably be to the disadvantage of the breed. “Of course there are exceptions...” but in art, it’s only the exceptions who count. Nevertheless, one of my points is that even the composers who never join anyone’s pantheon may significantly contribute to the development of a musical language. It takes a whole village to raise an -ism.

related reader post

I guess I don't read those excerpts the way you do. Alex has stated his preference for one set of composers over another, but not, I think, dissed the whole lot. Greg made a reasoned generalization, which is by definition going to leave out part of the picture. Overlooking Partch is not the same as telling all composers to shove it. Wynne's statement is about the topic of this discussion, not a wholesale attack on composers.

Richard, thanks for that clarification. I'm with you now, though it seems to me that discussing the relationship between money and music is not that far from discussing chronological development, since examining Mozart's finances is another way of putting his music in historical context.

It would be great to hear from more composers, by the way.  

Amid the problems of definition swirling around here, we all seem to be assuming that the big ideas we’re talking about are necessarily contained in new musical works. This is kind of ironic because (as this discussion demonstrates) the field of classical music doesn’t quite know how to deal with music that’s being written today. We can’t even agree on how to define it.

After following this debate, and thinking about something Greg said in an earlier posting about ideas in performance, it has struck me that the big ideas in the classical music field that stir up controversy, provoke the audience, and get discussed are about the performance of old music rather than the directions of new music. Take the whole early-music movement, arguably the biggest idea of the last 30 years (and one that, I believe, has affected how nearly every orchestra plays today).

And take stage direction in opera (Alex, this one’s for you, since I intimate from your earlier post that you’re going to do some Schlingensief-bashing in the near future). Some of it is atrocious; some of it is wonderful; but it’s the most consistently creative element in today’s rather moribund opera world, has had a pervasive effect, and plays a far larger role in making opera a contemporary art form than most of the new operas that are written (as I said in an earlier post).

Justin's point about music of non-European traditions is incredibly important. I've been noticing how few Europeans are cropping these days on my own ever-revolving personal lists of significant living composers. I wrote up a "top 10 works of the last 10 years" for BBC Music Magazine a couple of years ago, and I was amazed to find not a single German, Italian, or French name on my list. Instead, three Americans (Reich, Adams, Carter), two Englishmen (Knussen, Adès), an Argentinian (Golijov), two Finns (Lindberg, Saariaho), a Transylvanian (Ligeti), and a rock band (Radiohead). Still pretty Anglo-American, I know, but very different from what I might have come up with 10 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised to find my list a decade from now filled with South American, African, and Asian names. What composers/works would the rest of you name as the most striking of the last few years? Why do they stand out?

Reply to Anne: I'll agree that modern opera production can have a galvanic effect. Schlingensief's Parsifal was not, to my taste, a case in point. Director-opera obviously serves as a substitute for new opera; directors are essentially recomposing operas and presenting them as world premieres. I'll agree, tentatively, that the genre "plays a far larger role in making opera a contemporary art form than most of the new operas that are written." But I think it's a really tragic state of affairs, one that opera houses should try to reverse by seeking out bold new opera at every opportunity. Alas, they have so little incentive to do so.

I'll be out of town til Monday, so here are all-purpose rejoinders to any further internecine assaults: Wrong! Absolutely not! Are you kidding me? You sound like Adorno! Six of one, half dozen of the other! Busoni is rolling in his grave! etc.

A couple contributors have mentioned they'd be curious to hear from composers themselves. At the risk of making this blog a little Seattle-centric, let me try to describe what's going on in the compositional scene here with regard to the "Big Idea" idea... read more

We needed it in the '90s for a very practical reason, because we were sick and tired of critics calling us minimalists (which we weren't), and it was holding back public perception of our music. (It worked beautifully, by the way - none of us was ever called a minimalist again.) And I sort of thought discussing such movements was the point of this blog. Sorry.

Twice I've crafted incredibly thoughtful postings, hit "publish" and seen them disappear. I also can't read the continuations of the readers' letters. So much for my hailing technology as one of the next big ideas.

What I had written was a kind of response to Kyle, bascially lamenting how high/low had taken over this conversation and stripped away the veneer of politeness to reveal all the old prejudices and resentments. I worry sometimes that the composers Kyle champions are those left over from the 70's who haven't "made it," making it being not topping the charts but winning the respect of fellow composers and fellow artists and enough critics to earn a place in the broader conversation. The point about Partch is well taken, but eventually he did make it, and a lot of Kyle's over-50's have not, and probably will not. For that, I think, it's tired to blame the pop-music business or misguided critics or a cruel and uncaring world.

But this blog is supposed to be about big ideas, not big music, or even pretty darn good music. So back to the beginning: for me, present-day big ideas include high/low, Western/non-Western and technology in all its forms. Ideas don't produce music; they reflect it. But there are enough ideas, and enough good composers out there, to make me optimistic.

Loved Alex's all-purpose polemical repostes.

Reader Gary Panetta asks: Where's music's Toni Morrison?

No composer, at least anytime recently, has entered the public consciousness with anything like the breadth of Ms. Morrison. That's a function of the lower profile of "serious" music in general. Everyone gets taught at least some literature in school, but rarely music. Reading--if only directions for connecting the DVD player--is part of daily life. Music is an elective, and beyond singing the simplest tune it can seem a hopelessly arcane one.

Decades ago, Ned Rorem pointed out that well-educated people who could discuss the latest authors, artists and filmmakers often ventured no further than Peter, Paul and Mary when it came to music. Most Americans can read English, but very few can read music. I'm not sure "art" music--whatever we want to call it--is as near death as some suggest, but it's definitely a minority pursuit, right down there with jazz.

There was a time when Benjamin Britten was widely known in England and Shostakovich in the Soviet Union. I wonder if America has ever had so high-profile a composer. Even the remarkably versatile and outgoing Copland. Bernstein was famous for his conducting and TV programs.

John raises the issue of which composers "make it" and which don't. Has anyone figured out a formula for this? I think I know why we value Beethoven more than Hummel, but library shelves may well groan beneath yards and yards of unjustly forgotten music.

I'm a great devote of the English composer Herbert Howells--ever heard of him? Wrote elegant music, as exquisitely orchestrated as Ravel, deeply emotional at times. You can hear a number of his works on CD, but even in England his music rarely appears in the concert hall.

Today? Well, John Adams certainly seems to be successful, but how many well-educated people actually know his name or his music? Jake Heggie and Mark Adamo must be chortling all the way to the bank with their unashamedly populist operas. Is that "success?" Rouse, Torke, Saariaho, Andriessen, Part, Hersch, Ades all probably pay their bills by composing. Lowell Liebermann says he has a six-figure income from composing. Is that success?

No way do we know what composers history will judge the major figures of our age. And who's to say history will be right? 

I love what Anne wrote, following my thought on new ideas about performance:

Take the whole early-music movement, arguably the biggest idea of the last 30 years (and one that, I believe, has affected how nearly every orchestra plays today).

And take stage direction in opera…Some of it is atrocious; some of it is wonderful; but it’s the most consistently creative element in today’s rather moribund opera world, has had a pervasive effect, and plays a far larger role in making opera a contemporary art form than most of the new operas that are written (as I said in an earlier post).

And I'd add a couple of other things. First, a real-life example of creative freedom in performance -- David Daniels singing Les nuits d'été. (Thanks, Anne, for telling me about that.)

Plus what Anne noted in her Times piece this morning about Mostly Mozart: programming that instead of treating music historically, instead tries to find links between things that are on the surface very different.

Other big ideas around right now are about classical music's survival, something we haven't touched on yet here (unless I missed something, which wouldn't surprise me). I've said in my ArtsJournal blog that I'm now hearing, in private, a level of pessimism about classical music's future that I've never encountered before, from people involved with major orchestras (some of them -- the people, not the orchestras -- with impeccably conservative pedigrees). So one new idea might go like this: If we don't make drastic changes, classical music is doomed.

Of course, that's not so much an idea as a call for ideas, and the one place I'd say with some confidence that things are going is toward the community. Orchestras are growing very interested in the cities around them, and the role in those cities they play. What will that mean for music itself? I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, or start wailing that music's going to be dumbed down. It could just as well grow smarter, as orchestras find ways to connect their musical ideals with an audience, especially one made up of the smart cultured people 50 and under (to give an approximate age) who right now don't give a spit about classical music. To some of these people, the classical mainstream sounds middlebrow, and far too much like movie music. They need smarter classical concerts,  not dumber ones.

But why would you assume that, John? Wouldn't it be worth finding out? I'm talking mostly about people who graduated college between '75 and '83, so calling them "left over from the '70s" is a little harsh. Might'nt one have said the same thing about Morton Feldman in 1974, when he was the same age I am now, and when he hadn't yet written any of his really great music except Rothko Chapel? Or Conlon Nancarrow in 1960, aged 48, when he had done nothing but write 30 player piano studies of whose existence the world was completely unaware? Or Robert Ashley in 1978, just starting work on Perfect Lives? What's the cutoff age?

"No composer, at least anytime recently, has entered the public consciousness with anything like the breadth of Ms. Morrison." For that matter, how many pop musicians have entered the public consciousness with anything like the breadth of Ms. Morrison? Worse yet... read more