style and (I have no) idea
Bad pun on Schoenberg's seminal text "Style
and Idea." Sorry about that.
I've been listening to a lot of old favorites I hadn't heard in a long time: Bartok's violin sonatas and piano concerti, Stravinsky's Les Noces (three different versions no less: the original Russian, as well as French and English versions----I really prefer the Russian) and Ives' Fourth Symphony. As a result, I started thinking a bit more about style. All of these composers clearly developed their own characteristic styles, yet each had recognizable phases in which their music sounded different from what came after. Stravinsky was, like Picasso, notorious for morphing. He had what I'd call his his primitive phase, then his neo-classical phase, his serial phase and finally his twelve-tone phase. Clearly the late Stravinsky of the Variations for Orchestra is markedly different from his earlier Les Noces, which is itself different from his Symphony in Three Movements. Yet they all sound like Stravinsky. This is also true of Bartok, and certainly of Ives.
But is this really about style? What is Stravinsky's style? What is Messiaen's style? Are we not confusing style with technique, or even something more ephemeral and harder to define? I ask this because even though my music has gotten performed on average once every quarter-century (no joke), people have asked me on occasion what my music sounds like, which is like saying "what's your style?" It's an understandable question, if not a difficult one. I generally answer that my music just sounds like me, but that's vague and evasive. So I tend to add that my music involves repetitive structures. But that's also inadequate---to most people, the immediate thought is that my music must sound like that of Philip Glass (even my wife has that silly notion). But it doesn't, any more than Glass sounds like Reich who sounds like Terry Riley. They don't sound like one another, even though they all use repetitive structures. That's because minimalism is a broad tent, and one that really does not adequately characterize an individual composer's "style." Glass has his own style, as did Feldman and most other unique composers. Some Feldman certainly has similarities to Cage (consider Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts and then listen to Feldman's Structures for string quartet) as well as Webern. So what? Anyone who knows and has an affinity for Feldman's music can clearly argue that his music, while owing a debt to both Webern and Cage, speaks from his own vocal chords.
So is there a twelve-tone style? Is there a minimalist style? Is there a classical style? I'd argue against such concepts. Just as while there may be a twelve-tone technique, there is no minimalist technique or "classical" technique. And even with the twelve-tone technique, Berg sounds very different from Schoenberg and Dallapiccola and Babbitt.
I'm not sure how I should classify my own style, and prefer to not do so at all. The great Shinto philosopher Chang Tzu argued very convincingly against categorizing anything, and there is great wisdom in that approach. When I was much younger (read: when I was young), I wrote music that was freetonal, and eventually wrote fairly strict 12-tone music.
Nothing wrong with twelve-tone music, at least no more so than any other technique. It's what one does with the technique that matters. I was interested in writing 12-tone music for several years, but eventually reached a point where I just couldn't do anything more with it, which is where things were when I wrote the long piano piece ineffabilities.
No one composes in a vacuum, and I am certainly influenced by many things I hear to one extent or another. I had been gravitating towards music with repetitive structures much before I was writing my last 12-tone works, and finally gave into my impulses, composing a stream of works that utilized repetitive cycles of 16th notes in both hands. But these works sound like me just as much as my earlier works had.
More recently, I've tried unsuccessfully to keep out the influence of Feldman's music, which I have devoured over the past two years. Works such as five notes for christina fong and the more recent for roger copland certainly owe something to late Feldman. five notes was originally written as a potential homage to Feldman, while the title of for roger copland makes an obvious allusion to Feldman's work for aaron copland.
But in the end, so what? Aside from an external influence, I can't say that these works are in any style other than my own, and I'm not able really to define that style after all is said and done.
When I was studying with Sylvia Rabinof at Juilliard's Pre-College Division in the 70's, one challenge we were all given in that class was to write a Christmas carol in the style of another composer. So I set The First Noel for violin and piano in the style of late Schoenberg. I made it a 12-tone work, and even did a bit of a takeoff on the op. 47 Phantasy for Violin and Piano. It was an interesting and fun exercise, if not a bit silly. But while I think I did something that resembled Schoenberg's style, in the end it was a pale imitation, since all I could do was emulate one of his own works and use a similar technique. But the style wasn't really Schoenberg or even "12-tone" (again, 12-tone music is a technique, not a style) since Schoenberg was pretty unique and not easily imitated.
So I'm back where I started. I have no idea what my "style" is per se, nor do I have a particular technique. I used to write at the piano using pencil and score paper; now I generally work at my synthesizer and Mac and notate directly onto a digital score, bypassing paper and pencil altogether. I don't use serial techniques anymore, except for some occasional indulgences when they make musical sense (five notes and for roger copland both use some serial techniques, including a 12-tone row, but not in the strict and more involved ways I used to use rows). Nor do I use repetition in a predominant fashion; in fact, I rarely did so anyway. I think composers should be able to draw upon whatever techniques they want to at any time. Or no technique at all, as is also the case for some of my recent music. I don't judge a piece based on how intelligently its canons and tone rows are manipulated, nor do I disqualify a piece because it doesn't use any strict technique. Rather, I judge music based on some unquantifiable measures, such as whether or not it just grabs me. The fact that Webern could write some incredibly complex canons is interesting on an intellectual level, but has nothing to do with why I like his music. I'm sure many academic composers can write really cool fugues with all sorts of complex counterpoint, but so what---their music still usually fails to do anything for me.
The composer Alex Shapiro wrote some interesting commentary about how she was taught by John Corigliano to visualize her score first without actual score paper. In essence, she can architect the structure of the score, and only then begin to fill in the notes. That is a really interesting way to compose, and were I more talented, that might be the way I would do it. But most often, I have no clue in the beginning where the music will take me, and I pretty much structure it on the fly.
Feldman was often asked why he would end a piece at a certain point, and his answer (to my recollection) was that he would write until the work was just "done" in his opinion. That doesn't mean his music has no form; his long (2-6 hour) works have amazing architecture, much like a gothic cathedral. But I know what he means; one may write until one realizes he or she has said enough and the music doesn't need to go on any longer. When I wrote for roger copland a few weeks ago after Roger's death, I had no idea how long it would be. It just kind of wrote itself, and ended up being around 30 minutes or so (when my computer-generated alto flute plays it, it takes just over 28 minutes, but one's mileage will vary in real life).
So in the end, I don't have any particular technique or easily-defined style. And I don't care to. I like to believe, at least empirically, that if one writes music that is honest and has integrity, it will ultimately sound like one's own true style. Whatever that may be. At least I don't sound like Boulez or Babbitt, and for that I'm grateful.
I've been listening to a lot of old favorites I hadn't heard in a long time: Bartok's violin sonatas and piano concerti, Stravinsky's Les Noces (three different versions no less: the original Russian, as well as French and English versions----I really prefer the Russian) and Ives' Fourth Symphony. As a result, I started thinking a bit more about style. All of these composers clearly developed their own characteristic styles, yet each had recognizable phases in which their music sounded different from what came after. Stravinsky was, like Picasso, notorious for morphing. He had what I'd call his his primitive phase, then his neo-classical phase, his serial phase and finally his twelve-tone phase. Clearly the late Stravinsky of the Variations for Orchestra is markedly different from his earlier Les Noces, which is itself different from his Symphony in Three Movements. Yet they all sound like Stravinsky. This is also true of Bartok, and certainly of Ives.
But is this really about style? What is Stravinsky's style? What is Messiaen's style? Are we not confusing style with technique, or even something more ephemeral and harder to define? I ask this because even though my music has gotten performed on average once every quarter-century (no joke), people have asked me on occasion what my music sounds like, which is like saying "what's your style?" It's an understandable question, if not a difficult one. I generally answer that my music just sounds like me, but that's vague and evasive. So I tend to add that my music involves repetitive structures. But that's also inadequate---to most people, the immediate thought is that my music must sound like that of Philip Glass (even my wife has that silly notion). But it doesn't, any more than Glass sounds like Reich who sounds like Terry Riley. They don't sound like one another, even though they all use repetitive structures. That's because minimalism is a broad tent, and one that really does not adequately characterize an individual composer's "style." Glass has his own style, as did Feldman and most other unique composers. Some Feldman certainly has similarities to Cage (consider Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts and then listen to Feldman's Structures for string quartet) as well as Webern. So what? Anyone who knows and has an affinity for Feldman's music can clearly argue that his music, while owing a debt to both Webern and Cage, speaks from his own vocal chords.
So is there a twelve-tone style? Is there a minimalist style? Is there a classical style? I'd argue against such concepts. Just as while there may be a twelve-tone technique, there is no minimalist technique or "classical" technique. And even with the twelve-tone technique, Berg sounds very different from Schoenberg and Dallapiccola and Babbitt.
I'm not sure how I should classify my own style, and prefer to not do so at all. The great Shinto philosopher Chang Tzu argued very convincingly against categorizing anything, and there is great wisdom in that approach. When I was much younger (read: when I was young), I wrote music that was freetonal, and eventually wrote fairly strict 12-tone music.
Nothing wrong with twelve-tone music, at least no more so than any other technique. It's what one does with the technique that matters. I was interested in writing 12-tone music for several years, but eventually reached a point where I just couldn't do anything more with it, which is where things were when I wrote the long piano piece ineffabilities.
No one composes in a vacuum, and I am certainly influenced by many things I hear to one extent or another. I had been gravitating towards music with repetitive structures much before I was writing my last 12-tone works, and finally gave into my impulses, composing a stream of works that utilized repetitive cycles of 16th notes in both hands. But these works sound like me just as much as my earlier works had.
More recently, I've tried unsuccessfully to keep out the influence of Feldman's music, which I have devoured over the past two years. Works such as five notes for christina fong and the more recent for roger copland certainly owe something to late Feldman. five notes was originally written as a potential homage to Feldman, while the title of for roger copland makes an obvious allusion to Feldman's work for aaron copland.
But in the end, so what? Aside from an external influence, I can't say that these works are in any style other than my own, and I'm not able really to define that style after all is said and done.
When I was studying with Sylvia Rabinof at Juilliard's Pre-College Division in the 70's, one challenge we were all given in that class was to write a Christmas carol in the style of another composer. So I set The First Noel for violin and piano in the style of late Schoenberg. I made it a 12-tone work, and even did a bit of a takeoff on the op. 47 Phantasy for Violin and Piano. It was an interesting and fun exercise, if not a bit silly. But while I think I did something that resembled Schoenberg's style, in the end it was a pale imitation, since all I could do was emulate one of his own works and use a similar technique. But the style wasn't really Schoenberg or even "12-tone" (again, 12-tone music is a technique, not a style) since Schoenberg was pretty unique and not easily imitated.
So I'm back where I started. I have no idea what my "style" is per se, nor do I have a particular technique. I used to write at the piano using pencil and score paper; now I generally work at my synthesizer and Mac and notate directly onto a digital score, bypassing paper and pencil altogether. I don't use serial techniques anymore, except for some occasional indulgences when they make musical sense (five notes and for roger copland both use some serial techniques, including a 12-tone row, but not in the strict and more involved ways I used to use rows). Nor do I use repetition in a predominant fashion; in fact, I rarely did so anyway. I think composers should be able to draw upon whatever techniques they want to at any time. Or no technique at all, as is also the case for some of my recent music. I don't judge a piece based on how intelligently its canons and tone rows are manipulated, nor do I disqualify a piece because it doesn't use any strict technique. Rather, I judge music based on some unquantifiable measures, such as whether or not it just grabs me. The fact that Webern could write some incredibly complex canons is interesting on an intellectual level, but has nothing to do with why I like his music. I'm sure many academic composers can write really cool fugues with all sorts of complex counterpoint, but so what---their music still usually fails to do anything for me.
The composer Alex Shapiro wrote some interesting commentary about how she was taught by John Corigliano to visualize her score first without actual score paper. In essence, she can architect the structure of the score, and only then begin to fill in the notes. That is a really interesting way to compose, and were I more talented, that might be the way I would do it. But most often, I have no clue in the beginning where the music will take me, and I pretty much structure it on the fly.
Feldman was often asked why he would end a piece at a certain point, and his answer (to my recollection) was that he would write until the work was just "done" in his opinion. That doesn't mean his music has no form; his long (2-6 hour) works have amazing architecture, much like a gothic cathedral. But I know what he means; one may write until one realizes he or she has said enough and the music doesn't need to go on any longer. When I wrote for roger copland a few weeks ago after Roger's death, I had no idea how long it would be. It just kind of wrote itself, and ended up being around 30 minutes or so (when my computer-generated alto flute plays it, it takes just over 28 minutes, but one's mileage will vary in real life).
So in the end, I don't have any particular technique or easily-defined style. And I don't care to. I like to believe, at least empirically, that if one writes music that is honest and has integrity, it will ultimately sound like one's own true style. Whatever that may be. At least I don't sound like Boulez or Babbitt, and for that I'm grateful.
Posted: Mon - June 20, 2005 at 11:04 PM
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