# Did Górecki and Penderecki sell out?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I look at the major Polish composers to emerge in the 20th century, and I see a "quadrivium" begin to form: on the "radical" side, Paunufnik and Lutoslawski, and on the "emerging conservative" side, Górecki and late Penderecki.

Why did Górecki and Penderecki both seem to write much more conservatively in their later years?

The obvious case-in-point is Górecki's rise to popular acclaim. Upon listening to Górecki's _Symphony No. 1, Op.14 (1959), _with its opening declamatory burst, noisy percussive sounds, and sparse, Webern-like texture, Górecki seemed to me to be a hard-core modernist.

I am consequently struck by how this is a far, far cry from the repetitious tonality of his fabulously successful _Symphony No. 3,_ which lay dormant for a few years since 1976. Then suddenly, when a recording of it was released in 1992, it _shot_ up the best-seller charts, and stayed there for months on end, selling 300,000 copies by 1993, and eventually becoming a million-seller by 1995. Accusations of "Minimalist!" and "New Age!" issued from the mouths of critics, although Górecki is neither.

Penderecki, after his radical pieces such as "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" and other "string-cluster" works, suddenly began writing works with religious themes, which were much more conservative.

Why do you think this is? What are the reasons behind this change of approach?


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Górecki seemed to me to be a hard-core modernist....
> Why do you think this is? What are the reasons behind this change of approach?


Hard-core modernism was promoted and used by the Communists to discourage traditional arts and values in Poland and elsewhere. The perfect example is the modern "cathedral" built in Nowa Huta just outside of Krakow, hard-core modernist to be sure, but an intentional insult to religion.

Here are pictures of Nowa Huta. From the outside maybe interesting:







Note the modernist interpretation of the traditional bell tower out front.

From the inside quite impersonal and cold:








Note the grotesquely distorted figure of Jesus on the cross.

It wouldn't surprise me if Gorecki and Penderecki initially embraced modernism but then sought more humane means of expression (and/or veiled protest). Now that the yoke of Communism has been lifted, more traditional forms of expression have been embraced vigorously.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

BPS said:


> Hard-core modernism was promoted and used by the Communists to discourage traditional arts and values in Poland and elsewhere. The perfect example is the modern "cathedral" built in Nowa Huta just outside of Krakow, hard-core modernist to be sure, but an insult to religion.
> 
> It wouldn't surprise me if Gorecki and Penderecki initially embraced modernism but then sought more humane means of expression.


Are you sure about that? I thought the reason Panufnik left Poland was to escape from the suppression of modernism. In 1953, after Stalin's death, Polish composers expected a relaxation in the political control over their work. In 1954, Minister Sokorski dashed their hopes with a hard-line speech reaffirming the commitment to "socialist realism" in art.

And the pictures I've seen of Stalin's "socialist realism" architecture looks stodgy and neo-gothic to me.

from WIK:
In the early years of the Soviet Union, Russian and Soviet artists embraced a wide variety of art forms under the auspices of Proletkult. Revolutionary politics and radical non-traditional art forms were seen as complementary. In art, Constructivism flourished. In poetry, the non-traditional and the avant-garde were often praised.

This, however, was rejected by some members of the Communist party, who did not appreciate modern styles such as Impressionism and Cubism, since these movements existed before the revolution and were thus associated with "decadent bourgeois art." Socialist realism was, to some extent, a reaction against the adoption of these "decadent" styles. It was thought that the non-representative forms of art were not understood by the proletariat and could therefore not be used by the state for propaganda.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

BPS said:


> Hard-core modernism was promoted and used by the Communists to discourage traditional arts and values in Poland and elsewhere. The perfect example is the modern "cathedral" built in Nowa Huta just outside of Krakow, hard-core modernist to be sure, but an intentional insult to religion.
> 
> Here are pictures of Nowa Huta. From the outside maybe interesting:
> View attachment 18428
> ...


I have no idea if you're right, but I like the concept. _million_ apparently expects the commisars to be consistent.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Are you sure about that? I thought the reason Panufnik left Poland was to escape from the suppression of modernism. In 1953, after Stalin's death, Polish composers expected a relaxation in the political control over their work. In 1954, Minister Sokorski dashed their hopes with a hard-line speech reaffirming the commitment to "socialist realism" in art.


It was my understanding as well that the Soviet bloc governments tended to be vehemently anti-modernist, but then, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to be consistent. "Decadent" art was whatever the current leader disliked; they never really came up with any sort of clear, unambiguous definition of "formalism" or other unacceptable "-isms" in art or music.

As for Gorecki et al., is it not possibly that they simply found Jesus in a big way? Has anyone looked into this?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

What if it is simply economics? Gorecki and Penderecki initially embraced modernism but then sought more lucrative markets. Now that the yoke of Communism has been lifted, more economically viable forms of expression have been embraced vigorously. 

Plus, religion has a new start, so perhaps modernism and its atonality is associated with "godless" ideology, in contrast to tonality, which evolved from Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and essentially represents a religious ideology.

One consistent feature of "Socialist Realism" was that it had to be "dumbed down" or be simple enough for the "proletariat" common man. Religion was discouraged as well. There's sort of an inherent contradiction going on there.

"Tonal religious music" seems to fit the bill now; it has wide appeal, has the religious element, but without the State interference. Perhaps this is the new and true "socialistic realism."


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> What if it is simply economics? Gorecki and Penderecki initially embraced modernism but then sought more lucrative markets. Now that the yoke of Communism has been lifted, more economically viable forms of expression have been embraced vigorously.


It's possible, and if so, all power to them. I don't think music absolutely has to be unpopular in order to be any good.



> Plus, religion has a new start, so perhaps modernism and its atonality is associated with "godless" ideology, in contrast to tonality, which evolved from Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and essentially represents a religious ideology.


Many composers of that part of the world seem to have found inspiration in the traditions and liturgy of the Orthodox churches. Pärt of course also comes to mind.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I'm not sure about Gorecki but one of the main reasons why Penderecki starting altering his style is because he felt that the avant-garde style he was composing in had been exhausted. He also started to think heavily on the tradition of classical music and wanted to find ways of bridging the newer and older styles together in a cohesive, genuine way.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Plus, religion has a new start, so perhaps modernism and its atonality is associated with "godless" ideology, in contrast to tonality, which evolved from Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and essentially represents a religious ideology.


Then why is there so much "atonal" music with religious under/overtones? The bulk of Stravinsky's sacred works date from his 12-tone period. Even non-religious composers like Ligeti wrote non-tonal music on religious themes. It's a non-argument to say the least.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

"I am in a prison. One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape." - Gyorgy Ligeti


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Then why is there so much "atonal" music with religious under/overtones? The bulk of Stravinsky's sacred works date from his 12-tone period. Even non-religious composers like Ligeti wrote non-tonal music on religious themes.


Because religion is a tradition of tonality, which evolved from Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and essentially represents a religious ideology; so 12-tone composers try to associate themselves with tradition and tonality in order to gain traditional "cred" and respectability. BTW, I don't notice any Cage, Boulez, Feldman, or Babbitt on traditional religious themes.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"I am in a prison. One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape, escape into a new age, and have lunch with Stanley Kubrick!"


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Because religion is a tradition of tonality, which evolved from Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and essentially represents a religious ideology; so 12-tone composers try to associate themselves with tradition and tonality in order to gain traditional "cred" and respectability. BTW, I don't notice any Cage, Boulez, Feldman, or Babbitt on traditional religious themes.


I don't notice any Shostakovich or Prokofiev on religious themes either. Must be that tonal music is conducive to atheism.....


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Neo Romanza said:


> I'm not sure about Gorecki but one of the main reasons why Penderecki starting altering his style is because he felt that the avant-garde style he was composing in had been exhausted. He also started to think heavily on the tradition of classical music and wanted to find ways of bridging the newer and older styles together in a cohesive, genuine way.


Yes, perhaps millionrainbows would see this as the inevitable exhaustion and breakdown of atonality!:lol:

It is a curious observation but on listening to Penderecki's 1st and 5th symphonies I find more interest in the earlier more experimental modernist piece. The 5th sounds a little worn and cliched. And I am no champion of modernism/avant gardism in general.
I notice also that when Maxwell Davies tries his hand tonality it sounds to me a little amateurish and unconvincing.

Perhaps modernists should stick to what they're good at and leave tonality to the experts.

As for the religious angle, they obviously had a message form on high saying "more consonance please".


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> "I am in a prison. One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape, escape into a new age, and have lunch with Stanley Kubrick!"


Smug, aren't we? Kubrick used Ligeti's music without permission.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

starthrower said:


> Smug, aren't we? Kubrick used Ligeti's music without permission.


Ergo: Kubrick owed Ligeti a bit more than just lunch.


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

A train wreck from the get go, this thread.

With nothing about either Górecki or Penderecki, but lots and lots about pro- or anti-modernism.



Hilltroll72 said:


> I have no idea if you're right, but I like the concept.


Online discussion in a nutshell. Nothing about truth. Everything about which side you're on.



brianvds said:


> I don't think music absolutely has to be unpopular in order to be any good.


Time to revisit Mahlerian's incisive* comment: "It's a non-argument to say the least."

Who has ever argued that music has to be unpopular in order to be any good? Right, no one. But quite a few people have used this supposed truism to score points against modernism. Oh, it's fun. ("Hey boys, we're gonna go out and make some straw men tonight. Ya with me?" "What're we gonna do then, boss?" "We're gonna bravely and masterfully destroy them, hahahahahaha!!!"

"YAY!!!")

Seriously. Issues of quality and of popularity should be kept completely separate. No, wait. Issues of quality and popularity should be completely avoided!:lol:

*I am not suggesting here that the doctrine of _felix culpa_ is valid!


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Ergo: Kubrick owed Ligeti a bit more than just lunch.


I think it's the other way round as Kubrick must have made Ligeti very rich and built him a fan base as well.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Petwhac said:


> I think it's the other way round as Kubrick must have made Ligeti very rich and built him a fan base as well.


Kubrick used Ligeti's music without Ligeti's knowledge or copyright clearance. Ligeti sued Kubrick, successfully, when he found out about this.

BTW, why would anybody equate moving to a more conservative idiom to "selling out"?


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> BTW, why would anybody equate moving to a more conservative idiom to "selling out"?


To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?

For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).

For two, .... But I think one is enough.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).
> 
> For two, .... But I think one is enough.


But sir... some of us need reassurance. Thanks for supplying it.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> I look at the major Polish composers to emerge in the 20th century, and I see a "quadrivium" begin to form: on the "radical" side, Paunufnik and Lutoslawski, and on the "emerging conservative" side, Górecki and late Penderecki.
> 
> Why did Górecki and Penderecki both seem to write much more conservatively in their later years?
> 
> The obvious case-in-point is Górecki's rise to popular acclaim. Upon listening to Górecki's _Symphony No. 1, Op.14 (1959), _with its opening declamatory burst, noisy percussive sounds, and sparse, Webern-like texture, Górecki seemed to me to be a hard-core modernist.


Panufnik also quickly turned rather conservative, I think, even though he settled in Britain (the latest example is the Cello Concerto http://www.classical-music.com/review/panufnik-0)

- and did Lutoslawski produce anything provocative in his later years ? I know there are formal experiments in say Symphony III (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Lutosławski)), but the results are usually agreable ...

whereas one could say that the insistingly martial language (psychologically speaking) of the later Penderecki has a provocative element of its own ...


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Kubrick used Ligeti's music without Ligeti's knowledge or copyright clearance. Ligeti sued Kubrick, successfully, when he found out about this.


Yes, Ligeti would be entitled to a negotiable fee for permission to use his music. However, fee or no fee, permission or no permission, every time the film is shown Ligeti would receive performance royalties and millions of people will have been introduced to his music whom would otherwise probably not have discovered it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Kubrick used _(and modified-ed.)_ Ligeti's music without Ligeti's knowledge or _(full _copyright-ed.) clearance. Ligeti sued Kubrick _(for the distortion, not the use of-ed.)_, successfully, when he found out about this_ (and then settled out-of court, agreeing to its use-ed.)._


The soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey includes...an electronically altered version of _Aventures_. The usage and modification happened without Ligeti's knowledge and without full copyright clearance; when the film came to Ligeti's attention, he "successfully sued for having had his music distorted", but settled out of court with Kubrick in return for the (compensated) use of his music in later films. (WIK)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

IMO Gorecki's conservative style > Penderecki's conservative style.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).


Hum, I think you are well aware that it is not the music that is inspiring but the people who are inspired. Some are inspired by this and some by that.
Is the composer who builds on his _own_ past discoveries and techniques guilty of producing something familiar and therefore unnecessary? What is so necessary about novelty?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> BTW, why would anybody equate moving to a more conservative idiom to "selling out"?


Distortion upon distortion, and by using such stripped-down aphoristic clichés!

Selling out to political pressure. Stalin's "Socialist Realism" was inherently geared to be "dumbed down" for the proletarian common man; otherwise, it couldn't be used as propaganda. Lutoslawski's first symphony was repressed in 1947-48 for more than 10 years, due to it being too "formalist" or non-representational.

I don't agree with Joen_cph's "reversal" of the OP.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?


Because of the intellectual condescension with which composers of tonal music are usually treated, putting pressure on them to write 'modern' music to be considered 'proper' composers, causing them to intellectually sell-out? (worse, IMO, than selling out for monetary reasons)

Modernism is no longer modern, and probably the only reason it is still considered so is the remaining unpopularity (don't go on about the concert figures, we know that the world irrevocably changed in 1800). Our traditional methods of understanding and categorising musical styles are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the genuinely modern age, as in the here and now, not something that was new and innovative more than 50 years ago.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Selling out is writing for commercials, or writing music which ends up selling "diamonds" for example.

Both Pendercki and Gorecki sold out, and thereafter the spate of cold hard cash just kept flowing toward them, Ka-ching, Ka-ching. Yeah, right.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).
> 
> For two, .... But I think one is enough.


Ah, so all the good music in older idioms has already been written! Wasn't aware of that and appreciate your filling me in. This forum is absolutely wonderful...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Ramako said:


> Because of the intellectual condescension with which composers of tonal music are usually treated, putting pressure on them to write 'modern' music to be considered 'proper' composers, causing them to intellectually sell-out? (worse, IMO, than selling out for monetary reasons)
> 
> Modernism is no longer modern, and probably the only reason it is still considered so is the remaining unpopularity (don't go on about the concert figures, we know that the world irrevocably changed in 1800 and that that was everything that ever happened). Our traditional methods of understanding and categorising musical styles is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the genuinely modern age, as in the here and now, not something that was new and innovative more than 50 years ago.


True, post-minimalism and improvisation based electro-acoustic music is all the rage now.


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Are you sure about that? I thought the reason Panufnik left Poland was to escape from the suppression of modernism. In 1953, after Stalin's death, Polish composers expected a relaxation in the political control over their work. In 1954, Minister Sokorski dashed their hopes with a hard-line speech reaffirming the commitment to "socialist realism" in art.


To be honest, I can't really comment on the personal motivations of Gorecki or Penderecki. Ask them.

I can say with some confidence though that Communist authorities across eastern europe aggressively embraced a style of modernism which was designed to bulldoze over the past and celebrate the glories of the Soviet system.

Nowa Huta for example was a giant steel mill town built right next to and intended to overshadow the heart of Polish culture. Churches weren't even allowed in Nowa Huta until 1972, and once allowed a few monstrosities such as the above were built.

Artists who appeared to embrace this new aesthetic agenda managed to stay in the good graces of the authorities. But artistic decisions taken by bureaucrats were never particularly nuanced or thoughtful - they were really expressions of political power, control, and intimidation. Artists could be punished for being too avant-garde, for not being progressive enough, or for any old reason at all. It didn't matter.

Every artist charted his or her own course back then. However, it seems the majority of artists initially embraced the socialist realist agenda out of a kind of naive idealism as well as in order to curry favor from their "audience", but sooner or later realized they were doomed.

With the recent economic changes, there were winners and losers, but also a great flowering of new forms of expression, including rediscovery of earlier artistic traditions and norms. Gorecki and Penderecki experimenting with "new" forms from the past seems typical.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Online discussion in a nutshell. Nothing about truth. Everything about which side you're on.


Most discussion that I'm aware of really. In fact, the higher up you go, the more it seems to be about what is interesting, and less about what is true, because truth can be pretty boring sometimes.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Using older idioms is selling out?
perhaps they just wrote whatever the [CENSORED] they wanted to write


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

On the other hand, I seriously doubt that if a young Bohemian composer named Gustav Mahler had devoted his life to writing baroque pastiches that anyone in 2013 would have ever even heard of him, much less heard him.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I've never understood the idea of selling out. It presupposes the artist can or would produce better, fresher art but that they chose an easier route. It assumes the artist has an unquenchable creative spark that is somehow dampened by evil people with money making them comfortable. Every artist is different, some like Stravinsky can seemingly reinvent themselves and follow different paths again and again, others might only have an initial truly creative period and then they exhaust their talents in pushing things forward.

Maybe we could subject them to the Haydn treatment: "I was cut off from the world…so I was forced to become original." Lock them up, maybe half starve them and perhaps their injured psyche will break out into a wholly original creative flourish. If Penderecki wanted to trade his _Threnody_ writing ability into avert jingle writing isn't that his choice, why should he be criticised for using his artistic ability how he likes.

The same kind of accusations are levelled at popular musicians too, if not accused of selling out they are often blamed for tainting their legacy by continuing to produce bland or bad albums. We want our artists to live fast and die young, or perhaps just shut up if they are no longer doing something we want. If Penderecki had stayed making a new _Threnody_ sounding work every few years he'd most likely be written off for that too


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> On the other hand, I seriously doubt that if a young Bohemian composer named Gustav Mahler had devoted his life to writing baroque pastiches that anyone in 2013 would have ever even heard of him, much less heard him.


Funny that writing what you want to write is selling out, but writing what you think will get you noticed by future generations isn't.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ramako said:


> Funny that writing what you want to write is selling out, if it happens to be dated, but writing what you think will get you noticed by either present or future generations isn't.


"To thine own self be true" is open to misinterpretation. Doing 'the right thing' may be some (other) guy's wrong thing.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Górecki's plan for selling out:

1. Write Symphony no.3.
2. Wait 15 years.
3. PROFIT!!!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Nereffid said:


> Górecki's plan for selling out:
> 
> 1. Write Symphony no.3.
> 2. Wait 15 years.
> 3. PROFIT!!!


Whatever profit Gorecki made from Symphony 3 is well deserved. Certainly much more so than the majority of millionaire artists around today.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

They decided to write that kind of music because it sounds good, and I guess they just didn't feel like being bullied by some of the elitist jackasses in the modernist musical academia into not doing something they wanted to.


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## Guest (May 26, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> They decided to write that kind of music because it sounds good, and I guess they just didn't feel like being bullied by some of the elitist jackasses in the modernist musical academia into not doing something they wanted to.


Yes. I'm sure this happens over and over again.

Here's what one elitist jackass in the modernist musical academia said when asked what the purpose of writing music was: "To make good sounds."

Here's what another elitist jackass in the modernist musical academia said when several people agreed after a concert that a piece by one of his composition students was a major fail: "Yes, he had an idea. I tried to talk him out of it, but ultimately, I had to just let him do whatever he wanted."

Do you actually know any teachers? Are any of them elitist jackasses? What does it take to become an elitist jackass? And what about the modernist musical academia? Do those words actually point to anything real or do they just express a diffuse prejudice of your own?

In other news, interesting post by Ramako:

"Funny that writing what you want to write is selling out, but writing what you think will get you noticed by future generations isn't.

Last edited by Ramako; Today at 01:44. Reason: post gave wrong meaning: mistake on my part"

I wonder what the mistake was. What currently appears is, if not a mistake, certainly a serious distortion of what I had said, which was nothing about Mahler's motives and all about our perceptions.

But then, that's a common thread in online discussions. Avoiding any serious or detailed talk about perceptions, which at least we can know about, in favor of frivolous and vague talk about motives, which at most we can know very little about. Hmmmm. I think I just figured something out. We prefer the unknowable to the knowable. Hmmmm. Silly us.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think the "conservatives" who support later Gorecki and Penderecki and don't see them as "selling out" will ultimately win this discussion...why? Because God is on their side.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Górecki's plan for selling out:

1. Write Symphony no.3. being careful to make it in the style of "Holy minimalism;"
2. Wait 15 years, for a Western-style consumer capitalism to take over in the Eastern bloc, along with a resurgence of religion;
3. Pray a lot, and get into the "God wants you to prosper" mindset;
4. PROFIT!!!


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## Guest (May 26, 2013)

@million - you seem rather quick to judge (read: condemn) Gorecki.

Do you know him? Do you know what his life was like? Do you know what he thinks about money or fame? Do you know what he's working on now or why?

Hmmm....


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

BPS said:


> @million - you seem rather quick to judge (read: condemn) Gorecki.
> 
> Do you know him? Do you know what his life was like? Do you know what he thinks about money or fame? Do you know what he's working on now or why?
> 
> Hmmm....


I know that he was Polish; that's enough. :lol: They make a helluva pickle over there.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> I think the "conservatives" who support later Gorecki and Penderecki and don't see them as "selling out" will ultimately win this discussion...why? Because God is on their side.


I support their right to produce whatever they wish to in whatever style they like. I don't regard it as selling out even if they want to make well paid, neo-romantic music for the elevators of international banks. I don't believe I am conservative, either politically or in matters of taste and I have certainly never believed in god.

This is not a discussion to win, it is a discussion to discuss. If there is some kind of god of winning internet discussions then it is the most petty of gods. You could certainly say religion is on their side as the church is still a funder and host to much of classical music and a lot of people search for spirituality through music. To suggest though that there is god's music and all other music is absurd, it's all human music.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).
> 
> For two, .... But I think one is enough.


Yeah I'm sorry some guy, but this is an absurd notion in art. Besides, by that logic, anybody doing anything like Cage or Feldman or Boulez or Carter is just a sell-out too. Why are they not inventing something totally new? We've been hearing all this "fresh inspiring" stuff for decades and decades now, isn't it time for something new?

The thing is, something doesn't need to completely re-invent what music is like (most of the modernists weren't even doing that after the 50s, they were just continuing to work in idioms that had been around for 10 or more years already) in order for it to be new and fresh and amazing music.

And remember, I love modernism. I love Cage and Boulez and alot of those guys and gals, I like all the strange things that have been added to musical grammar. I just don't find it necessary to sink the level of people who question whether Cage is even music.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

....................


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Yes. I'm sure this happens over and over again.
> 
> Here's what one elitist jackass in the modernist musical academia said when asked what the purpose of writing music was: "To make good sounds."
> 
> ...


We don't need to see academia to see the intellectual condescension poured on tonal composers - that is what this thread has become all about in some sense.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> In other news, interesting post by Ramako:
> 
> "Funny that writing what you want to write is selling out, but writing what you think will get you noticed by future generations isn't.
> 
> ...


However, your post before gives some context for what you were saying, which I was following on from:



some guy said:


> *To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?*
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).


This is all about tonal composer's motives, accusing them all of selling out. Your second paragraph here returns to peoples perceptions, leaving a somewhat wide gap between 1st paragraph meaningless accusation and 2nd paragraph of defensible, yet unrelated statement on perception.

Don't change your position every two posts some guy. And if you're going to demand a moral high ground, at least keep to it yourself.

However, when it comes down to it, my previous post isn't such an inaccurate representation of what you are saying, though I will take the blame for it being an obvious rhetorical device if you want me to. You say: "there is no point in writing tonal music because people have heard it before" (well, obviously there are people who like current pastiche music being written now, so you can't be talking about people alive today, unless you think their opinion is invalid, which is of course possible, but otherwise it ends up as): "there is no point in writing pastiche music today because no one in the future will be interested in it".


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

oh, never mind...


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> oh, never mind...


Haha, you were right before Crudblud and I apologise since I am probably the worst culprit.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> To take this seriously for just a second, why would anyone NOT equate it with selling out?
> 
> For one, it's moving from producing something new and fresh and inspiring to producing something familiar, something that everyone already knows (and therefore unnecessary).





Ramako said:


> Don't change your position every two posts some guy. And if you're going to demand a moral high ground, at least keep to it yourself.


I think that the conservative use of tonality in art music becomes ideological and religiously charged by default. There are plenty of "chromatic" devices available for composers to use which are still tonal and harmonic, but which don't go all the way back to "church tonality." So, the reason Gorecki & Penderecki went this far back is for the religious association. Penderecki is more obvious, in his use of religious themes; but Gorecki's Third, the first movement is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus. Although the rest deal with war in general, the reference is clear enough.

I would think that the reason Pärt composes tonally for choirs is because he intends his music to be performed in churches.

So I see the conservative use of tonalty as being religiously ideological in nature, just the way modernism or serialism is seen as being ideological. It also "sells out" the art to an extent, because (in the case of Pärt) the art becomes functional in a church ritual; that makes it not only utilitarian, but ideological.

I see a conflict here, with "art" music, if "art" means covering new ground or exploring new territory.

"There *is* a point in writing tonal music, because people *have* heard it before...they will associate it with traditional contexts."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> So I see the conservative use of tonalty as being religiously ideological in nature, just the way modernism or serialism is seen as being ideological. It also "sells out" the art to an extent, because (in the case of Pärt) the art becomes functional in a church ritual; that makes it not only utilitarian, but ideological. I see a conflict here, with "art" music.


So... you would have us believe that "the conservative use of tonality" (whatever 'conservative' means here) is religiously charged - even by non-religious composers?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> So... you would have us believe that "the conservative use of tonality" (whatever 'conservative' means here) is religiously charged - even by non-religious composers?


To an extent, yes, however distant or tenuous that may be, because it aligns them with a tradition.

In the case of these two Polish composers, and Pärt, I see them as actually exiting modernism, and re-entering the utilitarian religious realm. Certainly, Pärt's motivation for writing choral music and Mass settings is transparent enough.

In Messiaen's case, his "Modes of Limited Transposition" are extending musical syntax, even though they are overtly on religious themes. So his music "transcends" its religious trappings; but I see Gorecki and Penderecki as "back-tracking," not extending themselves or the forms artistically, unless there's something I'm missing. The notion of "holy minimalism" seems to be contradictory, since for me, minimalism means non-Western "world" influences.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> To an extent, yes, however distant or tenuous that may be, because it aligns them with a tradition.
> 
> In the case of these two Polish composers, and Pärt, I see them as actually exiting modernism, and re-entering the utilitarian religious realm. Certainly, Pärt's motivation for writing choral music and Mass settings is transparent enough.


Your statement (the one I questioned) does not appear to allow the modifier 'to an extent'. A broader question though, is whether religious music has, does, and/or will evolve - within or outside of tonality. If there is a 'yes' in there anywhere, maybe you aren't supporting _some guy_'s position effectively.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> I see a conflict here, with "art" music, if "art" means covering new ground or exploring new territory.


1, There is art for art's sake. 
2, There is music for art's sake.
3, There is music for music's sake.

I'm not especially fond of Pärt or Gorecki and find most of what I've heard of their music rather dull. However, music doesn't _have_ to be good art to be good music. Given a choice, I'll go for good music. That's enough for me.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

1910-20s - a composer eschews Romanticism/Impressionism and has the balls to reinvent himself. Hurrah...

1980-90s - a composer eschews Modernism/Avant Garde and returns to roots he never really had. Boo hiss...


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## Guest (May 27, 2013)

I'm beginning to understand this desire to avoid "tonality" or traditional musical forms in general since it's been done before.

In keeping with this fetish for the new, I think I'll just stop writing using ordinary words since they've all been used before.....

afn asfq3[of fff qrj19a0-3mf44

Hey I'm feeling smarter already!

By the way, once you eliminate repetition and predictability, all that's left is random noise.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> On the other hand, I seriously doubt that if a young Bohemian composer named Gustav Mahler had devoted his life to writing baroque pastiches that anyone in 2013 would have ever even heard of him, much less heard him.


That is not a valid comparison. 
The composer in 2013 inhabits an entirely different musical and cultural landscape.
Mahler was born into a world where there was only one musical idiom or language. The music of the marching bands or beer gardens, the popular everyday music and the 'art' music of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors were all derived from one source.
His music is awash with the aforementioned popular idioms which seamlessly integrate into his high art symphonic constructs because they share the same harmonic/tonal _basis_. 
The 'art music' composer of 2013 is faced with a situation that Mahler was not. Namely, having grown up surrounded by a huge range of different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions in written music as well as nearly a hundred years of recorded music from jazz, pop, world, country, electronica, etc..
Mahler inherited his musical vocabulary and could employ it to create something original. Something which a popular songwriter today can also do today because they are working with a certain amount of 'givens'. 
What are those givens for the composer of 2013? There aren't any. Each composer must invent their own musical universe. 
For some this can be an inhibiting thing. For some a liberating thing.

In the end people will write what it is they have to write and others will listen. If a composer can find their audience by writing Baroque-style music or by sawing bassoons in half- good luck to them. And in 2013, with the internet, they may both prosper ( or neither  )


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I look at the major Polish composers to emerge in the 20th century, and I see a "quadrivium" begin to form: on the "radical" side, Paunufnik and Lutoslawski, and on the "emerging conservative" side, Górecki and late Penderecki.

Why did Górecki and Penderecki both seem to write much more conservatively in their later years?

The obvious case-in-point is Górecki's rise to popular acclaim. Upon listening to Górecki's Symphony No. 1, Op.14 (1959), with its opening declamatory burst, noisy percussive sounds, and sparse, Webern-like texture, Górecki seemed to me to be a hard-core modernist.

I am consequently struck by how this is a far, far cry from the repetitious tonality of his fabulously successful Symphony No. 3, which lay dormant for a few years since 1976. Then suddenly, when a recording of it was released in 1992, it shot up the best-seller charts, and stayed there for months on end, selling 300,000 copies by 1993, and eventually becoming a million-seller by 1995. Accusations of "Minimalist!" and "New Age!" issued from the mouths of critics, although Górecki is neither.

Penderecki, after his radical pieces such as "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" and other "string-cluster" works, suddenly began writing works with religious themes, which were much more conservative.

Why do you think this is? What are the reasons behind this change of approach?

Did you actually take the time to read up on either composer... to see what they actually had to say? I have to laugh at the notion that if an artist actually begins to sell... then he or she must have "sold out". Of course this is a great defense of those who don't sell... because the lack of popularity... rather than a failing... is proof that said artist is so cutting edge that mere mortals cannot relate.

Returning to Gorecki and Penderecki... from what I read on both they became as disillusioned with Western Modernism as they were with the Soviet/East Block Social Realism. They felt that that in both instances the artists were expected to tow the "party line"... or be written out of the story.

I know that Penderecki turned to a Neo-Romanticism/Expressionism in the belief that music should have a greater audience... but in no way was this selling out. He most certainly believed in what he was doing... and in reality the religious elements that his music began to employ were in no way supported by the Polish government... indeed, what he was doing was far more dangerous in a very real sense than any of the imagined rebellions against popular taste undertaken by Western composers secure in their tenured positions.

Personally I don't get this whole Conservative vs Modernist nonsense. Honestly, I suspect it is comments such as those expressed in the OP... snobbishly dismissive of anything not up to an imagined standard of avant garde experimentation... that ultimately turns a great many off of ever wishing to explore Modern and Contemporary music. Being repeatedly told, in so many words, that the music you like is conservative twaddle, pandering to the almighty Moloch is not likely to attract anyone.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

BPS said:


> By the way, once you eliminate repetition and predictability, all that's left is random noise.


Wonderful analysis, but how does this relate to anything?

There are thorough-composed pieces from the pre-Baroque era that are, to the modern listener, as unpredictable as any modern music. Modern music has its own logic, although it tends to differ somewhat between composers.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Petwhac said:


> 1, There is art for art's sake.
> 2, There is music for art's sake.
> 3, There is music for music's sake.
> I'm not especially fond of Pärt or Gorecki and find most of what I've heard of their music rather dull. However, music doesn't _have_ to be good art to be good music. Given a choice, I'll go for good music. That's enough for me.


I'm objectifying things more than you are.

1, There is art for art's sake, which includes anything in any medium or genre which achieves "art" status, by meeting specific criteria for art.
2, There is music for art's sake, if it meets certain criteria for being music created intentionally as art.
3, There is music for music's sake, if it achieves certain art criteria beyond its ostensibly "musical" goals.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think the dissolution of the Soviet power-base is what caused this backlash into religion. Soviet/East Block Social(ist) Realism is inherently contradictory, since it suppressed religion while at the same time advocating "the common man" and the proletariat. I think the underlying motive of the Soviets, and of Socialist Realism, was to create a happy, submissive, "corporate" man who would be maximally productive, tame, and predictable. Apparently, religion and The Beatles were both necessary ingredients for this to happen.

I don't think Penderecki and Gorecki exited the modernist stage for any resentment of "modernist party line," but when they saw they now had "a real proletariat stage" and audience, with money to spend in a new, free consumer economy, they wanted to be a part of it; and what better way to "belong" than religion? It's a real connection. It's populist. Perhaps they are totally sincere, and see religion as the most noble artistic expression. I still think that they will become "colloquial" composers as a result.

But, art music, like other competing genres, may require cinema, soundtracks, or other mediums to really hit home. Gorecki's million-seller is proof that religious themes have international appeal; or maybe it's just the "new age" minimal sound of it.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I don't think anyone really _knows_ why Gorecki and Penderecki turned their backs on their earlier styles. George Rochberg did the same thing. He turned to a Neo-Romanticism style after years of composing surrealistic music. According to the biography I read from various sites, Rochberg turned to this style after the death of his son. Why would a death cause a composer to abandon his previous style and form a completely new one? These kinds of questions aren't easy to answer and while we can speculate, observe, and try to figure out the reasons why these changes have occurred, I think it's much more important to answer this question: does the music move us? In the end, this is the only thing I care about whether I respond to it or not. I can hear a composer coping out and trying to play to an audience like Karl Jenkins, Whitmire, Philip Glass, most of Steve Reich's music (mainly his works post-_Music for 18 Musicians_), etc. We can _hear_ it in the music but Penderecki and Gorecki were major players in the mid to late 20th Century. To assume they changed their style to make money seems to me like you're clutching at straws.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

In regards to the main thread topic, I see no reason to believe that Gorecki and Penderecki made the artistic choices they did primarily for financial reasons. The one piece by either of them that became a popular hit did so nearly 20 years later. There are many easier and quicker ways to make money from composition.

I don't really like much of either of their music, but that's beside the point. I'm sure they're writing the music they want to write.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Odd that nobody's mentioned that famous sell-out, Bartok, in this discussion. Concerto for Orchestra, indeed!


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Some articles on Gorecki (who died in 2010) here:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/6.2.03/abstracts6_2.html

Interestingly, there should be a complete or almost complete 4th symphony, which will be premiered in April 2014, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Górecki

Quote from there (1994): "_I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will write for because you have to give the listener something and he has to make an effort in order to understand certain things. If I were thinking of my audience and one likes this, one likes that, one likes another thing, I would never know what to write. Let every listener choose that which interests him. I have nothing against one person liking Mozart or Shostakovich or Leonard Bernstein, but doesn't like Górecki. That's fine with me. I, too, like certain things._"


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Related thread, which I did a while ago, here:
http://www.talkclassical.com/20565-selling-out.html

Funnily enough, I gave Penderecki as an example of a composer accused of selling out, but I personally don't think he sold out.


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## Guest (May 27, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> oh, never mind...


My thought exactly!


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## Guest (May 27, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> Mahler was born into a world where there was only one musical idiom or language. The music of the marching bands or beer gardens, the popular everyday music and the 'art' music of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors were all derived from one source.


Hahahaha. I'd love to debate this with you. And maybe I will once I've stopped laughing.



Petwhac said:


> His music is awash with the aforementioned popular idioms which seamlessly integrate into his high art symphonic constructs because they share the same harmonic/tonal _basis_.


Seamlessly integrate, eh? That must be why he was so often criticized for mixing incompatible genres. Yes. Yes, I see. Seamlessly plopping in incongruous and alien musics and thereby pissing everyone off and making him persona non grata for decades before being rehabilitated (and seen, suddenly, as doing things seamlessly). Yes. It's all so clear to me, now!



Petwhac said:


> The 'art music' composer of 2013 is faced with a situation that Mahler was not. Namely, having grown up surrounded by a huge range of different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions in written music as well as nearly a hundred years of recorded music from jazz, pop, world, country, electronica, etc.


Well, I grant you the hundred years of recorded music, of course. But I don't see that it really changes things much. Not what you claim it changes. Mahler was also surrounded by a huge range of different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions. We forget that to our peril. We maybe do not have as immediate an experience of the different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions that he did. We've lost (forgotten) a lot of what was direct and immediate for him. And which he used in his pieces. Look at contemporary responses to his music! Whether praise or critique, everyone noticed that Mahler drew from a wide range of styles. Everything but the kitchen sink (and in the sixth, I could swear I heard...).



Petwhac said:


> Mahler inherited his musical vocabulary and could employ it to create something original.


And this is different from today how?



Petwhac said:


> What are those givens for the composer of 2013? There aren't any. Each composer must invent their own musical universe.
> For some this can be an inhibiting thing. For some a liberating thing.


I'm sorry. What was your point again? I have totally lost the thread of your argument here.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'd add some history to all this. 1956 was a big year for Eastern Europe (the Eastern Bloc or Soviet Satellite countries), including Poland. In that year, there had been worker's protests which became quite ugly. The government repressed the protests but saw this as a warning sign to move forward with de-Stalinisation (Stalin had died in 1953). So Moscow appointed a moderate Communist, Wladislaw Gomulka, as head of the government. Effectively, Stalinism was over in Poland (not to say that it became what we'd call democracy, but concessions where made and this began an era of reform).

In the same year, later in October, similar thing happened in Hungary. But Hungarian Stalinists where not willing to lose power and move towards a more moderate form of Communism. As a result, the Soviet Union invaded and the Hungarian revolution was supressed with brute force. The problem there was that reform came after a crisis, a power struggle between hard liners and moderates was not dealt with proactively as it had been in Poland.

The lives of all Polish composers mentioned here - Penderecki, Gorecki, and Lutoslawski where deeply affected by these events. In terms of cultural policy, Poland was less restrictive after 1956 compared to other Communist states that basically retained Stalinism (eg. East Germany and Romania). So I think this is when the Warsaw Autumn new music festival was established, to showcase new Polish music as well as have music from outside Poland (including the West, I think) performed. Of course, all of the music would have still been vetted and checked as before (passed through various censorship comittees) but cultural policy became less oppressive than it had been under STalinism. More new music was let through the gate compared to before, so to speak (even in the USSR in the early 1960's you had the premiere of Shostakovich's Babi Yar symphony, which would have been unthinkable under Stalin).

Of course there was opportunism and propaganda in this too. Communist governments in East Europe, or the outwardly more moderate ones as least, wanted to show the world that they where doing a good job. Things in reality where more complicated than that, but I'll try stick to relating this all to music. But the bottom line is that no people like to be ruled by a puppet government backed up by the military might of a foreign power. All the Russians did was bring their ideology and oppression to these countries. So naturally, any relaxation of oppression and move away from ideology towards something more pragmatic and workable, was welcomed by the people (this of course included composers).

So what you got was music like the Threnody by Penderecki, and also Lutoslawski being able to move towards chance-based pieces, him being exposed to the music of John Cage around this time.

Flash forward though to the 1970's and Gomulka's Honeymoon period with his Polish constituency was long over. That decade saw some crippling strikes, rampant inflation and food shortages (this, in one of the biggest agricultural economies in the region). Communism, even the reformed version, was beginning to buckle at the edges. In the mid 1960's the more reformist Soviet leader Krushchev was ousted in a bloodless coup and replaced by the more conservative and hard line Brezhnev. This also had effects on the Eastern Bloc to some degree.

So in the 1970's you got people like Gorecki questioning the system, and of course this was the decade he composed the famous 3rd symphony. You also got a spiritual element entering not only his music, but also that of Arvo Part in Estonia and Gubaidulina in the USSR. Things like the religious titles of some of their works had to be suppressed during this time, but the nature of the music itself left no doubt in people's minds that it was a metaphorical protest against a system that promised everything and delivered nothing. & even if things temporarily improved, it would not mean that would continue, all it meant was that the party chiefs would temporarily loosen the leash then tighten it at their behest.

Of course in the early 1980's you had the solidarity movement. The leader of that movement, Lech Walensa, said that without a Polish pope (John Paul II) being in office, Communism in Poland might not have ended as quickly as it did, by the end of the decade.

There are many andecdotes but let me relate this one. Even though I think Lutoslawski often denied his music was making any political comments, he himself didn't shirk from making such comments. In a composer's conference in Poland after Solidarity had been crushed and martial law imposed, Lutoslawski guardedly criticised the authorities for their heavy handed way in dealing with the crisis. For this, he was made persona non grata in Polish musical circles for the rest of the Communist era, but thankfully it didn't last long, and he lived to see the end of the regime.

So that's what I wanted to add. What these guys did was, like any composer, linked to political events, cultural policy, economic factors, and so on. Look at Beethoven for example, him being informed by the events around him (eg. the Napoleonic wars), or Verdi with the risorgimento, or the emergence of interest in folk music in rapidly industrialising countries around the turn of the century, when traditions where in danger of dying out. I'm talking of Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bartok, Kodaly, de Falla and so on. Its no coincidence that stylistic changes occur when they do. They are linked with what's going on at the time, at least to some degree.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> Hahahaha. I'd love to debate this with you. And maybe I will once I've stopped laughing.


I detect the nervous laugh of someone worried. Otherwise once you've calmed down, I look forward to the debate.



some guy said:


> Seamlessly integrate, eh? That must be why he was so often criticized for mixing incompatible genres. Yes. Yes, I see. Seamlessly plopping in incongruous and alien musics and thereby pissing everyone off and making him persona non grata for decades before being rehabilitated (and seen, suddenly, as doing things seamlessly). Yes. It's all so clear to me, now!


I think you've misunderstood *sigh*. Please supply some examples and we'll see if they relate to what some might have viewed as Mahler's use of 'vulgar' popular music. Or whether it is something deeper.



some guy said:


> Well, I grant you the hundred years of recorded music, of course. But I don't see that it really changes things much. Not what you claim it changes. Mahler was also surrounded by a huge range of different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions. We forget that to our peril. We maybe do not have as immediate an experience of the different idioms, techniques, styles and traditions that he did. We've lost (forgotten) a lot of what was direct and immediate for him. And which he used in his pieces. Look at contemporary responses to his music! Whether praise or critique, everyone noticed that Mahler drew from a wide range of styles. Everything but the kitchen sink (and in the sixth, I could swear I heard...).


Now it is me who can't stop laughing. :lol:
OK, I've stopped now.
All the styles that Mahler drew from were just that, _styles_. Styles that use one musical syntax/language/ system- that's right, tonality. The turning of Frere Jacques in to the minor key for ironic effect or the numerous waltzes and marches in his symphonies cannot be equated with the 2013 composers' heritage of 12-tone, serial, concrete, i-ching, magic squares, modes of limited transposition etc etc. which are all example of where a composer must look to *derive their notes* or they must come up with their own unique way.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

the comparison of making baroque pastiches in 2013 is invalid in regards to gorecki and penderecki imho.
just because they turned to older idioms it does not make them simply a plain rewrite of the older stuff.
if you want to convince me (or "us"?), PROVE IT. WITH SCIENCE! you just have to copy and paste a link to one of this composer tunes and another to an older tune which has the same qualities. of course they have to be the SAME qualities, not just a few but not all, because if not you would be proving its derived yet original


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Odd that nobody's mentioned that famous sell-out, Bartok, in this discussion. Concerto for Orchestra, indeed!


Hah. Excellent example of a Trolling Texan at work. Yes indeed.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

1, There is art for art's sake, which includes anything in any medium or genre which achieves "art" status, by meeting specific criteria for art.

"Art for Art's Sake" or "Art pour l'Art" was a very specific artistic position... a term first coined by the French poet, Theophile Gautier and employed by writers such as Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, J.K. Huysmans, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Mallarme. It was essentially the foundation of "Formalism" and rooted in the belief that art should not be judged upon non-art criteria such as morality, religious or political views, etc... "Art for Art's Sake" does not mean (as it is so often misconstrued) that Art should have no practical or utilitarian purpose... only that it should not be judged as Art based upon whether it conveys the "right" or "wrong" views of the moment.

Your views as expressed here: I think that the conservative use of tonality in art music becomes ideological and religiously charged by default... Penderecki is more obvious, in his use of religious themes; but Gorecki's Third, the first movement is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus.

I would think that the reason Pärt composes tonally for choirs is because he intends his music to be performed in churches.

So I see the conservative use of tonalty as being religiously ideological in nature, just the way modernism or serialism is seen as being ideological. It also "sells out" the art to an extent, because (in the case of Pärt) the art becomes functional in a church ritual; that makes it not only utilitarian, but ideological.

I see a conflict here, with "art" music, if "art" means covering new ground or exploring new territory.

masked as being in support of "pure art" or "Art for Art's Sakes" are clearly the exact opposite in intent. You criticize and dismiss a body of Art... music... based not upon the merits of the music... but rather based upon your ideology... your notion that music composed for the church amounts to "selling out". That pretty much bumps off most of Bach and most music from the Baroque and earlier, and a good amount of other music on to the present. So one must ask... are we really questioning the merits of Part and Gorecki and Penderecki... or are we discussing your own personal biases that have nothing whatsoever to do with the music itself?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Excerpts from_ A Polish Renaissance (Phaidon):

"I try never to lose sight of my basic aim - which is to compose the particular aesthetic experiences of my listener ... I am perfectly well aware that my imagined listener is no typical listener, and that he is even probably very particular. For my work, however, he has one invaluable advantage: he is the one listener about whom I really know something. As such he is an element absolutely necessary for me in composing music - since it would be impossible for me to imagine this process other than in conjunction with a constantly imagined percipient of the work. In this way creation and perception intermingle and are elements of the same complex phenomenon." _
-Witold Lutoslawski, _The Composer and the Listener,_ 1971

[In Lutoslawski's case, he learned this the hard way, as he tried to establish himself as a composer. In 1948, the Soviet-style "Polish People's Republic" had come into being, and the Union of Polish Composers formally accepted the "socialist realism" line toed by their Russian colleagues. Lutoslawski was removed from the Union committee, his first symphony having been suppressed as "too formalist." 
After Panufnik wrote his_ Old Polish Suite_ and _Concerto in modo antico_ as "pleasurable escape" from political demands, Lutoslawki decided he would follow suit, writing an abundance of carol arrangements and songs (many of them for children), some instrumental pieces, incidental music and film scores; but only three works of the period - the _Little Suite _and_ Dance Preludes,_ and the imposing _Concerto for Orchestra_ - have retained much currency in today's concert halls, and even those three are based on folk-tunes and contain only a limited quantity of original material.

So Lutoslawski was by his own account not writing the music he really wanted to write, and this tricky balancing act had some unpleasant surprises: by 1954, he was decorated and praised by the authorities, while Panufnik had already left Poland. Lutoslawski became Poland's top composer.

He then realized that the world's perception of him was counter to who he wanted to be as an artist.

The climate gradually changed, and after Stalin's death in 1953, things thawed somewhat. In 1956 the Warsaw Autumn Festival was established, a prestigious international music festival which allowed Polish composers to hear what was going on in music in the outside world. This was a good thing, and nurtured new composers.

In hindsight, we now see that by 1958-59 a new kind of ideology was emerging, not of politically-imposed collectivism, but of intellectually determined hypermodernism. The influence of Moscow was being replaced with that of Darmstadt.; perhaps Polish composers were tired of all ideologies.

Lutoslawski finally escaped from outside demands, and by 1961 achieved creative freedom, after hearing John Cage's _Concert for Piano and Orchestra._]

(end of citation)

So the stylistic changes simply come from the composer's intent, purpose, the prevailing musical climate, and imagination of who he is supposed to be composing for_, _coupled with integrity: the degree to which he is willing to compromise. Ultimately, it is not "modernism" or "tradition," but creative freedom that these composers were after.

I see Gorecki and Penderecki as being less intentioned than Panufnik or Lutoslawski (who almost fell into the same trap), and more willing to "follow the current" of current social desires. Panufnik and Lutoslawski seem to be very individual, and less pandering to an imagined "Proletariat Everyman."

My impression is that Penderecki and Gorecki wish to please their audience to a greater degree than Panufnik or Lutoslawski, and that their "imagined audience" consists of more typical "everyman" listeners.

For me, good art can have wide appeal, but it must not underestimate the capacity of its audience; otherwise, it becomes mere entertaiment, depending on the degree of compromise.

In conclusion, another quote from Lutoslawski:

_"Artistic creative activity can be motivated by different aims. The most commonplace of these is the desire to attract the attention of others, to be popular, to earn money, and so on. In my case, the main motive is the desire to give the most faithful expression of a constantly changing and developing world that exists within me. The question can be raised: am I only interested in what goes on in me and nothing else? My answer is: no. I have a strong desire to communicate something, through my music, to the people. I am not working to get many 'fans' for myself; I do not want to convince, I want to find. I would like to find people who in the depths of their souls feel the same way as I do. That can only be achieved through the greatest artistic sincerity in every detail of music, from the minutest technical aspects to the most secret depths. I know that this standpoint deprives me of many potential listeners, but those who remain mean an immeasurable treasure for me. They are the people who are closest to me, even if I do not know them personally. I regard creative activity as a kind of soul-fishing, and the 'catch' is the best medicine for loneliness, that most human of suffering."_


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> ...I can hear a composer copping out and trying to play to an audience like Karl Jenkins, Whitmire, Philip Glass, most of Steve Reich's music (mainly his works post-_Music for 18 Musicians_), etc. We can _hear_ it in the music...


I disagree with your assessment of Glass and Reich. While gaining popularity, I see little compromise, certainly not to the degree of Gorecki.



Neo Romanza said:


> ...but Penderecki and Gorecki were major players in the mid to late 20th Century. To assume they changed their style to make money seems to me like you're clutching at straws.


I think it is obvious that their present music has wider appeal, is less difficult, less "arty," and aligned with religious sentiment (1,000,000 CDs later). This translates into something bearing at least a slight resemblance to accessibility, wider appeal, and entertainment.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> 1, There is art for art's sake, which includes anything in any medium or genre which achieves "art" status, by meeting specific criteria for art.
> 
> "Art for Art's Sake" or "Art pour l'Art" was a very specific artistic position... a term first coined by the French poet, Theophile Gautier and employed by writers such as Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, J.K. Huysmans, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Mallarme. It was essentially the foundation of "Formalism" and rooted in the belief that art should not be judged upon non-art criteria such as morality, religious or political views, etc... "Art for Art's Sake" does not mean (as it is so often misconstrued) that Art should have no practical or utilitarian purpose... only that it should not be judged as Art based upon whether it conveys the "right" or "wrong" views of the moment.


I don't care what Oscar Wilde thinks, the meaning I intended for "art for art's sake" is as stated.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Your views as expressed here...masked as being in support of "pure art" or "Art for Art's Sakes" are clearly the exact opposite in intent. You criticize and dismiss a body of Art... music... based not upon the merits of the music... but rather based upon your ideology... your notion that music composed for the church amounts to "selling out". That pretty much bumps off most of Bach and most music from the Baroque and earlier, and a good amount of other music on to the present. So one must ask... are we really questioning the merits of Part and Gorecki and Penderecki... or are we discussing your own personal biases that have nothing whatsoever to do with the music itself?


I've always said that any music, of whatever genre, can transcend its original intent or function and become "art." This includes Messiaen and Bach.

The abrupt stylistic changes of Penderecki and Gorecki are much clearer-cut cases of "retro-postmodernism niche appeal" and a specialized but profitable corner of the market. IMHO, of course...and one million CDs of Gorecki's Third are support for this argument. Ask KenOC; sales figures don't lie.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I don't care what Oscar Wilde thinks, the meaning I intended for "art for art's sake" is as stated.

In other words... you feel free to employ words and phrases to mean whatever suits you... regardless of their commonly understood meaning?

The abrupt stylistic changes of Penderecki and Gorecki are much clearer-cut cases of "retro-postmodernism niche appeal" and a specialized but profitable corner of the market.

So the artist should ignore the audience... or rather create that which will almost certainly be disliked by the majority... thus gaining him or her brownie points with the avant garde. But how is pandering to the avant garde any less egregious than pandering to the masses? (As if Gorecki or Penderecki ever had such thoughts in mind.)


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I feel like I'm back in high school:

Tragically Hip Individual- "Band X unquestionably sold out because _blah blah blah blah blah blah blah._" (Long-winded justification that essentially just adds up to "because I don't like them and they're more popular than the crap I do like.")


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree with your assessment of Glass and Reich. While gaining popularity, I see little compromise, certainly not to the degree of Gorecki.


Reich and Glass continue to do the same thing over and over again without breaking any new ground for themselves creatively. That's my assessment of them. I know you'll disagree and will probably continue to but I think they're one-trick ponies.



millionrainbows said:


> I think it is obvious that their present music has wider appeal, is less difficult, less "arty," and aligned with religious sentiment (1,000,000 CDs later). This translates into something bearing at least a slight resemblance to accessibility, wider appeal, and entertainment.


How do you know what Penderecki and Gorecki were thinking when they created their new styles? You're making assumptions about two composers that you know nothing about. Like I said, I think you're clutching at straws about all of this. I'll tell you what, when you actually can talk to Penderecki and ask him yourself, let me know what he says. As for Gorecki, you'll have to continue making your assumptions.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Gorecki must have been a genius in foretelling the future: apparently, in 1977 he composed his 3d symphony in order to cash in on the new religious sentiment of the mid nineties. Quite remarkable, really.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Gorecki must have been a genius in foretelling the future: apparently, in 1977 he composed his 3d symphony in order to cash in on the new religious sentiment of the mid nineties. Quite remarkable, really.


I don't think our OP realizes _when_ Gorecki composed his _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_. The reality is when classical music is recorded for a record label the music flies out of the hands of the composers and into the hands of marketers.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I feel like I'm back in high school:
> 
> Tragically Hip Individual- "Band X unquestionably sold out because _blah blah blah blah blah blah blah._" (Long-winded justification that essentially just adds up to "because I don't like them and they're more popular than the crap I do like.")


Bob Dylan famously sold out when he plugged in his guitar. What a traitor to the folkies!!
I doubt he's lost much sleep over it.
You see, an artist is quite rightly loyal only to themselves.


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## Guest (May 27, 2013)

Sell out. 

Them's fightin' words. And that's exactly what we've accomplished in this thread. Fightin'.

How delightful....


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

As jazz guitarist Jim Hall once said "Where do I go to sell out?"


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> Gorecki must have been a genius in foretelling the future: apparently, in 1977 he composed his 3d symphony in order to cash in on the new religious sentiment of the mid nineties. Quite remarkable, really.


Precisely. Evidently God was on his side  When asked why this piece written nearly twenty years ago had become not only known but widely popular, Gorecki said he imagined it was something people wanted "right now."

[[ ADD; time context -- written in 1977, catching on nearly twenty years later with the public -- makes the penning of that work in 1977 rather "avant-garde." ]]

Yeah... who knew? Religion and spirituality sell?


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

BPS said:


> Hard-core modernism was promoted and used by the Communists to discourage traditional arts and values in Poland and elsewhere. The perfect example is the modern "cathedral" built in Nowa Huta just outside of Krakow, hard-core modernist to be sure, but an intentional insult to religion.
> 
> Here are pictures of Nowa Huta. From the outside maybe interesting:
> View attachment 18428
> ...


Scroll about halfway on the provided linked webpage, and you'll read the real story of Arka Pana. It's design and construction was due to steadfast demands of the locals, and the support of the Catholic Church which included a Polish Pope to be. Modern Art is not the work of the devil in this case. 

http://sophiadeboick.com/tag/catholic-church/

Re composers Gorecki and Penderecki and so many others, I give them the benefit of the doubt. :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I don't care what Oscar Wilde thinks, the meaning I intended for "art for art's sake" is as stated.
> 
> In other words... you feel free to employ words and phrases to mean whatever suits you... regardless of their commonly understood meaning?


I employ words and phrases to convey obvious meanings, and I expect you to recognize those meanings.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> So the artist should ignore the audience... or rather create that which will almost certainly be disliked by the majority... thus gaining him or her brownie points with the avant garde.


No, but the artist should not pander to the lowest common denominator, either. It's called "artistic integrity."



StlukesguildOhio said:


> But how is pandering to the avant garde any less egregious than pandering to the masses? (As if Gorecki or Penderecki ever had such thoughts in mind.)


Gorecki's million-selling Third Symphony had wide appeal to the masses. This proves that his music appealed to a mass audience, and egregious or not, it certainly turned out to be more lucrative.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> As jazz guitarist Jim Hall once said "Where do I go to sell out?"


He should contact Kenny G.; but I don't think Jim Hall ever compromised his artistic integrity. I think he was making funny.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's the same reason George Rochberg sold out and returned to tonality; the avant garde marks the "end of history" as a self-aware creation; everybody knows everything instantly now, so there are no time-lags or clear dividing lines. Everybody can stake out their own territory now. Everything is local, nobody will ever agree on "one thing" again.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> He should contact Kenny G.; but I don't think Jim Hall ever compromised his artistic integrity. I think he was making funny.


Some people think George Benson sold out. But why _shouldn't_ he sing soul/easy listening stuff as well as being a consummate jazz guitarist. Maybe he likes both. Why should he starve just to satisfy the 'purists'? Why should Kenny G? 
If ya got it, flaunt it baby!!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There's a school of thought that believes any artist who achieves wide popularity (at least while still alive) has "compromised his integrity." Can't say I hold with that.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The same sort of debates used to plague the world of the visual arts as demagogues sworn to defend the ideology of abstraction squared off with the "realists". Pop Art burst on the scene and made the entire debate moot. Yet even so, when Philip Guston, one of the leading Abstract Expressionists...










... returned to figurative painting (he had begun as something of a Social Realist/Expressionist, studying under David Siquieros and revering the German Expressionist, Max Beckmann) he was brutally attacked by the idiotic critics for having "sold out".










Only his compatriot Willem DeKooning showed any support... congratulating Guston for taking a stance certain to outrage the critics. But then DeKooning was long the most open-minded of the Abstract Expressionists. He was quoted suggesting, to an effect, that the development of Abstract Expressionism in no way meant that one could no longer paint a beautiful woman, a sunset, or a man standing under a lamp-post.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that the "selling out" bit in the title, and corresponding arguments, have made this thread controversial. But I think the discussion regarding the post 1945 period in terms of music and things in general like history and exposure of composers from there, its been worthwhile.

What I'd add is that apart from the Communist era, and also of course the Nazi occupation during WW2, Poland has had a long history of being ruled by foreign oppressors (or their stooges). In the 19th century, Poland literally did not exist on the map. It was carved up between Russian, German and Austro Hungarian empires.

So what composers like Chopin and later Szymanowski did was create this sense of imagined homeland. Chopin with his polonaises and mazurkas, Szymanowski with his enquiries into peasant music from the backwoods. Chopin also supported Polish independence but he never saw it happen. He raised money by doing concerts for war veterans who fought for Polish independence in 1848. This was a big deal as his health was deteriorating (some said the gruelling concerts worsened his condition) and he hated playing in large concert halls, preferring the salon. By contrast, Szymanowski lived to see and actually live in an independent Poland. Independence came in the early 20th century, about the time of the end of World War I. One of the early leaders was a pianist of international renown, Ignazy Paderewski. He's widely seen as a statesman who did good for the country, but his successor General Pilsudski was a dictator, albeit one who tried hard to maintain Poland's independence in the difficult inter war period.

The other thing I didn't mention is that the Catholic church in Poland was in these years of foreign oppression the glue that held the nation together. Much like it used to be in Ireland before the British granted it (well the Southern predominantly CAtholic part of it) home rule. So you had the Polish pope I mentioned before, John Paul II, in his younger years involved in the underground resistance against the Nazi occupation. Many Catholics lost their lives fighting this cause, including FAther Maximilian Kolbe (who was canonised as a saint by JP II).

Same as in Nazism, during the Communist era there where elements in the Catholic church in Poland that worked with those opposing the regime. As I'd said in my last post here, Lech Walensa said that the support of the pope was crucial to eventually bringing down the Communist regime.

Again, this is in way of background, I see the thread as good to discuss and tell people who may not know about these things relating to Polish history. I am trying hard to be as objective as possible. But I think its fair to say that this country, with various events from the bloody war of independence in 1848 to the Nazi occupation (Auschwitz being on Polish soil) and Stalinism (the murder of the Polish army in Katyn), its no walk in the park. And this I see as relevant to Polish music, a lot of it is dark and similarly not what I'd call easy listening.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> He should contact Kenny G.; but I don't think Jim Hall ever compromised his artistic integrity. I think he was making funny.


Yes, he was just making a joke.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Dunno if anyone else has pointed this out but in relation to what you said here, million:



millionrainbows said:


> ...
> 
> Penderecki, after his radical pieces such as "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" and other "string-cluster" works, suddenly began writing works with religious themes, which were much more conservative.
> 
> ...


Penderecki also did a religious work earlier, in his avant-garde phase, the Dies Irae (Auschwitz Oratorio) which features the same tone clusters, shocking glissandos and overall ultra dark vibe. It was performed in the 1960's upon the opening and dedication of Auschwitz as a museum and memorial to those who died there.

Another one like this is Lutoslawski's Paroles tissées (Woven words), for tenor & orchestra which has text drawn from poet Robert Desnos, who died in the Holocaust.

& of course Gorecki's famous 3rd symphony, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

All three deal with the Holocaust in some way, but not directly. Penderecki through the prism of a religious text (albeit not for ceremonial but for a special occasion which is more political and commemorative than religious). Lutoslawski's indirectly, but I think he was generally like that, reluctant to express political things directly. & Gorecki's, the middle movement being the words of a girl scrawled on a prison wall when she was held by the Gestapo, the outer movements a traditional Polish prayer and a folk type song.

What these say is composers engaging with their times and reaching back to traditions of their land. So I see it as more like that, not a sell out. The purposes of each work are different, even before we get to things like cd sales. But people here have said the same thing basically.

But as I said, good to have a thread touching on these issues. They are controversial for sure.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

If Penderecki and Górecki had switched to writing film scores for Hollywood movies, then maybe they would have sold out. Anything else is hardly selling out, especially within the classical music niche.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's funny how "selling out" doesn't exist whenever it's convenient, yet is used as a bludgeon whenever something popular is disliked, such as Karl Jenkins' _Palladio,_ used in the De Beers Diamond commercial.

Yet, Gorecki's Third, selling over a million units, is "excused" because it's "art" music. I'd rather hear the Jenkins piece any day.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

Unless you think tonality is an invalid/inferior form of musical expression I'm really not getting this 'selling out' business.


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## Guest (May 28, 2013)

KenOC said:


> There's a school of thought that believes any artist who achieves wide popularity (at least while still alive) has "compromised his integrity."


There is no school of thought that says this. This is yet another strawman, with no substance at all.

Well, except for the straw.

And maybe some trace elements....


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

To be fair to Gorecki, I imagine the belated success of his 3rd symphony and the subsequent sales figures of the Nonesuch recording surprised him as much as anyone else. I wouldn't know whether the sales spike was due to Nonesuch cleverly sensing that a recording of it might do well in the immediate post-Cold War era based on the heavier-than-usual radio airplay the work had been getting for a couple of years prior to that.


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## Guest (May 28, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Unless you think tonality is an invalid/inferior form of musical expression I'm really not getting this 'selling out' business.


Tonality is no sort of form of musical expression at all. Tonality is a system. It is a way of organizing sounds.

In fact, I'm having a hard time right now coming up with any meaning for the words "form of musical expression." Unless it means "divertimento" or "sonata allegro" or "theme and variations" or some such....

Even so. One can "express" practically anything with any old system or following any old form.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> Tonality is no sort of form of musical expression at all. Tonality is a system. It is a way of organizing sounds.
> 
> In fact, I'm having a hard time right now coming up with any meaning for the words "form of musical expression." Unless it means "divertimento" or "sonata allegro" or "theme and variations" or some such....
> 
> Even so. One can "express" practically anything with any old system or following any old form.


Okay, substitute 'system' for 'musical expression' then. The gist remains the same.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Gorecki's Third, selling over a million units, is "excused" because it's "art" music.
> I'd rather hear the (Carl) Jenkins piece any day.


Well, there ya go, to each his own: there is no accounting for taste. "À chacun son goût."

If you thought you were choosing an underdog because of lack of popularity within the classical community, one might wonder just how much Jenkins has made of that little Diamond Music Snippet used in a national commercial which ran for years vs. what Gorecki made when his Symphony No. 3 recording went classical platinum.

Which composer is "filthier with lucre" from those heinously corrupting actions? The one who writes for, and sells rights of his music to use for commercials? Or the straight ahead classical art music composer? Or do you think of both as classical art music composers?

Or is this (in some moralistic and disappointed mind,) about Jenkins being "Pure" because he is sincere about writing what many consider schlock, and then Gorecki "Impure" because he somehow sold out and compromised his previous modernist vocabulary?


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## Guest (May 28, 2013)

OK. And you* are right. The gist does remain the same, doesn't it? (I wish I'd noticed that myself.)

So here's the deal about that. Some composers around the turn of a century began to feel that the possibilities of tonality, short of just recycling what other people had already done (and done very well), were becoming rather limited. Some of them worked with a similar system (these for some reason became the famous ones), some looked to other elements of music, some (eventually) worked at redefining "music" altogether.

Throughout that century, there continued to be plenty of people who kept writing more or less tonal-ish music. And there were some who started out working other means of organizing sounds but then went back to the tonal-ish ways of doing so. I remember when Penderecki did so. It was like a slap in the face. It felt like a betrayal. To be pushing into new territory and then just turning his back on all that and doing tonal-ish things. No one felt betrayed by Arnold Bax, for instance, or even by Rachmaninoff, I'd venture to say, though both have come in for criticism. But Penderecki? He was a very prominent composer, and prominent for doing different things from the things possible with tonality.

There were many more people who kept being "radical" or who became more radical as time went by (think Douglas Lilburn or Roberto Gerhard), but a there were a few people who were radical early on and became less so as time went on. Those few people have become poster childred for two camps of listeners. They are heroes to listeners who have never liked musics that do not rely on keys to do their stuff. And they are Judases to listeners who find the many and various do-not-rely-on-keys musics to be utterly satisfying and delightful.

*"you" being ArthurBrain and not PetrB, whose also delightful post came in right before mine.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> OK. And you* are right. The gist does remain the same, doesn't it? (I wish I'd noticed that myself.)
> 
> So here's the deal about that. Some composers around the turn of a century began to feel that the possibilities of tonality, short of just recycling what other people had already done (and done very well), were becoming rather limited. Some of them worked with a similar system (these for some reason became the famous ones), some looked to other elements of music, some (eventually) worked at redefining "music" altogether.
> 
> ...


LOL. Anyone who decides a composer is "On the side of this musical ideology" / "on the listener's side" in a campaign for this aesthetic or that is high-risk gambling that the next piece by that composer could be a huge disappointment..._ "zOMG, they were not writing for the cause: they were not writing for me."_

Ha Haaa Haaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Anyone who listens to and believes what artists say about themselves or their work (at any given moment, phase of their careers)... well... _they are paying attention to things said_ *by people who make stuff up!*


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> OK. And you* are right. The gist does remain the same, doesn't it? (I wish I'd noticed that myself.)
> 
> So here's the deal about that. Some composers around the turn of a century began to feel that the possibilities of tonality, short of just recycling what other people had already done (and done very well), were becoming rather limited. Some of them worked with a similar system (these for some reason became the famous ones), some looked to other elements of music, some (eventually) worked at redefining "music" altogether.
> 
> ...


Well, if you choose to see Penderecki's tonal style of writing as some sort of betrayal then up to you I guess. I don't think any composer is obliged to write in a certain style simply because they've adopted a certain compositional approach in the past. His atonal output isn't lessened by it and neither is Gorecki's, or any other composer for that matter.

I love plenty of music that's tonal and plenty that isn't. Tonality didn't become obsolete simply because other musical methods were being created and explored either.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I've read this thread with interest. I think some quotes from Penderecki might be useful. These come from the Naxos recording 8.554491 liner notes.

"The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young – hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country – a liberation. It opened a new reality, a new vision of art and of the world. I was quick to realise, however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone. I was saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition" (1993).

Commenting on his later movement away from post-Romanticism:

"What I have been doing has been to collect and to transform the experience of the entire century. Today, having gone through the post-Romantic lesson, and having exhausted the potential of postmodern thinking, I see my artistic ideal in 'claritas' (1997).

It seems as though Penderecki became enamored with the "radical" ideas from his youth but later felt that the avant-garde ideas were too negative. He wanted to create positive things and felt he needed a new platform. The religious themes of his music probably contributed to this positive "message". Eventually he wanted to change yet again to create a "grand synthesis". 

To me it doesn't sound as though Penderecki "sold out" (although it might depend on one's meaning of that term). He evolved as a composer through several phases ultimately choosing synthesis rather than radicalism or conservatism.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I've read this thread with interest. I think some quotes from Penderecki might be useful. These come from the Naxos recording 8.554491 liner notes.
> 
> "The avant-garde gave one an illusion of universalism. The musical world of Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez and Cage was for us, the young - hemmed in by the aesthetics of socialist realism, then the official canon in our country - a liberation. It opened a new reality, a new vision of art and of the world. I was quick to realise, however, that this novelty, this experimentation and formal speculation, is more destructive than constructive; I realised the Utopian quality of its Promethean tone. I was saved from the avant-garde snare of formalism by a return to tradition" (1993).
> 
> ...


This certainly shows the corrosive effect of politics applied to a mere bunch of notes or compositional system....

What was perceived by the composer in relation to those musical vocabularies, usage of, was corrupted by a bureaucratic intrusion of ideology superimposed on the most abstract of the arts. Having no choice to other than tow the line, because, one way or another, it was embraced, as if writing that way or would have more or less social relevance.

Second logical misstep / the misperception that by writing in a tonal way on or around spiritual matters was more or less socially relevant than the composer's previous vocabulary.... You see the reactionary resurgence of Church and Spirituality throughout the former soviet union... so that too is a reaction to another political agenda, the former suppression of religion.

It sounds like this composer was never unaware of either the political agenda or the reaction in abandoning it to ever have been able to 'just write' they way he may have written. We will never know what Pendercki may have been as 'just a composer,' then.

Imagine. Your entire life reacting to some synthetic and imposed politic ideology instead of just acting on your own thoughts and impulses... that is tragic.

Whether it is from force of a government, or less "Powerful" voices about the politicizing of music, this shows what a nasty affair that always is.


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## JohnMarinelli (May 28, 2013)

BPS said:


> Hard-core modernism was promoted and used by the Communists to discourage traditional arts and values in Poland and elsewhere. The perfect example is the modern "cathedral" built in Nowa Huta just outside of Krakow, hard-core modernist to be sure, but an intentional insult to religion.
> 
> Here are pictures of Nowa Huta. From the outside maybe interesting:
> View attachment 18428
> ...


I apologize for being off-topic, but is there any more information about this particular church? The Jesus figure is very striking and I'd like to learn more about it - would you happen to know the artist?


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## Guest (May 28, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Well, if you choose to see Penderecki's tonal style of writing as some sort of betrayal then up to you I guess.


Oh, it was not a matter of choosing at all, I assure you. It was a gut-level, a visceral response to someone turning his back on something good and strong in order to make "pretty" music. It was quite a shock to hear those first neo-tonal pieces from him when they first came out. And I don't mean "shock" in a good way, either.



ArthurBrain said:


> I don't think any composer is obliged to write in a certain style simply because they've adopted a certain compositional approach in the past. His atonal output isn't lessened by it and neither is Gorecki's, or any other composer for that matter.


Neither do I. Not sure how this fits into the discussion, but best, anyway, if a composer can make her own style. And then make another one. And another.



ArthurBrain said:


> Tonality didn't become obsolete simply because other musical methods were being created and explored either.


Read my post again, maybe? All I said there was that some composers, by no means all, found that for their purposes, tonality--even stretched to its extreme--was no longer an option for them as practicing artists. There is a couple of hundred years of tonal music, properly so-called, years in which some really outrageously talented people were constantly pushing it into new territory. Tonality is not and never was a static thing. It changes. By its nature it changes. From composer to composer, from one piece to the next in any given composer's output. With tonality, just because of the constant change, you either do new things with it or you end up sounding like last year's composer. That's why the observation that tonality contained the seeds of its own destruction is so brilliantly descriptive. It's that kind of system. You really can't stand still with it. Or not without consequences.

And, as we've seen, some people have been fine to take those consequences. Some have not. Some have started out not being fine with them and have then accepted them. It's that pattern that has fueled this conversation. And yes, it can very easily seem like a betrayal. Kinda like someone who is a vegan for moral reasons deciding to eat meat. Certainly no one is obliged to avoid meat. But if someone has decided, and as a matter of principle, to eat no animal products, it will seem like a betrayal if they turn away from their principles.

That's how we felt in the 70s about Penderecki.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> ...it will seem like a betrayal if they turn away from their principles...That's how we felt in the 70s about Penderecki.


Yeah, where were the rest of you traditionalists back in the '70s, listening to Threnody with us? Nahh, I doubt it!

I think part of the problem is generational, to an extent; Panufnik and Lutoslawski were right in the middle of the Nazi invasion, then endured the worst of Soviet repression. Gorecki and Penderecki were younger, and by their mid-20s, the Soviet fog had about lifted. Gorecki didn't hear any Boulez until 1961, and was, unsurprisingly, more influenced by Messiaen's mystic Catholicism.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> That's why the observation that tonality contained the seeds of its own destruction is so brilliantly descriptive. It's that kind of system. You really can't stand still with it. Or not without consequences.


That is an observation that is evidently mistaken. The evidence being the number of works written long after tonality's supposed demise. When exactly _was _the destruction complete? Someone should have told Britten or Poulenc they were using elements of a dead system and just didn't notice the smell.



some guy said:


> Kinda like someone who is a vegan for moral reasons deciding to eat meat. Certainly no one is obliged to avoid meat. But if someone has decided, and as a matter of principle, to eat no animal products, it will seem like a betrayal if they turn away from their principles.


If someone decides to not use tonality as a matter of principle, they are a silly ideologue! Perhaps the vegan who becomes a meat eater simply has a change of mind. It's not a crime to change your mind is it? The trouble with vegans and anti-tonalists is they think everyone else should be a vegan or an anti-tonalist.



some guy said:


> That's how we felt in the 70s about Penderecki.


That's the royal 'we' is it?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Imagine. Your entire life reacting to some synthetic and imposed politic ideology instead of just acting on your own thoughts and impulses... that is tragic...Whether it is from force of a government, or less "Powerful" voices about the politicizing of music, this shows what a nasty affair that always is.


I think it's a matter of finding one's own identity. Panufnik found his path early on, and stuck to it. Lutoslawski was almost subsumed, but fought his way back out with hard work. Shostakovich seems to have been consistent in his art...this brings out in even more relief the abrupt changes of direction in Penderecki and Gorecki's work.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Petwhac said:


> The evidence being the number of works written long after tonality's supposed demise. When exactly _was _the destruction complete? Someone should have told Britten or Poulenc they were using elements of a dead system and just didn't notice the smell....(sarcastically) If someone decides to not use tonality as a matter of principle, they are a silly ideologue! It's not a crime to change your mind is it? The trouble with...anti-tonalists is they think everyone else should be...an anti-tonalist.


Panufnik rejected the 12-tone method, and continued with his 2 and 4-note cell method, similar to Bartók. 
Lutoslawsi was more of a chromaticist than Panufnik, but used aleatoric elements (from Cage's influence) to add more variety to what he thought was a "bland sameness" of the 12-tone method.

The point being, is that there are a multiplicity of ways to compose music, using all 12 notes, than just "tonal or atonal." The menu has become enormous in its possibilities.

From this perspective, a retreat back to standard tonality - with no spice, no innovation, but only slight stylistic nuances, like Pärt's choral writing - is virtually a "retro" way of doing things, like "roots" music bands who do slavish imitations of historically significant blues or rock songs, complete with period instruments, jelly-roll haircuts, and 1950's zoot suits.

From this perspective, yes, tonality is a "historical ideology," as distinct as any other.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> Oh, it was not a matter of chosing at all, I assure you. It was a gut-level, a visceral response to someone turning his back on something good and strong in order to make "pretty" music. It was quite a shock to hear those first neo-tonal pieces from him when they first came out. And I don't mean "shock" in a good way, either.


Well, it _is_ a choice to subjectively consider a composer to be 'betraying' their 'audience' for composing in a different style or manner more suited to him/her at the time. To have a revulsion/dislike for certain music isn't so much of a choice perhaps but that's not the same thing. As before, a composer isn't obligated to continually make music in a certain style simply to satisfy those who prefer it.



> Neither do I. Not sure how this fits into the discussion, but best, anyway, if a composer can make her own style. And then make another one. And another.


Well...what are you complaining about then? Many composers make their mark with a particular style and then change or modify it to another, or even end up incorporating a range of idioms into their compositions.



> Read my post again, maybe? All I said there was that some composers, by no means all, found that for their purposes, tonality--even stretched to its extreme--was no longer an option for them as practicing artists. There is a couple of hundred years of tonal music, properly so-called, years in which some really outrageously talented people were constantly pushing it into new territory. Tonality is not and never was a static thing. It changes. By its nature it changes. From composer to composer, from one piece to the next in any given composer's output. With tonality, just because of the constant change, you either do new things with it or you end up sounding like last year's composer. That's why the observation that tonality contained the seeds of its own destruction is so brilliantly descriptive. It's that kind of system. You really can't stand still with it. Or not without consequences.


Well of course tonality doesn't stand still. If Chopin was writing his piano music in the time of Mozart he'd have likely been carted off as a nut. If Stravinsky had penned The Rite Of Spring in Chopin's time the men in white coats would have been hovering about with strait jackets too most likely. As with everything music develops and so does tonality. It will continue to do so as diatonic harmony and the possibilities associated with it are pretty much limitless, much like music itself so there's no seeds of destruction within. Atonality is just as valid a musical system also. What we have now is an unlimited smorgasbord of music which is great.



> And, as we've seen, some people have been fine to take those consequences. Some have not. Some have started out not being fine with them and have then accepted them. It's that pattern that has fueled this conversation. And yes, it can very easily seem like a betrayal. Kinda like someone who is a vegan for moral reasons deciding to eat meat. Certainly no one is obliged to avoid meat. But if someone has decided, and as a matter of principle, to eat no animal products, it will seem like a betrayal if they turn away from their principles.


Well, once again it's just your subjective opinion that to compose tonal music is a betrayal of some sort if the composer in question previously wrote differently. I get the impression that you consider tonality to be inferior? If so that's your subjective taste and if not....what is the problem? One of my favourite composers is Messiaen. He went from tonality/modality through to experimental/birdsong and ended up comprising all techniques into a sonorous melting pet of richness in sound. Did he sell out by infusing tonality back into his works? I don't think so. Not a bit.



> That's how we felt in the 70s about Penderecki.


Well, it's certainly how _you_ felt/feel obviously. Plenty would disagree I wager so just enjoy the music you do and don't berate those who have written it perhaps?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ArthurBrain said:


> ...Well, once again it's just your subjective opinion that to compose tonal music is a betrayal of some sort if the composer in question previously wrote differently....


I don't think it's just because Penderecki and Gorecki started writing tonally that is the problem; it's the overall impression of the later music; it seems unadventurous and unengaging. And don't you ever forget, Gorecki's Third sold over a million, and still going. If I want to hear a Mass, I'll go find a church.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I don't think it's just because Penderecki and Gorecki started writing tonally that is the problem; it's the overall impression of the later music; it seems unadventurous and unengaging. And don't you ever forget, Gorecki's Third sold over a million, and still going. If I want to hear a Mass, I'll go find a church.


But you're failing to understand that Gorecki's incredibly beautiful _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_ was written in 1976 well before Upshaw and Zinman recorded what would be a best-selling classical album. On a personal note, I find Gorecki's 3rd incredibly engaging and, while not adventurous, it does have this hypnotic quality over me. Sorry, I think it's a modern masterpiece. Disagree all you want.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> But you're failing to understand that Gorecki's incredibly beautiful _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_ was written in 1976 well before Upshaw and Zinman recorded what would be a best-selling classical album. On a personal note, I find Gorecki's 3rd incredibly engaging and, while not adventurous, it does have this hypnotic quality over me. Sorry, I think it's a modern masterpiece. Disagree all you want.


Well, I never said it was "bad" music. In fact, I listened to it recently. The Penderecki stuff is more of a problem for me, in light of what went before.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

JohnMarinelli said:


> I apologize for being off-topic, but is there any more information about this particular church? The Jesus figure is very striking and I'd like to learn more about it - would you happen to know the artist?


Bronislaw Chromy.

http://themichmashcenter.blogspot.ca/2011/04/arka-pana.html


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> I don't think it's just because Penderecki and Gorecki started writing tonally that is the problem; it's the overall impression of the later music; it seems unadventurous and unengaging. And don't you ever forget, Gorecki's Third sold over a million, and still going. If I want to hear a Mass, I'll go find a church.


Who cares how much Gorecki's third symphony sold? Do you seriously think he wrote the thing thinking it was going to spiral the way it did and hoping it would bring him a whole wad of cash and acclaim? Wow, he must have been one patient and visionary guy to predict how it would take off. How on earth you can compare it to a Mass is just baffling frankly. I have no qualms in admitting I love the work. For sure it's not radical or anything but so what? It's a beguiling and moving meditative experience for me and has been since I first heard it. I also happen to like a lot of his earlier stuff, and I'm not arrogant enough to presuppose that composers simply sell out because they happen to incorporate tonality into their work. There's a kind of elitist and pretentious snobbery around that whole business and it's tiresome....


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Who cares how much Gorecki's third symphony sold? Do you seriously think he wrote the thing thinking it was going to spiral the way it did and hoping it would bring him a whole wad of cash and acclaim? Wow, he must have been one patient and visionary guy to predict how it would take off. How on earth you can compare it to a Mass is just baffling frankly. I have no qualms in admitting I love the work. For sure it's not radical or anything but so what? It's a beguiling and moving meditative experience for me and has been since I first heard it. I also happen to like a lot of his earlier stuff, and I'm not arrogant enough to presuppose that composers simply sell out because they happen to incorporate tonality into their work. There's a kind of elitist and pretentious snobbery around that whole business and it's tiresome....


Well said, ArthurBrain.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ArthurBrain said:


> Who cares how much Gorecki's third symphony sold?


Then tell us: what caused this music to appeal to over 1,000,000 paying customers? or are you saying we should not acknowledge this important fact?


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Then tell us: what caused this music to appeal to over 1,000,000 paying customers?


Who cares? I mean you're seriously beating a dead horse here. Who cares if say a 1,000,0000,000 people bought the Upshaw/Zinman recording? Does this make the music any less worthy of our attention because it has, in recent years, become a popular work? I don't think so. I really don't understand your logic here at all. Mozart and Beethoven continue to sell more than Gorecki and Penderecki combined but I don't hear you complaining about these two composers.


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## Guest (May 29, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I don't think it's just because Penderecki and Gorecki started writing tonally that is the problem....


Thank you, million!

Jeez, the revisionism that goes on in these threads. Sacrebleu! It's not writing tonally or not that's the issue at all. It's because they went backwards, to something already known. They settled for the familiar and the safe after being adventurous explorers. It would not have seemed to any of us (and by "us" I mean those of us who were listening to and engaged with the new music of the sixties and seventies, as Petwhac probably already knows) as a betrayal if Penderecki had moved into spectralism or drone minimalism or had started doing turntablism. After all, Cage and Xenakis and Ferrari all made several fairly significant changes to how they did music over their years. Just as Beethoven and Berlioz had done before them. And Stravinsky. He spent a long time doing neo-tonal stuff after having done some of the more significant musical explorations of the century. Some of us were uncomfortable with that, too, but he did it with such good humor and wit. And then he did serial stuff after that. With the same humor and wit.

Copland? His path seemed like a betrayal, too. But he blithely did the same thing Stravinsky did. And those great works from his last years, very different from his earlier avant garde phase and completely different from the middle phase, are superb. All is forgiven. Now we're waiting, Krzysztof! Are you going to go somewhere new and unexpected, somewhere that will confuse and bewilder and open up new possibilities of listening?

One final remark. Just to clarify a misapprehension that keeps repeating over and over again as if it were part of one of Phil Glass's pieces--it is NOT about liking or disliking. It is not about giving a certain audience (the avant garde audience) what it wants to hear. What the avant garde audience wants, if I'm any indication, is for composers to keep giving us things we don't get, that we don't understand. We didn't want Penderecki to keep doing _Threnody_ over and over again. Of course not! That would have been a kind of safety in itself. No less safe than Glass doing the same thing over and over again. Or Pärt or Tavener or practically any pop group after that first, adventurous album. We don't want safety. We want adventure. We want to listen and then learn to listen a new way and then learn again.

So "giving us [avant garde-ists] what we want" is not giving us the same sounds or the same patterns. Giving us what we want is giving us something we don't know, yet. Something we don't like, yet. So we can have ourselves a little adventure!


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Some Guy, I doubt Gorecki and Penderecki ever cared what the "avant-garde audiences" wanted. Why should they? They write for themselves first and foremost and this is the way it should be. I believe they went back to more traditional sounds because they became disillusioned with the avant-garde scene and just the general direction their music was going in. You or millionrainbows don't have to like the music, but this kind of snobbish attitude you guys are putting out there is completely rubbing me the wrong way. I'm all about adventurous music but not for it's own sake. I would rather hear a composer write something that is close to his/her heart than churn out another work of robot bleeps and trombone farts.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> But you're failing to understand that Gorecki's incredibly beautiful _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_ was written in 1976 well before Upshaw and Zinman recorded what would be a best-selling classical album. On a personal note, I find Gorecki's 3rd incredibly engaging and, while not adventurous, it does have this hypnotic quality over me. Sorry, I think it's a modern masterpiece. Disagree all you want.


Well said in turn. Heaven forbid that the _only_ forms of music to be engaging would revolve around the 'adventurous'...


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Well said in turn. Heaven forbid that the _only_ forms of music to be engaging would revolve around the 'adventurous'...


Yeah, I think the general attitude of it has to be adventurous to be enjoyed is complete nonsense. I like to listen to Ligeti, not all the time mind you, but sometimes there's just nothing like Bruckner's 9th to cleanse the palette.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, I never said it was "bad" music. In fact, I listened to it recently. The Penderecki stuff is more of a problem for me, in light of what went before.


Then listen to something else then...


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Then listen to something else then...


Sounds like a simple solution to me.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> Thank you, million!
> 
> Jeez, the revisionism that goes on in these threads. Sacrebleu! It's not writing tonally or not that's the issue at all. It's because they went backwards, to something already known. They settled for the familiar and the safe after being adventurous explorers. It would not have seemed to any of us (and by "us" I mean those of us who were listening to and engaged with the new music of the sixties and seventies, as Petwhac probably already knows) as a betrayal if Penderecki had moved into spectralism or drone minimalism or had started doing turntablism. After all, Cage and Xenakis and Ferrari all made several fairly significant changes to how they did music over their years. Just as Beethoven and Berlioz had done before them. And Stravinsky. He spent a long time doing neo-tonal stuff after having done some of the more significant musical explorations of the century. Some of us were uncomfortable with that, too, but he did it with such good humor and wit. And then he did serial stuff after that. With the same humor and wit.
> 
> ...


Grief, do you think composers of any sort _owe_ you something? Composers owe you _nothing._ If you've enjoyed their work then be grateful, thank them for it and the joy they've brought you, because it's a damn sight easier to criticise than the effort involved in producing music. It's you who owes _them, not the other way around_. Do you seriously think that Penderecki et al wrote music simply for attaining a specific following and expecting to be beholden to that particular 'standard'?

If you want 'adventure' then there's plenty others who would cater for your tastes, so go look and stop castigating composers who have the 'audacity' not to cater for your 'avant gardist needs'....


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

(High fives ArthurBrain)


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## Guest (May 29, 2013)

Neo Romanza said:


> I would rather hear a composer write something that is close to his/her heart than churn out another work of robot bleeps and trombone farts.


Wow. Talk about snobbish!! Yee Haw!!:lol:


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> (High fives ArthurBrain)


Cheers, and the same in kind.

Ya know, this whole exchange has reminded me of a documentary I saw years ago where there were two people both arguing for and against atonality in music. One was arguing that it was the way forward and pretty much the only valid form that classical music could take. The other was arguing that harmony should only go so far. I remember thinking they were both absolutely full of garbage. Go figure.....


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## Guest (May 29, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Heaven forbid that the _only_ forms of music to be engaging would revolve around the 'adventurous'...





Neo Romanza said:


> Yeah, I think the general attitude of it has to be adventurous to be enjoyed is complete nonsense.


Wow!! More revisionism. A veritable orgy of revisionism. Revisorgism.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> Wow!! More revisionism. A veritable orgy of revisionism. Revisorgism.


Not sure how you're working that out exactly but hey ho...

:tiphat:


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Cheers, and the same in kind.
> 
> Ya know, this whole exchange has reminded me of a documentary I saw years ago where there were two people both arguing for and against atonality in music. One was arguing that it was the way forward and pretty much the only valid form that classical music could take. The other was arguing that harmony should only go so far. I remember thinking they were both absolutely full of garbage. Go figure.....


They're both wrong that's for sure just like some guy is wrong in his approach towards music. God forbid the music isn't adventurous!


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## Guest (May 29, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Not sure how you're working that out exactly


I'm sure you're not. I'm sure you think you have you have accurately understood and reproduced what I said.

You haven't. But oh well....

I see that Mr. Neo is still workin' the old distortion as well.

Well, it IS easier to destroy strawmen than it is to destroy real men.

And fun, too.

For kids!!

But let's get back on track, anyway, shall we? For once?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vaneyes said:


> Bronislaw Chromy.
> 
> http://themichmashcenter.blogspot.ca/2011/04/arka-pana.html


*zOMG what a total rip-off of Corbusier's Notre Dame de Haut!*
https://www.google.com/search?q=Corbusier+notre+dame+de&client=firefox-a&hs=gDu&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=X4WlUdW0L8f6qwHO6YHICA&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=738


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

some guy said:


> I'm sure you're not. I'm sure you think you have you have accurately understood and reproduced what I said.
> 
> You haven't. But oh well....
> 
> ...


Well, to be honest I don't really care anymore. If it suits you to slate composers who don't live up to your 'standards' then just get on with it. Myself and others have pointed out that you should be grateful for what they've given rather than whine on when they don't write to your satisfaction.

How about you write your own music? That way at least you could be a worthy critic...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Then tell us: what caused this music to appeal to over 1,000,000 paying customers? or are you saying we should not acknowledge this important fact?





Neo Romanza said:


> Who cares? I mean you're seriously beating a dead horse here. Who cares if say a 1,000,0000,000 people bought the Upshaw/Zinman recording? Does this make the music any less worthy of our attention because it has, in recent years, become a popular work? I don't think so...


You still haven't explained the significance of Górecki's sudden success; you only want to negate the reasons I have offered, and compel us to ignore it.

Also, another factor that needs to be explained, not ignored: both Penderecki and Górecki retreated into more conservative styles at the same time their work became more saturated with religious themes. Why was this? Are we to simply ignore this, or try to explain it?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ArthurBrain said:


> ...this whole exchange has reminded me of a documentary I saw years ago where there were two people both arguing for and against atonality in music. One was arguing that it was the way forward and pretty much the only valid form that classical music could take. The other was arguing that harmony should only go so far...


I think this is an oversimplification of the complexity of musical thought up to the present. Not only did 'true chromaticism' set the stage for the systematic thinking that led to 12-tone and serialism; but it was harmonically-based thinking, so it "expanded" what was thought of as tonality. Serialism was actually just a brief period. Now the entire world of possibilities is opened up.

I don't think that tonality/atonality is even the issue (Panufnik rejected serialism, Lutoslawski combined it with aleatoric methods, Penderecki used "masses" of sound and time-based notation, Górecki was most influenced by Messiaen and Ives), but rather a retreat into a generally more conservative harmonic approach, combined with religious themes.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Then tell us: what caused this music to appeal to over 1,000,000 paying customers? or are you saying we should not acknowledge this important fact?


I think they found it beautiful.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Also, another factor that needs to be explained, not ignored: both Penderecki and Górecki retreated into more conservative styles at the same time their work became more saturated with religious themes. Why was this? Are we to simply ignore this, or try to explain it?


What significance do the answers to any of these questions bear on your own life? I certainly won't loose any sleep over it. I still like Pendereck regardless of whether he 'sold out' or not. He's written the music he has wanted to and so has Gorecki. Maybe instead of making assumptions based on pure hearsay, you should listen to their music and make up your own mind. Does the music move you? Does it get under your skin? Does it stimulate your mind? If you experience none of these things then you should just forget about these two composers and listen to music you actually enjoy.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> You still haven't explained the significance of Górecki's sudden success; you only want to negate the reasons I have offered, and compel us to ignore it.
> 
> Also, another factor that needs to be explained, not ignored: both Penderecki and Górecki retreated into more conservative styles at the same time their work became more saturated with religious themes. Why was this? Are we to simply ignore this, or try to explain it?


You have mentioned the correlation between religious themes and conservative music a couple of times. Do other composers in the past 50 years who focus on religious themes also use conservative music? I can imagine wanting a more tonal setting for something like religion, but I just don't know if modern/contemporary composers actually do that. If there is little correlation between the two, do you have others reasons for feeling that Gorecki and Penderecki consciously linked the two?



Neo Romanza said:


> What significance do the answers to any of these questions bear on your own life? I certainly won't loose any sleep over it. I still like Pendereck regardless of whether he 'sold out' or not. He's written the music he has wanted to and so has Gorecki. Maybe instead of making assumptions based on pure hearsay, you should listen to their music and make up your own mind. Does the music move you? Does it get under your skin? Does it stimulate your mind? If you experience none of these things then you should just forget about these two composers and listen to music you actually enjoy.


While you are not interested in these questions, others may be. I find it interesting that composers would "go back" to earlier musical ideas and wonder why they chose that path. Unlike millionraionbows, I have no problem with that choice. I could paraphrase your suggestions this way. "Do the questions move you? Do they get under your skin? Do they stimulate your mind? If you experience none of these things, then you should just forget about these two questions and discuss ideas you actually enjoy." I don't believe that sentiment since I think you should feel free to discuss, criticize, or otherwise engage in any and all ideas on this forum, but I also am happy that millionrainbows has raised these questions.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> While you are not interested in these questions, others may be. I find it interesting that composers would "go back" to earlier musical ideas and wonder why they chose that path. Unlike millionraionbows, I have no problem with that choice. I could paraphrase your suggestions this way. "Do the questions move you? Do they get under your skin? Do they stimulate your mind? If you experience none of these things, then you should just forget about these two questions and discuss ideas you actually enjoy." I don't believe that sentiment since I think you should feel free to discuss, criticize, or otherwise engage in any and all ideas on this forum, but I also am happy that millionrainbows has raised these questions.


I, too, have no problem with millionrainbows wanting to discuss these notions. What I have to question, however, are his motives for doing so and why would he use the phrase 'selling out.' In my experience when someone uses this phrase, it usually has negative connotations that go along with it. You, however, may feel different, but I just get the feeling that our OP doesn't seem genuine in his quest for the answers, but that's just my two cents.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

Neo Romanza said:


> What significance do the answers to any of these questions bear on your own life? I certainly won't loose any sleep over it. I still like Pendereck regardless of whether he 'sold out' or not. He's written the music he has wanted to and so has Gorecki. Maybe instead of making assumptions based on pure hearsay, you should listen to their music and make up your own mind. Does the music move you? Does it get under your skin? Does it stimulate your mind? If you experience none of these things then you should just forget about these two composers and listen to music you actually enjoy.


Pretty much sums it up....

:tiphat:


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## stanchinsky (Nov 19, 2012)

I've never heard of either of them, so my answer is no, they didn't sell out.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

They were obviously following Bentham's utilitarian principal;

"It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong"

By that measure they were right to 'sell out' and the numbers back up that assertion. They can therefore claim the moral high ground from the ideologues.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The following contains sarcasm:

Oh, I understand; we're supposed to just sit back and let the music wash over us, without thinking about any of it.

I suppose Górecki's change of direction could simply be seen as just another post-modernist claim to territory, a move into a crystalized stylistic niche. 

A niche which happened to also be a nice, juicy "market" niche as well. 

Just coincidence, yes, just coincidence. "Goodbye, Third Symphony."

I suppose Górecki was so "tuned-in" to the zeitgeist of Poland that he just unconsciously acted as a "universal agent of the dominant mood." Gosh, he really had his finger on the pulse of "what was happening," didn't he? And he was about three years early! I guess Kronos and Zinman were seeing the same zeitgeist!

Stuff happens. Who knows why? Who knows, you might be famous tomorrow!

Funny how life is. 

I've really enjoyed this whimsical little excursion, but my little head is hurting from too much thinking.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> The following contains sarcasm:
> 
> Oh, I understand; we're supposed to just sit back and let the music wash over us, without thinking about any of it.
> 
> ...


Well, what's wrong with simply letting music 'wash over you' on occasion? Do you sit there and stringently analyse every piece you listen to or something?

Considering Gorecki was as surprised as anyone by the commercial success of the third symphony, and further considering it happened around twenty years after he wrote the thing, your *sarcasm* has very little place. He didn't court popularity, nor did he try to emulate the same.

Seriously, if you don't like his later style then don't listen to it. These tiresome insinuations that composers have sold out and changed to a more tonal method to bring in the bucks or something have no foundation.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ArthurBrain said:


> Well, what's wrong with simply letting music 'wash over you' on occasion? Do you sit there and stringently analyse every piece you listen to or something?


You're absolutely right! That's why we should just "shut up and listen!" Music is a totally sensual experience.



ArthurBrain said:


> Considering Gorecki was as surprised as anyone by the commercial success of the third symphony, and further considering it happened around twenty years after he wrote the thing, your *sarcasm* has very little place. He didn't court popularity, nor did he try to emulate the same.


I think that's correct! I don't thik Górecki tried to do anything, it just turned out that way! Funny how life is. Maybe, just maybe, it was providence! You know, fate, destiny, nemesis, kismet, God's will, divine intervention, predestination, predetermination, the stars; one's lot in life, one's portion. Who knows why, and who can control it? Not us!



ArthurBrain said:


> Seriously, if you don't like his later style then don't listen to it. These tiresome insinuations that composers have sold out and changed to a more tonal method to bring in the bucks or something have no foundation.


Well, if it means anything, I've got the Zinman/Upshaw CD, and the Kronos CD as well! I'm going to go listen now to his _Trzy tance w dawnym stylu (Three pieces in the old style), _for string orchestra, no opus number(1963), and his _Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, Opus 40, _for harpsichord/piano and orchestra (1980),played by his daughter Anna Górecka (Conifer Classics). And I can always go back to the First Symphony and the earlier works.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> You're absolutely right! That's why we should just "shut up and listen!" Music is a totally sensual experience.


Well, I'm kinda presuming there's still a bit of sarcasm in this so just to clarify things from my perspective. There's nothing wrong with analysing music. It can be fascinating to observe the techniques and methods that composers utilize in their works. On the other hand there's nothing wrong with simply being immersed and absorbed into the experience of enjoying music.



> I think that's correct! I don't thik Górecki tried to do anything, it just turned out that way! Funny how life is. Maybe, just maybe, it was providence! You know, fate, destiny, nemesis, kismet, God's will, divine intervention, predestination, predetermination, the stars; one's lot in life, one's portion. Who knows why, and who can control it? Not us!


Well, whether this was sarcasm or not you're pretty much right in essence. What Gorecki did was write a very spiritual piece of music. It could just as easily have sunk without noticeable trace outside of his native Poland and there's no way to have predicted it would take off even to half the extent it actually did 20 years later...



> Well, if it means anything, I've got the Zinman/Upshaw CD, and the Kronos CD as well! I'm going to go listen now to his _Trzy tance w dawnym stylu (Three pieces in the old style), _for string orchestra, no opus number(1963), and his _Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, Opus 40, _for harpsichord/piano and orchestra (1980),played by his daughter Anna Górecka (Conifer Classics). And I can always go back to the First Symphony and the earlier works.


Well, if you've got the CD then wouldn't that mean you've also contributed to the commercial success of the piece?


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

ArthurBrain said:


> Well, if you've got the CD then wouldn't that mean you've also contributed to the commercial success of the piece?


Good point, ArthurBrain.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> ...
> I suppose Górecki was so "tuned-in" to the zeitgeist of Poland that he just unconsciously acted as a "universal agent of the dominant mood." Gosh, he really had his finger on the pulse of "what was happening," didn't he? And he was about three years early! I guess Kronos and Zinman were seeing the same zeitgeist!
> 
> ....


Well he did tap into what you call zeitgeist, but didn't other Polish composers too? Look, as I've said, the church has been integral to the history of Poland, as a focus of resistance against oppression and maintaining a national identity.

There's parallels between what Lutoslawski was doing as well in the 1970's. His cello concerto is seen by some as a veiled protest against the system. The cello playing those repeated notes at the beginning and end, sometimes being almost drowned out by the cacophony of the brass, some have said its like a symbol of the individual against conformity of the system, against oppression. Of course, as I've said this was the decade of unrest in Poland, of the Communist system beginning to slowly dissolve, and of course you had the samizdat movement become really strong then (they distributed banned books and materials in underground networks, esp. among dissident intellectuals).

But the issue is that veiled protest was one way of, another was going back to the roots of the land, to spirituality, as a source of strength in those dark times. However, the music of Gorecki has endured, so too the others discussed here - Lutoslawski and Penderecki is still alive - and even without these extramusical aspects these pieces are great pieces of music.

The other thing is you are charging Gorecki as guilty by association. Sure there was a trend in the 1990's to have kind of ambient and Holy Minimalist music as the background to your party or chill out session at home or something, but its a phase that's over. I'm not entirely comfortable with a piece, part of which is about confronting the Holocaust, being listened to in that kind of casual way. But look at how all sorts of classical music is used in TV commercials to sell everything from cars to toilet paper to being part of election campaigns and so on. Nothing is sacred. & there are Holy Minimalist composers who rehashed the likes of Gorecki, Taverner and Arvo Part, but again it was like a phase. I was critical of this too. But the best examples of this style, what I think where written before the 1990's, they still present to me as music that's worth listening to from time to time. & singling out the 3rd symphony makes less sense than say singling out some jump-on-the-bandwagon type rehash piece composed in the 1990's or beyond, when it was a matter of rehashing things rather than saying new things. Again, I don't see that as Gorecki's fault. Do you?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> ...as I've said, the church has been integral to the history of Poland, as a focus of resistance against oppression and maintaining a national identity...The other thing is you are charging Gorecki as guilty by association. Sure there was a trend in the 1990's to have kind of ambient and Holy Minimalist music as the background to your party or chill out session at home or something, but its a phase that's over. I'm not entirely comfortable with a piece, part of which is about confronting the Holocaust, being listened to in that kind of casual way...


I'm ready to "confess," Father Sid; I admit I've been playing "Devil's advocate" to an extent; after all, I do have the Górecki/Zinman/Upshaw Third (but purchased used for $3.99...ha haaa!).

I'm more comfortable with seeing artistic-intent-parallels between Górecki and Shostakovich (especially his String Quartet No. 8 with its dedication "to the victims of war and fascism"), and the "religious" aspect with being a more general concern with "human suffering" (after all, only the first movement of Górecki's third has overt references to Mary).

Also, formally, I don't hear the type of minimalist repetition in Górecki's third as I do in Glass or Reich; I hear more parallels with certain sections of Shostakovich, where the feeling is a kind of a "seething, undulating" feeling one only gets when one is "submitting" to grief or suffering, as in intense, desperate prayer. I see this as a fundamentally different, and more emotionally-charged form of "minimalism," which I think is an unfortunate term to have stuck. The desire to "aspire" to something higher. Lord knows these composers suffered enough, first under WWII, then with Stalin.



Sid James said:


> But the best examples of this style, what I think where written before the 1990's, they still present to me as music that's worth listening to from time to time. & singling out the 3rd symphony makes less sense than say singling out some jump-on-the-bandwagon type rehash piece composed in the 1990's or beyond, when it was a matter of rehashing things rather than saying new things. Again, I don't see that as Gorecki's fault. Do you?


Not really; you're right, I need to be absolved. I'm going back to have a listen to the First; those percussive clashes which open the piece, and the curiously empty statements of sustained notes, are beginning to remind me of the Tibetan Buddhist Gyuto music on Nonesuch, with its clattering, noisy cymbals and sustained horn tones. I think some of those horns are made of human thigh bones, which reminds me of darker aspects of WWII. The ground up in Tibet is frozen, so you can't bury 'em, and firewood is scarce, so you can't burn 'em. I think they just throw 'em in the river.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> ... The desire to "aspire" to something higher. Lord knows these composers suffered enough, first under WWII, then with Stalin.


Well that's what I am talking about. The way I have quoted you is awkward maybe, but those two sentences encapsulate what I'm saying. The system failed everyone, whether you where atheist or a Christian, didn't matter. By the time it ended, most people where disillusioned by how Communism worked out in practice (even a good deal of those in the party!).

& in regards to the 8th quartet by Shostakovich that you refer to, yeah the "official" dedication is to victims of WWII, but beneath that is yet another personal element, so common in his music. When he composed that, it was the year Shosty joined the Communist party. He felt it to be a kind of moral death, he was beyond depression, he even wrote to a friend that this work was like his epitaph, like a final statement (before suicide?). He didn't do it thankfully.

But look, the more I find out about East Europe's history, there is this clear line between what you think is reality and reality itself. Sometimes what appears to be a dream becomes a nightmare. Its this contradictory world somewhere between Alice in Wonderland and Kafka's The Trial. & in some ways, maybe not knowing is better, all that which happened was an example of the system failing people big time - and then, people look for other ways out. & looking at what's happening there now in some of those countries, obviously that mindset, that gap between aspirations and reality, well its still there. Probably never going to go away, whatever ideology is applied there, I think they're doomed to repeat history, in one way or another. Or maybe they can't get out of the shadows of their history, so to speak, too many skeletons in the closet.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

The charge against Penderecki might be a little more plausible, since he did returned to a kind of grandiose late-romantic style.

Górecki, on the other hand, didn't. I love his works and he is very close to my heart. But I don't really think his works after his Symphony no. 3 were particularly populist or accomodating. Sacred choral pieces and songs aside. I mean, Lerchenmusik, Little Requiem, Concerto-Cantata, the string quartets, those are some pretty idiosyncratic works. To some listeners, they're probably quite tedious: long stretches of repetitive monotony interrupted by episodes of ridiculous mock-jolliness. Sure, they're tonal for the most part, but that's about it. Again, I love theses works, but I doubt they cater to the taste of the masses. Quite the opposite: I find they often test the listener's patience and tolerance to quite an extent.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andreas said:


> Górecki...I love his works and he is very close to my heart. But I don't really think his works after his Symphony no. 3 were particularly populist or accomodating. Sacred choral pieces and songs aside. I mean, Lerchenmusik, Little Requiem, Concerto-Cantata, the string quartets, those are some pretty idiosyncratic works. To some listeners, they're probably quite tedious: long stretches of repetitive monotony interrupted by episodes of ridiculous mock-jolliness. Sure, they're tonal for the most part, but that's about it. Again, I love theses works, but I doubt they cater to the taste of the masses. Quite the opposite: I find they often test the listener's patience and tolerance to quite an extent.


Then explain to us why the Third Symphony sold over 1,000,000 units. Surely it has to do with the music therein, and some sort of populist appeal. You go ahead and explain this for us.


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## ArthurBrain (Aug 19, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Then explain to us why the Third Symphony sold over 1,000,000 units. Surely it has to do with the music therein, and some sort of populist appeal. You go ahead and explain this for us.


Well of course the music itself plays a major part in its popular appeal, as belated as it was. It has a powerful emotive impact and isn't 'challenging' as a musical work. It wouldn't be the same piece of music if it was. It tapped into something that simply took off as some works do. Barber's adagio for strings is a comparable piece in that regard, popular among classical music aficionado's and 'pop' audiences alike. Heck, it's been 'remixed' enough times. With Gorecki's third it was spread through the 'rock' grapevine via people like Bjork (who also quotes Messiaen in a song) She passed the symphony to Goldie who was inspired to write a one hour concept 'drum 'n' bass' piece after hearing it. The more something spreads the bigger it gets, although it's still surprising that it sold as much as it did. One things for sure. There's no doubting the sincerity of it or Barber's adagio either no matter how popular they are.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

As a side remark, I must say the Penderecki´s relatively recent "_Piano Concerto_" (2007)






seems unusually poor, lengthy and emptily effect-seeking to me - 
where as the much earlier "_Te Deum_" (1980) is a really great and also more complex work:


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Then explain to us why the Third Symphony sold over 1,000,000 units. Surely it has to do with the music therein, and some sort of populist appeal. You go ahead and explain this for us.


Well as you can see I was talking about the works written after the 3rd symphony. So what I said didn't refer to the 3rd.

Still, consider one thing. The 3rd opens with a 30 minute modal canon, at the middle of which a soprano sings a song in Polish. Doesn't really sound like the perfect formula for an international hit, does it?

The second movement, granted, is quite sentimental. This movement is really what makes the symphony popular, perhaps not unlike the Adagietto of Mahler's 5th. Populist? I think together with the lyrics in that movement, it's a sensible choice.

As I said, though, I was referring to the works post-symphony no. 3.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> As a side remark, I must say the Penderecki´s relatively recent "_Piano Concerto_" (2007)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's what I've found out for myself with Penderecki's music. His symphonies were a waste of time. They utilize the same ideas and same kind of development with the exception of the 7th and 8th which are vocal-oriented symphonies and contain more contrasts to the purely orchestral ones. I'm finding that his best music is written for vocals which this gives him plenty of contrasts to work with and doesn't make his music so narrow in scope. I haven't heard his chamber works but I really don't want to either. I would say his music is quite limited in expression and I would even go on to say that I think Gorecki is a _better_ composer all-around. Just my opinion though.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andreas said:


> Well as you can see I was talking about the works written after the 3rd symphony. So what I said didn't refer to the 3rd....As I said, though, I was referring to the works post-symphony no. 3.


But you did argue, _by implication,_ against a general tendency at populist appeal by Górecki, thus *absolving him* in comparison to Penderecki:



Andreas said:


> The charge against Penderecki might be a little more plausible, since he did returned to a kind of grandiose late-romantic style....Górecki, on the other hand, didn't (return to a kind of grandiose late-romantic style). I love his works and he is very close to my heart.


Admittedly, you did, subsequently, focus on works after the 3rd:



Andreas said:


> But I don't really think his works after his Symphony no. 3 were particularly populist or accomodating.


But this strategy isolates and ignores the questionability of the 3rd, so you have side-stepped and avoided responding.

Also, you have absolved Górecki; apparently, you seem to have us recognize no difference in the First Symphony (which is decidedly avant garde) and the works which came after the Third Symphony (1976), which sound closer to the Third's "minimalism" to these ears:

• Harpsichord/Piano Concerto, Opus 40, harpsichord/piano and orchestra (1980)
• Three Lullabies, Opus 49, Mixed Voices (1984)
• etc., etc.



> So again, explain to us why the Third Symphony sold over 1,000,000 units. Surely it has to do with the music therein, and some sort of populist appeal. You go ahead and explain this for us.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> But you did argue, _by implication,_ against a general tendency at populist appeal by Górecki, thus *absolving him* in comparison to Penderecki:
> 
> Admittedly, you did, subsequently, focus on works after the 3rd:
> 
> ...


I appreciate your post.

You see, I did address the 3rd in a separate paragraph, however.

You mentioned the harpsichord concerto. But honestly, do you think somebody who fell in love with the 3rd, and in particular with the sentimental second movement, will embrace the harpsichord concerto in the same way? Personally, I don't see what this restless, stubborn, marvellous little whirlwind of a concerto has in common with the 3rd.

I'm not familiar with the Three Lullabies, but I wouldn't be surprised if they kept what their title promises. How avantgarde would one expect a lullaby to be?

But I'll give you another example, the Miserere. In character and technique similar to the first movement of the 3rd. But again, given the modest degree of musical development, I see it, again, as quite an exercise in patience, concentration and active listening. No showpiece, no fireworks. I challenge the notion that minimalism is easy to listen to. Yes, for three minutes perhaps. But long minimalist works - half an hour or longer - demand something significant from their audience. Maybe just time and attention, but that's not little.

Górecki, I understand, was chastised (by colleagues) when he turned his back on full-on avantgarde, and he was chastised again (by the government) when he turned to decidely religious music. Had he wanted to, he could have had a much easier ride, I guess.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andreas said:


> You mentioned the harpsichord concerto. But honestly, do you think somebody who fell in love with the 3rd, and in particular with the sentimental second movement, will embrace the harpsichord concerto in the same way? Personally, I don't see what this restless, stubborn, marvellous little whirlwind of a concerto has in common with the 3rd.


Well, it has that repetitious element of "mimimalism" if you want to call it that; this is enough to define for me a change of direction.
The Third Symphony's runaway success seems to be a freak of circumstance. Kronos' release of their Górecki CD seems to have helped, as did Dawn Upshaw's involvement. Perhaps it's just "people helping people," in a shared empathy.


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