Customer Reviews

The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology (Eastman Studies in Music)

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Echoing the title of an earlier book (Henry Pleasants' The Agony of Modern Music, a dreary compendium of all that was wrong with the world of modern music), this new volume serves as both a retort to Pleasants' gloomy old report of falling skies, and gives notice (by use of the radical word "pleasure") that many of us have found the music of the twentieth century and beyond to offer far more than intellectual satisfaction. Pleasants' own personal "agony" has been a real pleasure for many other listeners, and it's high time that someone said that out loud (or in print, anyway).

Arved Ashby, a musicologist teaching at the Ohio State University, has edited a superb compilation of essays that contribute greatly to the ongoing conversation about musical style and musical values that is currently raging in and out of concert halls today. What pleases me most about this volume is its writers' refusal to adhere to the standard musi-political norms that one has come to expect; boundaries are crossed and recrossed, ultimately blurred entirely. Musical eclecticist William Bolcom defends staunch serialist Donald Martino from critical assailant Richard Taruskin and others. Milton Babbitt, the arch-serialist hyper-intellectual composer who is frequently blamed for all that has gone wrong in the musical academy, is defended from himself. The diverse team of writers display an impressively broad and healthy grasp of music in all of its manifestations, not simply "classical music," whatever that presently means in our culture. Nits could be picked (and have been by other reviewers), but the fact of the matter is that this is a much-needed volume whose primary purpose is to provoke discussion and thought on all sides. The writers are first and foremost music-lovers, and that standpoint informs all of the essays. Urgently recommended.

If you like modernist classical music, you may be baffled by the claims of some musical conservatives that serialism or Schoenberg's free atonality are just so much noise. Even entire books have been dedicated to castigating the pieces I and my peers enjoy greatly, like Henry Pleasant's dodgy classic THE AGONY OF MODERN MUSIC. But in defense of "20th century music with a popularity problem" comes THE PLEASURE OF MODERNIST MUSIC: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology, edited by Arved Ashby. It collects 15 papers which discuss how modernist music can be a fun/touching/moving/thought-provoking experience. I didn't read all the papers here, so I'll just comment on a few.

Greg Sandow contributes two papers where he feels that excessive analysis gets in the way of just enjoying the music. Even Milton Babbit is great fun, he claims, if you just get past the dry programme notes. William Bolcom hopes that we're finally past the stage where we either have to strive for newness at all costs or trash mid-century modernism -- let's just enjoy what we like.

Richard Toop's "Informal Reflections on Simple Information and Listening" tries to undo some of the hyperbole around modern composition by noting that so much of the structure remains intelligible if one just pays attention. Even if the peculiars of twelve-tone rows pass by too fast or too squished by multiple voices and chords, even Stockhausen's ultra-abstract Klavierstuecke have a perceivable form that a sincere ear can latch on to. Andrew Mead's "One Man's Signal is Another Man's Noise" is a personal account of his joy in discovering Milton Babbitt, even as his father shook his head in disapproval.

Jonathan W. Bernard's "The 'Modernization' of Rock & Roll, 1965-75" charts a heady time when even popular music was exploring weird new sounds. If you've ever listened to late '60s psychedelia or Miles Davis' thick fusion, with all its revelations and surprises, and wonder how the human race could pass from that to disco, Bernard's is an interesting paper.

This is an academic text, not one meant to convince a mass audience that this kind of music is for them. Even if eggheads like myself absorb its arguments, they might not be all that useful in turning friends on to the wonders of 20th century modernism. Still, some many of the observations here resonated with me and helped me clarify my feelings about this repertoire, so at the very least THE PLEASURE OF MODERN MUSIC can help one formulate an apology for their tastes.