Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019
Yesterday's avant garde is today's establishment. Kyle Gann and Alex Ross and our own Lawrence Dillon have been discussing the younger generation's rejection of tonality and miminalism in favor of dissonance and noise. Perhaps this trend is the usual "generation gap" rebellion--if your parents did it, it can't be cool--or maybe it's about being hip and "new." No serious young painter would choose to become an "impressionist," for example. It's been done. It's unlikely that a young composer would choose to be a minimalist for the same reason.
Tonality, it seems to me, is a different matter, more akin to "realistic" painting which is seldom in fashion but refuses to go away. There will always be artists who paint flower pots that look like flower pots and some of them will make a decent living at it. By the same token, there will always be composers who write music that is "classical" (i.e., old dead Europeans)with new twists. What are your thoughts about the generation gap?
posted by Jerry Bowles
10:14 AM
