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
I read things like Peter Maxwell Davies' program notes for his Naxos Quartet No. 3 and I can't help wondering if they are intended to be useful to the listener or simply a bit of intellectual showing off. Obviously, composers (and other artists) have no control over how their work is perceived once it is presented in public. It really doesn't matter much what Max or any other composer thought he put into the piece or what he or she was thinking at the time; listeners will find (or not) their own points of reference. I don't remember ever going to a Bergman film and being handed a piece of paper that explained what I was about to see. Are program notes really useful? Why do you write them?
posted by Jerry Bowles
10:58 AM
