# Music made to order



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*...or would you like fries with that?*

Australian musicologist Andrew Ford writes:

_The idea that great music may be composed to order sits uneasily in the modern public consciousness. Most people like to believe that a symphony is inspired by some higher power - higher than a commissioning body, that is - and that the notes cannot just be summoned at will. Popular culture presents high art as the product of tormented souls, of artists struggling with their personal demons, usually culminating in one of those sudden flashes of Inspiration when the Art comes pouring out. We've all seen it in films...

But you cannot write the sheer quantity of music that Bach, Haydn and Mozart did with inspiration alone. This level of creative output does not happen if you sit around waiting to feel inspired. True inspiration, as the artist Eugene Delacroix observed, is being at your desk by nine in the morning. It is also recognising when you have come up with something that really works. Artists are researchers, inventors, continually trying things out. Like scientific researchers, composers have hunches and they perform experiments...It is time consuming, this research, and composers must eat, so somehow the work has to be funded...

In the second half of the twentieth century the job of funding artistic experimentation often fell to governments, either directly or, as with a lot of scientific research, through universities...But the composers of the classical era, of Haydn's time, were never likely to be awarded government grants. The great patron of music in eighteenth-century Europe was the aristocracy, and it was a rare prince indeed who demanded experimentation. Mostly, princes liked to be amused..._

(Ford goes on in this chapter on Haydn to discuss basically how amazing it is how this composer managed to innovate so much & be unique (etc.) within these sorts of constraints).

Ford's thesis makes sense to me. But it doesn't match with various ideologies that see the composer as being in an ivory tower, separate and almost in a bubble away from the rest of society. Money as a catalyst for music is seen as kind of cheapening, and a taint of pure artistic expression. This came out of left-wing views of the artist's position in society, & in good part underpinned Theodor Adorno's elevation of Schoenberg and correspondingly poo-pooing of Sibelius in about the 1930's.

But you go back to history, and the truth was different. Composers, as Ford says, need to eat. They are like any person, they have to pay bills and things like rent and maybe support a family.

*Mozart *was like that. He hated writing for the flute as a solo instrument (as evidenced in letters to his father). When he was commissioned to write his flute quartets and concertos by a rich amateur flautist of his day, the Dutchman De Jean, Mozart just did rehash, which suggests his heart was not in it and he basically did it for the money. Eg. his flute concertos are (I think) transcriptions of previous oboe concertos, and his flute quartets contain direct rehash of earlier works (eg. the second movement of the_ C major Flute Quartet K285b _(1781-2)was lifted straight out of the _Gran Partita K361_(1781), its second-last movement). Scholarship is not 100 per cent certain as to which came first, so I'm making educated guesses here & going off what information I have.

Of course there are many other examples like this, even coming up closer to our own times. *Milhaud *rehashed so many works like this, his output is like a catalog of rehash upon rehash. Then there's *Sibelius *who, during World War I, cut off from his royalties and unable to tour as a conductor, was basically forced to write low grade piano music for the domestic market to make some money. Low grade as compared to his usual high standard, that is.

& it goes on.

*So I'm seeking a discussion on these sorts of things:
- Music made to order
- Money as being the only thing behind a composer writing a piece of music (or rehashing it?)
- The ivory tower mentality

& so on, let's have a broad discussion about these things...*

[Source: Ford, A. (2005). _In Defence of Classical Music_. Sydney, Australia: ABC Books. Pages 58-59.]


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> *...or would you like fries with that?*
> 
> ....Then there's *Sibelius *who, during World War I, cut off from his royalties and unable to tour as a conductor, was basically forced to write low grade piano music for the domestic market to make some money. Low grade as compared to his usual high standard, that is.


That's not the music that GG recorded, I hope.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Well, the quality of those works may well depend on who you ask, according to THIS website. Gould and other pianists admired Sibelius' piano music. Quote below from that page, much more info there.



> ...Anyway, it seems absurd to blame a professional composer for trying to maintain his family in the only way he could, by writing music for money. One wonders if he was supposed to write only symphonies and let his large family starve.
> 
> Those who have found fault with Sibelius's piano music have usually been music writers or critics. On the other hand, pianists who have taken the trouble to study the music itself have without exception praised Sibelius's piano style for its originality and its suitability for the instrument...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Very little of the music we listen to was Not, one way or another "Made to Order" - that probably covers Gregorian Chant through to the newest of the new, including the corps of common practice repertoire. That whole agonized creative spirit thing started post-Beethoven, a cumulative product of later arch-romantic and arch-sentimental conceits -- and boy were some of them far in advance of "Hollywood obvious" and "cheap sentiments." -- the conceits of that era went straight to Hollywood via all those late 19th century entertainment entrepreneurs who migrated to America _who became_ Hollywood… and nothing, really, as far as 'portrait of a composer' could be much further from the actuality.

Yes, the completely non-glamorous fact of most classical composer's lives is that composing was their job, pretty much done by consistently putting in at least as much time as anyone does who has a fifty week per annum 9 - 5 job. If they weren't working on a specific commission, they were writing chamber music, which was marketable, published, and 'consumed' not only by professionals but by many an advanced amateur; or they were doing the odd free-lance job of editing a new edition of, in the instance of Debussy working for Durand, the two books of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, or similar 'to get by.'

Many of the non-commissioned works were made by a composer who knew he had a publisher, performers eager for a new work, and an audience: they were writing in some free time when not laboring on a commission to make more 'product' from which they could make a living.

Schoenberg taught first in a music school, then in a Californian university. Elliott Carter taught for decades in some of the better east coast schools. Stravinsky conducted (his own works and that of others.) Bartok gave piano recitals, still famous for his rendering of, especially, Beethoven. Rachmaninoff penned piano concerti not 'just to compose,' but for his own as a vehicle to promote his music while further ensuring that he could make a decent wage -- by being the paid soloist in same.

The artist Chuck Close put it in very blunt, American-style 20th century terms:* "Inspiration is for amateurs." *_That is as true for reproductive performers as it is for the producing writers_.

Some of what I sense as a current vogue of thought is somehow tied to what I can only call a fairly recent populist trend - a trend of thought which I think stinks just as badly as that late-romantic conceit of the agonized artist struggling with inspiration. I believe the fact that in some nations, the public funding for commissioned artwork and subsidizing of artists has led the taxpayer somehow to believe he should have a say in what those artworks are or are not. That is a terrible situation for 'the state of the arts.' It leads John Q public to an odd 'place' or an insupportable conclusion: "They write for us; they should write for us and to us. They should write stuff we find pleasant and accessible."

The trouble with that is John Q. _is not the payer in full of said commissioned works._ The delusional thought that he is, and that he should have any say in what artists make - is redolent of the 'me' generation and the later flowering of the 'entitled' generation.

Considering what tiny percent of overall tax revenues go to all of the arts (leaving music that much smaller a percent of that total) John Q could only rationally complain about .00000000000000000000012% of one note in one piece about 'where his money has gone,' John Q's 'stockholder share' in that piece being that minute. Often enough, John Q does not think for one moment of how much a share he has in funding some major garbage for his nations' television broadcasts, but is ready to howl about 'what he is not getting for his money' in the area of the fine arts.

I think government funding funneled towards the arts is in one way hugely responsible for some near-egregious truly crap art - on both the conservative 'accessible' end of the spectrum as well as the 'avant garde.' *Bureaucracy and the arts just do not mix*.

One way or another, almost every classical composer works on commission. Those commissions come, most rightly, from performers or institutional ensembles, i.e. from other musicians and artists who KNOW good art. Where 'fine art' is concerned, they should not come from is a collective group of businessmen who start imposing the limits of their tastes and understanding of music upon the composer, a dynamic which is an everyday known and accepted one in advertising - to state the obvious, that includes any and all 'commercial' music, pop, film, video scores.

*Those commissioners of yore* - they expected 'entertainment,' alright. They *were also many cuts above John Q. on the street as to being "savvy about fine art."* - and they commissioned fine art from fine artists. Some did not know or care about fine art, but commissioned pieces to be seen as 'cultivated.'

Sure, Mr. Prince expected to be entertained, but *that great music of the past which we all love and revere was commissioned, if you will, by Elitists, who were often enough of 'the cognoscenti' - and not of 'our class.*' But now, the cry 'elitist' is seemingly pejorative. (I don't hear it from the fans of that amazingly well-paid pro sport team - who are also, de facto, 'an elite.')

Music commissioned for a specific occasion -- a completely different commission and circumstance, with perhaps some very specific requirements from those who commission the piece. The shrewd artist might accept the commission, fulfill it 'politely' and still not feel compromised in so doing. Where need can compel acceptance of an unwanted commission, there have been and still are many an artist who wisely turn down many a commission as either being specifically not to their interest, or one which they felt was too fettered with the patron's requirements to leave the the artist room to work freely.

Film music? Is _whatever the director wants, where in the film, what genre where in the film, and length._ It is the very rare film composer who is hired to 'write in their style' without at least some directions as to genre and style from the director. It is the director's movie and not the composer's movie. I think there is a very distorted or exaggerated idea of a composer's 'freedom' (akin to that 'romantic' sentiment about artists) when it comes to how the film industry actually works in relation to the film score, including misconceptions about the more alternate, independent, as well as the video game sector.

Points of view, of course, but perhaps some to mull over.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Australian musicologist Andrew Ford writes:
> 
> ... The great patron of music in eighteenth-century Europe was the aristocracy, and it was a rare prince indeed who demanded experimentation. Mostly, princes liked to be amused...


"Employers" would probably be the more recognisable modern term we would use today to describe the 18th century aristocracy and eccelsiastical institutions (do not forget the church, which was most often _the_ primary source of musical requirement). JS Bach had a very typical local church career. There were many composers following similar career paths. Others had vocation for the theatre. But all, directly or indirectly sought income from powerful and wealthy patrons/"employers", and Ford is agreeable in that governments rarely granted "subsidies". (Handel was an exception when Queen Anne granted him a life pension of £200 when he was still in his prime). Writing music mindfully, as pragmatic composers, even the dreaded sin of "rehashing" - a modern day practice frowned upon if modern composers rehashed, was part of their creativity - Bach, Handel, Mozart, they all recycled works. All these appeared to be very directly opposite to modern day aesthetics, or so it seems - we must be different, we must keep pushing the boundaries for the sake of it, the artist must "challenge", the artist must "shock", the artist must be touched by some "god of art" for inspiration etc. So the ancient folks "had a job" to do, but the finest amongst them did their best not by churning out orders in bulk, but infused their unique creativity with it all. The 200+ church cantatas of Bach, 100+ secular cantatas of Handel, 106 symphonies of Haydn give you hundreds on reasons.

But frankly, it doesn't bother me what operating motto the composer was under when (s)he committed ideas to sheet/improvised, whether the piece was written in 1712 or 2012. I listen (and judge) the piece for what it is to me as a listener today, all part of the fun of listening!


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Modern commissions are interesting. Are these works made to order? Of course not, even though a wide boundary might be implicit as part of the "commission contract". Works get commissioned all the time by Musica Viva here in Australia, for example, and many of the works have a very strong Australian theme one way or another, that are very beautiful and relevant especially to those of us locals here.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> Very little of the music we listen to was Not, one way or another "Made to Order" - that probably covers Gregorian Chant through to the newest of the new, including the corps of common practice repertoire. That whole agonized creative spirit thing started post-Beethoven, a cumulative product of later arch-romantic and arch-sentimental conceits -- and boy were some of them far in advance of "Hollywood obvious" and "cheap sentiments." -- the conceits of that era went straight to Hollywood via all those late 19th century entertainment entrepreneurs who migrated to America _who became_ Hollywood… and nothing, really, as far as 'portrait of a composer' could be much further from the actuality.
> 
> *Yes, the completely non-glamorous fact of most classical composer's lives is that composing was their job, pretty much done by consistently putting in at least as much time as anyone does who has a fifty week per annum 9 - 5 job. * If they weren't working on a specific commission, they were writing chamber music, which was *marketable, published, and 'consumed'* not only by professionals but by many an advanced amateur; or they were doing the odd free-lance job of editing a new edition of, in the instance of Debussy working for Durand, the two books of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, or similar 'to get by.'
> 
> ...


Both interesting responses there, thank you both.

I will return but just addressing firstly what PetrB said above.

What you say reminds me of the old saying _Genius is 99 per cent perspiration, 1 per cent inspiration.
_
Of course there is no harm in enjoying what we enjoy, whether it was done by the composer mainly to make a buck or not. & we don't know so many things. We don't know why, for example, Beethoven made his string trios into string quintets. If someone is more up on this, please let us know. As far as I remember, it's only guessed that he may have done it to quickly fulfil a commission to write string quintets. But it could just well have been that he saw potential in the trios to be kind of expanded into quintets.

There are so many other examples. But what I think is that people sometimes poo-poo a composer for making a buck today - Philip Glass is a good example, fluent in concert hall music, mixing classical with world music and film music alike - but they forget guys like Mozart and Beethoven where doing a very similar thing.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Modern commissions are interesting. Are these works made to order? Of course not, even though a wide boundary might be implicit as part of the "commission contract". *Works get commissioned all the time by Musica Viva here in Australia, for example, and many of the works have a very strong Australian theme one way or another, that are very beautiful and relevant especially to those of us locals here*.


I am with you on that, it is a joy to hear local composers, our own composers. We have some great musicians in this country. I do not say, like someone (an Aussie!) did on another website, that we are still suffering from the dreaded _cultural cringe_. I think that's rubbish. It is great to support our local musicians and composers, & indeed, they have studied and played with the best in the world. They offer us so much, there is no shame in local musicians commissioning music by local composers. It's a good thing, in my view.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

There is a sense in which any people making their living in the creative arts work to order. Certainly, I write to order much more often than I write for 'recreation' and even my recreational writing is often done with an eye on whether it will be saleable or not. The threat of not paying the bond next month always looms.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Ideals are a wonderful thing if you an afford them! Also...Artistic Integrity makes a lousy sandwich.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Sid James said:


> *...or would you like fries with that?*
> 
> Of course there are many other examples like this, even coming up closer to our own times. *Milhaud *rehashed so many works like this, his output is like a catalog of rehash upon rehash. Then there's *Sibelius *who, during World War I, cut off from his royalties and unable to tour as a conductor, was basically forced to write low grade piano music for the domestic market to make some money. Low grade as compared to his usual high standard, that is.


I don't know which piano works of Sibelius are you talking about, but they mustn't be Piano Quintet in G Minor, Sonata in F Major as they have high number of op. ...

I like Schopenhauer approach to music (but it was 4 years ago), what he just wrote about that?!
Well, suffice to say If you are genius enough you can compose great music and will have enough money, but if you aren't then better play a violin instead at best possibility!


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

It's a shame that Sid isn't reimbursed by somebody for his sometimes lengthy, but often insightful posts!

To think that he does it all gratis!!! 

Hmmm. now there's a concept...made-to-order thread starters.....The mind boggles.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Arsakes said:


> I don't know which piano works of Sibelius are you talking about, but they mustn't be Piano Quintet in G Minor, Sonata in F Major as they have high number of op. ...
> ...


No, as they where not written during the First World War (I think) and I was talking about solo piano works written during that time. My aim was not to bash Sibelius or anyone, just saying that every composer does what can be considered _potboilers_ - in comparison to their other more _representative_ works, that is. Everyone has their limitations, composers included, they're human just like anyone else.


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