Michael Matthews - Some Thoughts on New Music

After being asked by the WSO to provide my perspective on some of the problems relating to new music, audiences, funding, media, and presenting organizations, I was initially hesitant to tackle this topic; who, after all, wants to hear composers’ woes? But after some consideration, it seemed that an examination of some of the basic issues against a broader contextual background might provide fodder for discussion during and after the festival. The problems of new music are connected in many ways with the struggles of classical music as a whole, and indeed with the place of the arts in society; they need to be examined in these contexts.

In the process of living with what is essentially a rather odd profession, I have thought a great deal about the place of art/culture in our world. Canada and the US, countries in which I have lived for almost forty years, are societies in which composers of classical music are essentially invisible; being constantly confronted with this reality has provided me with many opportunities for reflecting on what I do and why I do it. In addition to my experiences in Canada and the US, over the past ten years I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in Mexico and Germany; my experiences in these countries have allowed me to see the composer’s relationship to society in different ways.

What follows are a series of somewhat loosely-connected musings on classical/new music/the arts, musings from the perspective of a composer, teacher and music lover. My professional and private discussions with composers, performers, and listeners, as well as all that I have learned from teaching music, have provided a fair bit of subject matter for such musing. In this article I have attempted neither a broad synthesis of the many issues that might be discussed, nor a detailed examination of a selected few. Rather, I have introduced a number of topics relating to the current and future health of classical/new music. I have considered what in our thinking and talking about new music might help or harm it. In an article of this length I can only scratch the surface of these topics, and make no claim to do more.

Contexts

The creation of art and culture is a choice. It is a choice made both by individuals, and, collectively, by societies. In the realm of classical music we have inherited a body of work that is staggering in its depth and diversity. This legacy did not come about by accident. It came into being because individuals, and through them institutions and governments, made decisions to use resources to create fertile environments for artistic development. The degree to which we do this in Canada will determine our cultural legacy.

Societies have priorities, and these priorities are largely reflected in their resource allocations. Governments that see the value in culture fund their arts. They fund them not only at home, but abroad. They have Ministries of Culture. They fund the cultural sections of their embassies. They fund organizations such as the Goethe Institute, the Cervantes Institute, the British Council, and the Alliance Française. They provide the unemployed with subsidized access to the arts. They fund to empower artists, not merely to sustain them.

Money

Money is one of the most important tools for fostering culture. Many of the topics that I discuss later on lead inevitably back to money. Largely as a result of money, the situation of composers is in general significantly better in Europe than in North America. By that claim I mean, among other things, that composers have more opportunities for performances. They tend to have access to larger ensembles and to receive more rehearsal time. Their performance royalty rates are much higher. Several European governments provided stipends for composers (and other artists) whose work is perceived to have merit.

A few numbers show why the status of artists in Europe is generally better. Here is some data on approximate annual federal (not state/local) spending on culture per capita (in Canadian $):

Denmark (2006): $557
Germany (2007): $544
Austria (2006): $403
Sweden (2005): $348
Switzerland (2006) $338
France (2002): $312
Netherlands (2006): $289
Estonia (2006): $277
Finland (2005): $265
Hungary (2007): $232
United Kingdom (2004): $229
Canada (2004): $227
Italy (2000): $197
Russia (2005): $79
United States (2009): $27

(The US figure is difficult to determine. Using only the National Endowment for the Arts budget, the US per capita expenditure is $0.54. That would be a more accurate comparison with the other data, which does not include state/local funding. Factoring in the NEA’s estimate that their contribution to overall cultural spending is about 2% of the pie leads to the figure of $27.)

Other statistics:

City of Berlin cultural budget (2009): $1.54 billion ($452/person)
Projected cost of new US embassy in Pakistan: $736 million
City of London cultural budget (1997): $495 million ($71 /person)
US National Endowment of the Arts budget (2009): $161 million
City of Montreal cultural budget (1997): $129 million ($70/person)
City of New York cultural budget (1997): $128 million ($18/person)
Projected cost of upcoming Lost Planet movie: $100 million
City of Toronto cultural budget (1997): $24 million ($10/person)
Canadian embassy in Berlin cultural budget (2009); $0

Berlin has three opera houses, over 1500 theatres and stages, more than 175 museums and collections, roughly 300 galleries, in excess of 250 public libraries, and 130 cinemas. The population of Berlin is 3.4 million. The population of Toronto is 2.7 million. No amount of jigging those statistics to allow for population and geographical differences between Germany and Canada can make Canada looks good in this comparison.

Music as music

Music is not a ‘universal language’. Something is indeed being ‘said’, but not as in a spoken language. Music has no nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. We need to put this canard behind us.

Music is essentially non-representational. This is a feature, not a bug. You cannot use music to draw a picture of anything. You can allude to imagery with titles, e.g. La Mer, but these are hints only. This masterful Debussy piece in no way “sounds” like the sea. The use of titles as allusions provide be important adjuncts to pieces, but nothing essential to the music as music is taken away if these titles are removed.

I bring up both of the above topics to point out that there has been tremendous damage done to the art of music by attempting to force a narrative and/or visual model onto it - by insisting that it be ‘translated’ into something else. This often occurs in ‘theme’ concerts, in pre-concert ‘explanations’ of pieces, etc. The problem is not so much the use of narrative or visual metaphor to provide an entry point to a work, but rather that this has become so much the norm that pieces without these add-ons can easily be perceived as deficient, and listeners are being discouraged from approaching music as music. Organizations seem to feel the need to push this approach, seemingly believing that their audiences cannot simply listen to music without audiovisual aids.

Utilitarian viewpoints

One of the most destructive developments for all of the arts in recent years has been the utilitarian attempt to justify support. “The arts generate economic activity”. “The arts make you more intelligent”. This is particularly evident in Canada in the government’s commitment to the “Cultural Industries”, and in Canadian universities being unwilling to fund creative work that cannot be justified in quasi-scientific terms. We must abandon these discussions and return to arguing for the arts because of their beauty.

Invisibility of composers

One example: on iTunes I can purchase “Classical 101″ 75 songs for $74.25, with full details about ‘name of song’, time, artist, album and price. Who composed this music?

Underestimating audiences

Many bookstores seem to take it for granted that their readership is perfectly capable of handling commentaries on Wittgenstein, sophisticated historical studies, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky. These same bookstores often have in their music section ‘Opera for Dummies’. Musical organizations mirror this attitude in a variety of ways.

 Lack of vision

Musical organizations are rarely willing to give composers the chance to make large statements. Murray Schafer’s piece No Longer than Ten Minutes is a classic commentary on this. What would our musical heritage be today if most of the works longer than 10-15 minutes were removed from it?

Ghettos

Festivals have their purposes, but in the case of new music they have in Canada frequently led to ghettoizing. A festival should provide a chance to focus attention on particular aspects of music, and not provide organizations with a justification for removing new music from their normal concert seasons. Are we trying to build a cultural legacy, or simply seeking to meet Canadian content requirements?

Lack of context for listeners

Canadian audiences of orchestra music are rarely exposed to major works of the 20^th Century. European audiences receive more such exposure. As an example, this season the Berlin Philharmonic is focusing on Brahms, Ligeti and Schoenberg. A recent all-Schoenberg concert conducted by Simon Rattle was completely sold out for three consecutive nights. That amounts to over 7,300 people. Other virtual sellout concerts that I have attended there include Boulez conducting a concert of Berg, Webern, Bartók and Schoenberg (three nights), Ingo Metzmacher with the Deutsche Symphony in an all-Berg concert, Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra in Shostakovich, Berg, and Dessau. It is virtually impossible to imagine this happening in Canada. Why?

Even though there are some cities in which audiences have opportunities to hear more recent music, there is a vast array of powerful symphonic music from the past 75 years that is virtually ignored by orchestras. Aho, Diamond, Duttillieux, Freedman, Garant, Hanson, Harris, Hartmann, Hétu, Lutosławski, Nørgård, Persichetti, Pettersson, Piston, Scelsi, Schafer, Schnittke, Schuman, Sessions, Silvestrov, Somers, Tubin, to name but a few. By failing to perform these works, orchestras are denying their audiences both the experience of a rich repertoire, but also denying them a broader context in which to place the music of our time, and in the process, hindering the development of contemporary music. The situation with chamber music is somewhat better, but far from good. This is a long-term project. Again, building a culture is a decision.

Premiere syndrome

A real problem that new music suffers from today is the so-called ‘premiere syndrome.’ Organizations seek to present the world premieres of new works, which is good, but then they move on to the next new work. What this means is that works do not have the opportunity to develop a life, and audiences and performers do not have a chance to develop a relationship with works. I have often heard listeners say that they would welcome an opportunity to hear a new work again; many performers feel frustrated having put so much effort into learning a new work, only to perform it once.

Organizations: please stop apologizing

I have heard so many radio broadcasts, read so many program notes, heard so many pre-concert talks about new works in which there is the implicit tone, if not the explicit content, of apology and fear-mongering. “How difficult this will be for you we will do our best to help you through it”, we are told. After enough of this, listeners can hardly be blamed for being afraid of contemporary music. This has to stop.

Multiplicity of Language

However different the music of Schubert and Schumann, they shared a common language; this is no longer true. There is no common language shared by Adams, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Nørgård, Pärt, Schnittke, and Webern. This presents a particular challenge to listeners unfamiliar with a composer’s work. On first hearing, they are asked to both create a language context and then place that work inside of it. This brings me back to my arguments for repeated performances and more recent music on concerts.

Grit

We seek, among other things, beauty in the arts. But beauty is not synonymous with being ‘pretty’: Starkness, brashness, darkness, manic intensity - all can possess and exhibit beauty. We have come to a place where we take for granted what we might call ‘grit’ in our visual art, literature, film/video, theatre, dance. That is to say, we accept that some of it will be pretty, and some not, and that different artistic purposes are achieved by saying things in different ways. We should accord music this right as well.

Failure of the media

How often do you encounter meaningful coverage of contemporary music in the major media? The media has largely failed new music in Canada. They tend to view knowledgeable journalists as assets in sports and as liabilities in new music. One explanation that has been offered to me is that such specialists “do not speak to the average person”; this is a particularly insidious form of snobbery.

Advice for listening

Listen for what is there, not for what is not there. Don’t view the lack of things that you are familiar with as a deficit, but rather as an opportunity to hear music from a different viewpoint.

Music loving is not a zero-sum game

Don’t participate in the premise that there is a limitation as to the number of musical styles you can love. Machaut, Ockeghem, Monteverdi, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mahler, Schoenberg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Webern, Scelsi, Pettersson, Berio, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Kurtág -what an amazing world we live it to be able to get to know this remarkable diversity of music!

Why do this?

I write because I love the range of musical styles, the multiplicity of listening experiences, the challenges of creating sonic worlds, the interaction with performers and listeners, sound itself; I am privileged to be able to be a composer. Ultimately, though, I do this because I need to. Despite the difficulties and frustrations, I simply cannot imagine doing anything else. If even a few days go by during which I don’t write, I begin to feel uneasy around the edges

Where to?

The “problems” of new music are complex, and inextricably intertwined with larger cultural issues. The situation of new music is improving in some ways, and getting worse in others. Whatever improvements are possible must stem from long-term systemic thinking by all participants. On good days I feel hopeful; on bad days depressed.

Many intelligent people have written interesting and thoughtful things about both classical and new music and their place in the world; for those readers who might be interested in more about this topic, I recommend writings by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, Aaron Copland, Kyle Gann, Norman Lebrecht, Leonard Meyer, Alex Ross, Greg Sandow, Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions.