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Contemporary Music Is
Unpleasant
This objection is, undoubtedly, the most
frequently encountered in this type of music. A
careful survey will show that, unfortunately,
this position had always stood toward any type
of new music. Let us consider these few
examples:
"There are barbarians who, short of any measure
of ear, insist on doing music"
(Sarti, alluding to Mozart Quartets).
"Mozart had never intended to create anything
unique. This is the remarkable thing, but not
the grandiosity. Stubbornness, phantasy and
vanity have paved the way for the birth of Don
Giovanni, but not the heart. It is beyond any
doubt that Mozart was endowed with remarkable
gifts that made him skillful, creative and
pleasant".
"But I have not so far come upon anybody who
would consider him as a real or a
reasonably efficient artist" (Musicalisches
Wochenblatt, on commenting Don Giovanni, after
Mozart).
"If the best of the critics and orchestras have
been unable to find any meaning to the Ninth
Symphony of Beethoven, we certainly shall be
allowed not to find either".
"True, the Adagio is much beautiful, but the
other movements, especially the last, seem a
collection of unintelligible queer armonies"
-Beethoven was deaf at the time of its
composition- (Boston Daily Atlas, about
Beethoven).
"Is indefatigable, almost inexhaustible in his
dissonances, likely to smash the eardrum. The
same in his tight transitions, his awful melodic
and rhythmic distortions".
"He has gathered everything unimaginable to
produce a sense of originality" (Relistab, about
Chopin).
You can collect as many criticisms as these, set
forth sometimes with virulence and hostility,
directed against those past composers now deemed
leading figures in the universe of music. I
believe we have today the same type of
shortsightedness in assessing the real merits of
some contemporary composers, who will probably
take rank among the great of the future. So, it
would be wise not to reject certain modern music
we have not even heard on the sole basis of some
"learned" statements, lest we incur on the same
mistakes the critics of Mozart made in the past.
A certain instance of enmity toward the musical
creator is shown in the experience of having had
a person, who rejects by principle modern music,
listening to some musical piece of especial
beauty, not telling him that it was
contemporary. He, instead of admitting his
error, ascribed the good shape of the work to
the fact that the composer did not the same as
the modernists do. I have personally intervened
on this trial on several occasions with
adversely predisposed people, with astonishing
confirmatory results. As the saying goes: "No
more utterly deaf than that who refuses to
hear".
Finally, to stamp the label of unpleasant to
whatever work is to shorten ruefully the extent
of music as a whole. I am certain that saying
merely that Bach's The Well Tempered Clef,
Mozart's Requiem, or Brahms' Fourth Symphony
were beautiful compositions would have elicited
a great sorrow into the composers. Moreover,
these outstanding works would have been divested
of their real and essential value.
True, the innermost purpose of composers of all
times is to produce something higher than
decorative pieces.
Born in Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1954. Received
piano and music theory lessons when a child.
Loves Tchaikovsky and Brahms. Stella Classical
Music http://starletgroup.com
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