Alternative classical

I’m always flattered, when I’m linked on the main ArtsJournal site. And today’s link gives me a chance to add something to my column this month in NewMusicBox, which is where the link goes.

In this column, I suggest a new term for new classical music — “alternative classical,” a useful term, I think, because it addresses two things: First, that much of new classical music doesn’t sound classical (though it uses classical techniques), and second, that there’s an audience already tuned to alternative pop, that would like a lot of “alternative classical” music, if only it didn’t think that music carries the classical taint. Calling it “alternative” could help us move beyond that.

But here’s something I didn’t address. Is all new classical music alternative? No way! Mine isn’t, for instance. I think what I write is rooted very strongly, maybe too strongly, in the classical music past. Elliott Carter’s music isn’t alternative; to me, at least, it carries the formality, even the self-importance, of the classical concert hall. (Or, to be more polemical, the formality and self-importance that the music we call classical didn’t have when it was written in past centuries, but developed in the past century, as the classical concert hall retreated from the world at large.)

But maybe I’m wrong about Carter. Maybe, in an alternative classical context, his would sound alternative, too. (Maybe Bach would sound alternative as well, which, come to think of it, is a wonderful way to preserve and extend the classical music past — present it in the light of new music.) In New York, the concerts I’d call alternative classical don’t tend to offer music like Carter’s, but maybe that’s not true elsewhere, and maybe it’s too limiting. We could have fabulous debates over what new classical music is alternative, and what isn’t. David Del Tredici (outrageous neo-romaticism) — alternative! Ned Rorem (safely traditional, no matter how drop-dead classy the best of his songs are) — not alternative!

Everything Kyle Gann praises in his wonderful blog is alternative. Though that’s the least of the reasons I love his blog so much.