Heroines are usually portrayed (sometimes by female impersonators) in a high, thin voice; heroes use a raucous rasping tone quite foreign to traditionally oriented Western ears—but, again, not unlike some of the vocal techniques required by 20th-century Western avant-garde composers. Answered What is setting,composition,role of composer, and audience of 20th century 1 Posted by {{currentItem.details.postedBy}}, The Audience is the Most Important Instrument, Looking Out For Each Other with The Real Music Wages Database, Cindy Lam: Voicing Trauma and Connecting with Your Inner Child. 20th-century theatre. In 1877, Edison discovered that sound could be reproduced using a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a … Bela Bartok: A Hungarian composer and renowned ethnomusicologist. This is my last post on the site for a while. Over a hundred years before the infamous “avant garde” began turning its back, so the common notion goes, on “the” audience. “The” audience started turning its back on modern music in the early part of the 19th century, and new music has struggled to create its own audiences ever since. 3. If you’re interested get in touch at nnamelet@yahoo.com. The most important audience of which I consider myself a part wants its composers to surprise them, to give them something they do not already like. Expressionism, artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses. Identify the performance practice of the selected composers in terms of (setting, composition, role of composers/performers, and audience) of 20th century music; 2. As somebody who does a lot of audience-interactive music, I’m often thinking about the audience extremely directly, and I’ve enjoyed the ways that method of thinking has spilled over to my non a-i writing. Some of them might be ignoring the audience you’re in. It’s a struggle that has paid off pretty well, too, for some modern music. So its not out of the realm of possibility that the composers of the moment will also disappear leaving room for others. Debussy. Dan you seem to be suggesting that one has to chose between being Edgar Varese or Reginald de Koven. History shows over and over again that the actual music can be practically anything, Beethoven’s piano sonatas, Chopin’s nocturnes, Liszt’s symphonies, Wagner’s operas, Stravinsky’s ballets. Contemporary composers of our days: Feel free to compose unintelligible and thoroughly assonant music as much as you want. Pair it with my name and you’ll find and enjoy it. 5. This attitude is powerful and irrational, powerful because irrational. 20th-century revivals Vincent d'Indy, who oversaw the first 20th-century revival of L'Orfeo in 1904 After years of neglect, Monteverdi's music began to attract the interest of pioneer music historians in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and from the second quarter of the 19th century onwards he is discussed increasingly in scholarly works. Contemporary composers, while certainly very happy if members of other audiences want to join in, are not aiming at audiences for Justin Bieber or at audiences for Heinrich Biber, either one. Thanks so much to everyone for all their support, comments, and emails over the past six years—you’ve really helped me find my own voice. It is taken for granted that audiences for classical concert music began abandoning concert halls when Schoenberg and Stravinsky first perpetrated their avant gardisms in the early teens of the 20th century. Audiences seem to be more directly responsive to this kind of work, feeling entitled to comment, criticize, and engage, all of which presumes they are actually listening. It is the lifeblood of music. This might not have been a bad thing had they not decided to exercise berufsverbot against composer who wouldn’t conform to their ideology. Since composer X is an electroacoustic composer, that’s not surprising, eh? Acknowledging our audiences certainly also means not underestimating them. Plucked lutes (notably, the yueqin) and flutes (typically, the di) also appear at times. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries brought about major changes in the world of music as many people knew music up until then. The late Victorian revival of interest in English folk songs arose partly – and ironically – in response to the economic and social strains placed upon rural England by its urban centres. There is a man in DC area, a enthusiast audience member named Robert Reilly, who wrote one book about the overlooked composers of yesteryear and he is even writing a new edition this year. And this isn’t really surprising, given the continued aging of classical music audiences, the erosion of influence of classical music in society and among young people other than marching band members, and other results of the era of the “Autonomy of the Artist”. These experimentations baffled listeners, and composers either received support or were rejected by their audience. I still listen to that music, with great pleasure. There are more than a few members (still members, miraculously) of the classical music audience who find Schoenberg and Varese and Cage and Stockhausen and Xenakis and Lachenmann to be beautiful. Such performers were very much involved in the creative act, the product of which reflected their particular skills and personalities, and the dynamics of the working situation. If you identify as a member of Mr. Manheim’s chimerical “general audience,” you might pretend to feel put out that creators aren’t making what you want them to make. All the things Andrew mentions as “experience,” all the things that supposedly have happened within the last 40 years, are old things. All these are not simply artistic concerns, just because there are no such a thing as an artistic question isolated from life, from society and politics. Innovation for its own sake, imitating serialist, minimalist and Darmstadtian ideals or mind-games turned out by composers to please themselves and a few groupies has not worked for composers of academic contemporary music. Of course it’s pandering to try to guess what people want to hear rather than sharing the truth of one’s own artistic voice. Chopin, for instance. Although music is intangible, it is possible to infer exactly how the composer felt while writing a specific piece of music. We’ve been so beat down with Justin Bieber and commercial radio, and also with handpicked “flavor-of-the-month” composers and art movements, that many of us have come to equate music with a broad appeal—and the very desire to connect with audiences—as deserving of only suspicion and derision. I cited only the last 40 years as, at least to my knowledge, a certain school of composition, one that made Bartok seem quite accessible, became known to the larger audiences of NYC, LA, London. But she is not disregarding her audience, the audience for electroacousic music, at all. We have brilliantly trained our audiences for the last 40 years to deeply fear unknown composers listed on programs or even worse, the phrases “Commissioned” or “World Premier”. NewMusicBox provides a space for those engaged with new music to communicate their experiences and ideas in their own words. In 1963, 50 years after the premiere, Monteux (then aged 88) agreed to conduct a commemorative performance at … By which I mean, I literally do not believe it. It’s about the purpose of music. I’ve been around a bit and I don’t know of any composers who don’t care about their listeners (that would include Milton Babbitt). Log in. This is especially relevant with Russian composers in the 20th century. Because that is what, most of all, is shrinking audiences for contemporary music: not any particular musicians, stylistic approaches, or programming, but rather a pernicious idea that contemporary music can only succeed if it bets against itself, and pretends that losing was really winning all along. What do you want people to feel when this happens? Bach in “living tradition” style, i.e. 3. That is, the “syndrome” existed long before the marriage, long before the wife was even born herself. The attitude Andrew refers to, which accounts for his and his colleague’s fears, is already by now over two hundred years old. etc. In that light, thanks especially for including the caveat re: consonant, pleasing, and unchallenging. Bad bad bad. For these reasons, I find the above article somewhat pontificating and misleading. Many defenders of contemporary music have intellectual rather than musical motivations. So many brilliant musicians have been fighting against this attitude in their own way, with their own solutions. Composers of this time period were more willing to experiment with new music forms and used technology to enhance their compositions.. In Russia and EU, Moishe Weinberg is having a huge resurgence, nearly 20 years after his passing. But creators aren’t ignoring their audiences at all, are they? Many of our most beloved composers were opposed in their day, at least to a certain extent. Your email address will not be published. Listen and explain the compositions and the role of composers to the selected music styles of 20th century composers; 2. The number of actual public performing events may decrease as private musical performance increases. A few years ago, I proposed an opera by a prominent young American composer to a major European summer festival (clearly not dependent on ticket sales or donations.) 1. Never mind that the creators of things you don’t enjoy aren’t trying to piss you off. Composers who actually welcome audiences (instead of primarily addressing peer professionals and a tiny fringe of cognoscenti) carry something of novelty. It’s a great era for the music of our time; one could not ask for more diversity, talent, and discipline than the crop of musicians active today at the beginning of what is sure to be a wonderful year for music. And it took most of the century for the “old is better” contingent to win. Explains the performance practice (setting, composition, role of composers/performers, and audience) of 20th century music. Another is the scrupulously detailed work of William Weber. In the meantime, the attitude that “new” music has been blamed for for two centuries will continue to persist unless we can find a way to account for its true sources. It really will need only a bold individual or a conservatory, or other group of music lovers to lead the charge. Second, I think “knowing your audience” also includes knowing when you are *simply performing for the wrong one*, when, in fact, the audience of your peers may not be appropriate for your work. Many artists have attempted to create performance situations that actively involve as participants all those in attendance. as for the performance art piece described, hope the torched guitar strings were either not on a guitar, or on a throw-away stage prop and that the napping performers were “extras” rather than highly trained – in this piece I call for the cellist to turn on the fuzz box only just prior to this brief finale – her tone and phrasing is too beautiful to burn up for the full 20 minutes she was on stage –. There is evidence that even organizations that have anointed contemporary music obscurantists with awards in the past, such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, might be surprisingly open to composers who identify themselves with tonal music, for example Paul Moravec. That’s the great thing about being an American composer today. Don’t try to see yourself the way others do; it’s no use. For him, the test of musical “truth” (a highly ambiguous notion in itself) is measured solely by the way in which composers situate themselves, first within musical history, that is, the way in … I was on similar themes around 2004. Well, modernism has to be abandonned. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art, literature, music, theater, and film in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Answers: 2 on a question: Explain the performance practice(setting, composition, role of composers/performers, and audience) of 20th century music. with modern instruments, and the full tone and vibrato enjoyed by general audiences. 1. While Stravinskian and Dadaist excesses shocked many, they still had a following in the 20s and 30s (Stranvinsky himself reverting to a neoclassical style after Le Sacre du printemps) because the music utilized influences from jazz and the music halls popular in that era. 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