# Have Times Changed For The Composer?



## Esterhazy (Oct 4, 2014)

I was listening to a CD of keyboard/harpsichord music by an 18th century composer, Georg Anton Benda. The opening paragraph of the sleeve notes quoted Benda's preface of his first volume of the keyboard sonatas:

_"I here offer to the musical public the first part of my promised keyboard pieces. I would be flattering myself if I claimed that everything in this part will please everyone: that was not my intention, but instead I have tried to write at least something for everyone, so I would advise the reader to pass over what does not suit him, and to look for something that does. Whoever duly plays the pieces, and still finds nothing to his taste, I am sorry for his sake - rather, I am sorry for my own sake. ..."_ Benda, May 1780

Could that paragraph might as well have been written in 1880 or 1980 or even 2080? The composer took the effort to write piecez, declaring that not necessarily all will please everyone but hoping some that might. Is that all there really is?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I find it difficult to think of a serious composer in recent times - in fact, any time in roughly the last two hundred years - suggesting that it was part of his purpose to please his audience, and apologizing in advance in case he fails! Such sentiments certainly indicate a different relationship between artist and society, as well as a less pretentious concept of what an artist is and does, and they're rather refreshing in contrast with the artist-as-avatar and _epater le bourgeoisie_ attitudes spawned by Romanticism not so very long after Benda wrote this.

If any more recent composer of note has expressed such a concern for pleasing his public (no doubt in defiance of accusations of "selling out"), I'd like to know his name.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

He's just showing a little humility. You see prefaces to books that are still self effacing today. _"I'd like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Doctors Linda Hand and Cliff Hanger for their advice and encouragement and without whom this book could not have been written. Any factual inaccuracies are purely my own . . " _ You know, that sort of thing.

I'm amazed at how modern Benda's preface sounds. Would it have been just translated that way?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> If any more recent composer of note has expressed such an interest in pleasing his public (no doubt in defiance of accusations of "selling out"), I'd like to know his name.


Aaron Copland?..................................


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven's cover for the 8th Symphony: "Friendly listener, my new and humble work. I hope you will like it. And if not, well, was ich scheisse, ist besser als du je gedacht."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

violadude said:


> Aaron Copland?..................................


Yes, I think you're right that he wanted to write music that people would understand and enjoy. He didn't entirely escape criticism for it, but it's hard to argue with quality.


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## Esterhazy (Oct 4, 2014)

Sounds like most think times haven't changed much. Here is my new piece, hope you like it, but if you don't then look elsewhere!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

William Schuman wrote very fine accessible symphonies-tonal with some dissonance.
He could have gone atonal I'm sure if he wanted to, but he didn't.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven's cover for the 8th Symphony: "Friendly listener, my new and humble work. I hope you will like it. And if not, well, *was ich scheisse, ist besser als du je gedacht*."


Actually this famous sentence was directed to Gottfried Weber, editor of Caecilia (a music journal of Beethoven's time) for his criticism to "Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria" op. 91.

Anyway I do like very much KenOC's post. It says much more of Beethoven's personality than any essay on him.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

GioCar said:


> Actually this famous sentence was directed to Gottfried Weber, editor of Caecilia (a music journal of Beethoven's time) for his criticism to "Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria" op. 91.
> 
> Anyway I do like very much KenOC's post. It says much more of Beethoven's personality than any essay on him.


Yes. Well, I'm glad Beethoven acknowledges Wellington's Victory as the outflow he is referring to.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

May be worth quotng Gottfried Weber, writing about a decade after the premiere of Wellington's Victory: "Should not everyone, the dearer Beethoven and his art are to them, the more fervently wish that oblivion might soon draw an expiatory veil on such an aberration of his muse, through which he has desecrated the glorified object, Art, and himself?"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> May be worth quotng Gottfried Weber, writing about a decade after the premiere of Wellington's Victory: "Should not everyone, the dearer Beethoven and his art are to them, the more fervently wish that oblivion might soon draw an expiatory veil on such an aberration of his muse, through which he has desecrated the glorified object, Art, and himself?"


Oh, they _could_ write back then, couldn't they? :clap:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Esterhazy said:


> I was listening to a CD of keyboard/harpsichord music by an 18th century composer, Georg Anton Benda. The opening paragraph of the sleeve notes quoted Benda's preface of his first volume of the keyboard sonatas:
> 
> _"I here offer to the musical public the first part of my promised keyboard pieces. I would be flattering myself if I claimed that everything in this part will please everyone: that was not my intention, but instead I have tried to write at least something for everyone, so I would advise the reader to pass over what does not suit him, and to look for something that does. Whoever duly plays the pieces, and still finds nothing to his taste, I am sorry for his sake - rather, I am sorry for my own sake. ..."_ Benda, May 1780
> 
> Could that paragraph might as well have been written in 1880 or 1980 or even 2080? The composer took the effort to write pieces, declaring that not necessarily all will please everyone but hoping some that might. Is that all there really is?


It may no longer be stated, but that is pretty much 'the way it is,' and that goes for the more popular / populist of classical composers. Of these three John Adams, Eric Whitacre, Karl Jenkins (a wide array of style between them, each of them in a way generally and widely popular -- within that 3% who consume classical anyway) non of them could tell you or themselves with any certainty if their next work, even if very much in a style similar to their previously successful pieces, might find the work popular with those who cared for their previous works.

It has been and I think will be always that much of a crap shoot -- roll your dice and see what happens -- and it is just part of the terrain. When you are composing, whether people will like it or not is usually the last thing from the composer's mind, even those composers who are considered populist and popular composers.

Some listeners seem to be more than fond of thinking a composer sits down and composes while thinking specifically of John and Jane Doe concertgoers -- which since, to the composer, those are John and Jane Does, the notion of a composer actually thinking of John and Jane doe is itself pretty unfathomable. Sure, some will cite the Bachs, Beethoven's and Mozarts, etc. while conveniently overlooking that Bach's music wasn't played for nearly 75 years after his death, some of Beethoven's enduring masterpieces saw a few performances when first played, and laid dormant then for forty some odd years, and that even Mozart knew that some of the public "find my music difficult."

All the composer can do (including the most popular or populist of composers) is estimate certain trends of taste, and "limits" of some music which many might not find "accessible," and write what and how they can -- while that composer still belongs to that club of artists who finish a work and then but 'hope for the best,' i.e. just about all of them


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Esterhazy said:


> _"I here offer to the musical public the first part of my promised keyboard pieces. I would be flattering myself if I claimed that everything in this part will please everyone: that was not my intention, but instead I have tried to write at least something for everyone, so I would advise the reader to pass over what does not suit him, and to look for something that does. Whoever duly plays the pieces, and still finds nothing to his taste, I am sorry for his sake - rather, I am sorry for my own sake. ..."_ Benda, May 1780


All I know is that those keyboard sonatas by Benda really please me!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> If any more recent composer of note has expressed such a concern for pleasing his public (no doubt in defiance of accusations of "selling out"), I'd like to know his name.


Violadude already provided the name of Aaron Copland, a conscious and deliberate 'populist' classical composer. At least as per populist and consciously so, John (C.) Adams is very like, and he is alive and current. I would guess at Karl Jenkins being in that same category, the 'spiritual minimalists' and quite a few others as well (perhaps the 'neoromantics' whomever they are?.)

If anyone wants to get their affronted adrenaline thrills and feel truly outraged about how a composer regards, or disregards the public, their 'musical I.Q. and the rest, just turn to all those less than kind things Beethoven uttered about his audience(s) -- and he didn't stop with the public, but vented on other musicians as well


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From BBC, two days ago:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Composer Philip Glass has told the BBC that his aim is "to be a populist", rejecting the pejorative association often carried by the term.

He said: "I looked around at my friends who were painters, my friends who were filmmakers... and they have large audiences. But not the composers."


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Violadude already provided the name of Aaron Copland, a conscious and deliberate 'populist' classical composer. *John Adams* is very like, conscious and populist, and alive and current. I would guess at *Karl Jenkins *being in that same category, the 'spiritual minimalists' and others as well.
> 
> If anyone wants to get their affronted adrenaline thrills and feel truly outraged about how a composer regards, or disregards the public, their 'musical I.Q. and the rest, just turn to all those less than kind things Beethoven uttered about his audience(s) -- and he didn't stop with the public, but vented on other musicians as well


The difference being one of them is a really great composer.

:lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> From BBC, two days ago:
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Composer Philip Glass has told the BBC that his aim is "to be a populist", rejecting the pejorative association often carried by the term.
> 
> He said: "I looked around at my friends who were painters, my friends who were filmmakers... and they have large audiences. But not the composers."


... and he has succeeded in that, too, though it seems much to the despair of another largish segment of that very same general 'populist' audience  That leaves him too, in the same club of never knowing when his next work in a similar style to the ones which were previously successful will be liked -- or not.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> The difference being one of them is a really great composer.
> 
> :lol:


Well, the query was for populist, and that includes a populist classical music of a sort which even some populist audience members can not stand... maybe 'along with the complaint,' folks ought to remember to be careful of what they wish for?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Violadude already provided the name of Aaron Copland, a conscious and deliberate 'populist' classical composer. At least as per populist and consciously so, John (C.) Adams is very like, and he is alive and current.


I thought to add the following most necessary re: the populist composer.

About every popular / populist classical you might name _is writing as they will,_ and to further make the point, _ they are writing not only as they will but as they can._

That above said because there are some who seem to think those composers have made some sort of "personal sacrifice" in having set aside some more abstract, less popular style more to their inclination or pleasure in order to 'please the people.'

This imagined act of the supposed compromise or sacrifice of their personal aesthetic or less accessible musical vocabulary put aside to reach more people is very rarely, if ever, the case.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Copland, a deliberate populist? Listen to his Connotations for Orchestra or his Piano Variations.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Copland, a deliberate populist? Listen to his Connotations for Orchestra or his Piano Variations.


His 'serious' side (those pieces but a few essays at that, toss in the piano trio if you like) and those sounding (to me) much more self-conscious than his other vocabulary for which he is best known. (When asked why he had adopted the serial method, he said, "I'm looking for new chords!")

Yes, he consciously 'went populist,' and (imo) that voice sounds more spontaneous and less self-conscious and contrived than his 'serious' works -- the populist style and manner also part of his sincere personally held socialist (gasp) politic and ethic, and where, no surprise, truer to himself and in that vein, he found the greatest success.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hpowders said:


> Copland, a deliberate populist? Listen to his Connotations for Orchestra or his Piano Variations.


I think Copland was very definitely purposely populist, starting in the mid-1930s and influenced by the Soviet doctrine of socialist realism. He even wrote a piece named "Young Pioneers"! He never totally gave up composing thornier works, though.

His suspected Communist sympathies caused him some trouble in the 1950s, and he was called before congress where he claimed he had never been a Communist. In 1953, his work "A Lincoln Portrait" was dropped from Eisenhower's inauguration because of his suspect politics.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Esterhazy said:


> I was listening to a CD of keyboard/harpsichord music by an 18th century composer, Georg Anton Benda. The opening paragraph of the sleeve notes quoted Benda's preface of his first volume of the keyboard sonatas:
> 
> _"I here offer to the musical public the first part of my promised keyboard pieces. I would be flattering myself if I claimed that everything in this part will please everyone: that was not my intention, but instead I have tried to write at least something for everyone, so I would advise the reader to pass over what does not suit him, and to look for something that does. Whoever duly plays the pieces, and still finds nothing to his taste, I am sorry for his sake - rather, I am sorry for my own sake. ..."_ Benda, May 1780
> 
> Could that paragraph might as well have been written in 1880 or 1980 or even 2080? The composer took the effort to write piecez, declaring that not necessarily all will please everyone but hoping some that might. Is that all there really is?


I think that something like that could have been written at any time, but each composer is of course different not only in terms of them all being individuals but also having to consider aspects such as the purpose of the piece being composed.

Recently, reading about Bach, I learnt about the different sides of his art and therefore the various settings for which he composed music. There was music written for the courts and churches, as job applications, for purposes of study and teaching, and for what we would today call public performance (at the Collegium Musicum concerts put on at Cafe Zimmerman in Leipzig).

It comes down to a case by case basis like this, not only in terms of what a composer aims to do in a single work, but also his general purposes as a composer. People here have mentioned Copland switching from a kind of 'bad boy' to aiming at producing more accessible music in the 1930's. Two others that spring to mind who did a similar switch during that decade where Hindemith and Prokofiev.

There is often tension between the purpose or audience, even fellow musicians, for whom the composer is writing the piece and his or her aims as an artist. You often get composer negotiating with the person who commissions the piece, be it a musician or not. Then you have composers reacting to how their works are received, a good example is Sibelius who revised his violin concerto when it was initially mauled by the critics. Playability is also an issue, this can be a point of contention.

There are many compromises composers have to make to make a piece come to fruition. Often that whole give and take process can produce works that stand out. We wouldn't have had Bach's St. Matthew Passion, for example, had he stuck rigorously to what the church authorities in Leipzig wanted (they complained that it was too operatic for its purpose). On the other hand, composers like Copland, Hindemith and Prokofiev had to work against the grain of being accused by fellow musicians and critics of watering down their formerly more hard edged styles.

Ultimately they won't please everyone, and if they did, it would be too much like producing art by committee. Composers have to juggle many balls, and that's just part of being a creative individual. They have to balance various things to make their music happen in different ways, to be performed, studied and to communicate to listeners.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sid James said:


> It comes down to a case by case basis like this, not only in terms of what a composer aims to do in a single work, but also his general purposes as a composer. People here have mentioned Copland switching from a kind of 'bad boy' to *aiming at producing more accessible music in the 1930's. Three others that spring to mind who did a similar switch during the early 20th century where Hindemith, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.*


Apart from those few works Prokofiev did to atone for being called up on the carpet by Stalin's art police (Cinderella, for one) I don't think there is a shred of evidence, from any of those three composers, or second-hand reliable hearsay reports about any of them, that Hindemith, Stravinsky or Prokofiev changed their music "aiming at producing more accessible music in the 1930's."


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## Esterhazy (Oct 4, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> All I know is that those keyboard sonatas by Benda really please me!


My pleasure in mentioning. And I'm sure old Benda would have been pleased.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Copland wrote his Connotations for Orchestra in 1962 by the way, not in the 1930's.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> His 'serious' side (those pieces but a few essays at that, toss in the piano trio if you like) and those sounding (to me) much more self-conscious than his other vocabulary for which he is best known. (When asked why he had adopted the serial method, he said, "I'm looking for new chords!")
> 
> Yes, he consciously 'went populist,' and (imo) that voice sounds more spontaneous and less self-conscious and contrived than his 'serious' works -- the populist style and manner also part of his sincere personally held socialist (gasp) politic and ethic, and where, no surprise, truer to himself and in that vein, he found the greatest success.


I miss you PetrB, both for your wisdom and your fine contemporary music recommendations you have made to me over the years!!

Thanks for the Schoenberg Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto recommendations, as well as pushing me into listening to the Debussy Etudes.


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