musoc.org

music & society

Hall of Shame

Musoc.org names & shames* those institutions and individuals who debase art music in the name of populism, philistinism or lucre. (*If only.)

NEW Class.Traitor of the Month for April is "Classic FM, A Global Radio Station", for its Hall of Fame 2012, "with NS&I", the most discomfiting in its inglorious history. With a shabby pop song as its "highest new entry", by a "living composer" (who is yet somehow dead), and numerous nondescript items that were voted in by typically moronic Twitter and Facebook campaigns - including Helen Jane Long, the female Einaudi (when a male one was already too much), and various video game soundtrack excerpts - there was no trace of embarrassment from the presenters, who instead spent the whole Easter weekend plumbing new depths of inanity and repetitiousness.

About musoc.org

Musoc.org is a voice and forum for people who feel (or are leaning) a certain way about cultural imperialism, intellectual vandalism, neoliberalism and postmodernism; and particularly the effect these have on the music they love. Specific aims:

1. The repudiation of cultural relativism in music
2. Provision of a cultural oasis in the arid sands of global pop culture
3. The promotion of the term 'art music' in preference to 'classical music'

Musoc.org is NOT on Facebook, NOT on Twitter (or any other anti-social media), and contains NO pop, NO ads, NO pictures, NO celebrities, NO sport, NO blogroll cronyism. (Yes, it's unique.)

Vote Anti-Pop

Sick of hearing Pop 'Music' wherever you go? Wish you could switch it all off? Wish Art Music would get the same exposure? If you agree with musoc.org's arguments (see the FAQ), support the Anti-Pop. Not sure? Read what the experts say about musoc.org in Rave Reviews.

All Music is NOT Equal

Art music defined

Musoc.org makes a radical, clear distinction between 'Art Music' and all other kinds of 'music', the latter always written within quotes on this site to distinguish it from music as art. Music not meeting the criteria listed below is not Art Music, and is therefore what musoc.org refers to as Pop 'Music' (or simply 'Music').

The criteria are of course synthetic: they have been deliberately selected and worded to exclude not only the various popular 'musics' of today (pop, rock, dance, hiphop, country etc), but also those that come under what musoc.org (along with other authorities) considers 'postmodern'. A reasonably objective definition of this kind permits (in theory, at least) a more objective defence of Art Music, taking debate beyond the pointless "my music's better than your music" exchange prevalent across the internet's blogs and discussion forums.

The specification deliberately makes no attempt to objectify aesthetics, which musoc.org leaves to the ear of the individual. This is therefore not of itself a description of great music, but of art music. Nevertheless, the underlying assumption is that it is various combinations of the elements listed that produce exceptional beauty in music.

The criteria form the basis of a so-called 'Life and Works' or 'Museum' approach to music culture, defining it in terms of composers' works, enshrined for posterity in an immutable score. A definition of Art Music presupposes of course a definition of Art also, a matter which theorists may never resolve. Musoc.org employs a 'cluster' version of the 'family resemblance' approach, which has some support among philosophers. The specification below is a list of properties, none of which is in itself a necessary condition for a work of art, but which taken together will be sufficient, at least as far as technical, creative, mental and aspirational components are concerned. A degree of vagueness of terminology is inevitable (and regrettable) in such an undertaking, though musoc.org will continue to finesse these criteria over time.

Note that these criteria are as seen from the 21st century. Little of this music was written to be considered as art necessarily; it wasn't really until the 19th century that the autonomy and 'professionalisation' of artists was established. Composers have always written for 'entertainment' (to please known audiences), or for 'functional' (ceremonial/ritual) or 'educational' (pedagogic/didactic) purposes — often primarily. Though the principal motivation for all three types may be financial, it is common practice in delimiting all kinds of art to disregard all such material considerations.

To count as Art Music, a work (as a whole) must meet ALL* the following criteria:

1. It must acknowledge, build on or work from a musical heritage based on structure and tonality and its precursors
   
   
2. It must be musically and intellectually complex, coherent and sophisticated (i.e. display and encode, in various permutations, articulation, originality, discursiveness, subtlety, intricacy, novelty, contrast, suspense, symbolism, logic, humour, passion etc through the use, in various combinations, of non-trivial harmony, modulation, variation, variance of musical phrase length and metre, periodicity, through-composition, counterpoint, polyphony etc.)
   
   It will therefore:
   
   
   • Require a high level of musicianship (concentration, insight, accomplishment) on the part of performers, who must draw on musical education, personal experience and imagination, knowledge of a work's idiom, and the accumulated body of historical performance practices (even for a merely competent performance)
     
     
   • Require relatively high levels of concentration, understanding and competence from listeners for non-superficial appreciation and comprehension
     
     
3. It must aspire (i.e. be the composer's intention) to provide the listener with emotional and intellectual enjoyment and satisfaction through musical complexity, sophistication and coherence (as above), and thereby communicate exceptional and/or transcendent reflections on the human condition
   
   
4. It must be written for acoustic instruments and/or unamplified voices (Mechanical and electr(on)ic devices may be employed for textural effect, but not as the main 'instrument'. Technical amplification, for recording purposes or to enhance performances in arenas of poor acoustics, are not part of the composer's effects or intention, and are not counted.)
   
   
5. It must be the original work of a single author (Texts notwithstanding. If a composer dies before finishing a work, its completion by another composer, if based on detailed notes left by the dead composer, may be considered a kind of 'amalgam' art work.)
   
   
6. It must be preserved and transmitted as a score, written in orthodox musical notation, alterable only by the composer (If the composer dies before completion, elaboration of the score may be made by another composer, though only of the dead composer's notes. 'Orthodox' means readily intelligible to professional and proficient amateur musicians.)
   
   
7. It must be conceived for performance according to the instructions and faithful to the intent of the composer (Performers should follow the score precisely, in as much detail as the composer provides; improvisations and ornamentations are permitted where the composer allows or expects, according to practice or tradition.)
   
   

* An individual section of a larger work (e.g. as collected under a single opus number, an opera aria, a ballet dance, a suite movement) need not satisfy either the second or third condition if the larger work satisfies both.

An Art Music composer is anyone who writes music fulfilling these criteria (though not necessarily exclusively), and whether or not motivated by commercial considerations.

For reference, musoc.org has created detailed lists and tables of history's most important composers of Art Music: see the Master Lists* for details. (*Currently umavailable.)

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Comments, Queries, Submissions

If you have any comments, specific or general, on art music in society or on issues addressed on this site, please email gro.cosum@srettel. New letters are published below (replied to privately), otherwise see Letters page for archive. Equally welcome private comments, and any material for submission, should be sent to gro.cosum@ofni.

Jan.27th » Re: Christopher Hogwash I am mildly disappointed, but unsurprised, by Mr Berger's failure to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by my most recent letter [below, Jan.21st]. I decided to see if he had used his blog to publish a rejoinder. He had. Anyone who has followed our exchanges will know that I have not been nice to Mr Berger, but Mr Berger picked a fight he could never have won by throwing insults and making allegations. That he has now apologised for any offence he caused my father and me cuts no ice with me (although I suspect my father, an entirely reasonable man by context, will accept it). For myself, I spurn his contrition. In my view, Mr Berger should be apologising for the "Hogwash" reference. It should then be excised from his blog. I have not, as claimed, "missed the point" of the alleged "pun" (apart from anything else, it is weak - and indicative only of its author's slow wit) but simply rejected the offence it represents. This is because I am highly respectful of talent. It is one of the reasons I loathe Mr Berger, since he appears to have none. Any disrespectful allusion to a man of Christopher Hogwood's standing is repellent to me, particularly when it flows from a half-wit like Berger.

However, and notwithstanding my correspondent's glass-jaw, I remain interested in the subject that first joined us, and I - and others - are fascinated by his continued avoidance of it. Indeed, in his consideration of our dispute he writes that he has "no problem with musicians using period instruments for Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven etc, oreven Wagner, Elgar and Brahms". That's a relief. It's also an expression of titanic idiocy. The NQHO is not a period performance orchestra, and has never claimed to be. Moreover, he writes that what gets his goat "is the notion that period instruments are [said] to be the ONLY way". But neither John Boyden nor I have ever said anything of the sort. We have both said only that modern orchestras sound alike, are too loud, and lack those sensibilities of performance that occupied and defined orchestras of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That is something to argue about, assuming Mr Berger has the stomach and mind for it.

Ultimately, I am interested only in ideas. I don't care about Mr Berger's feelings, and if he worries that "some people just don't know how to disagree without being disagreeable", then he should understand that I am about as disagreeable as it gets. I would never claim to be anything else. I am interested only in the dissection of ideas from a bedrock of learning and insight. Until Mr Berger demonstrates either quality, he remains as I have described him. Matthew Boyden (Exeter, England)

Jan.21st » Re: Christopher Hogwash Mr Berger may well declare "the whole farce to be over" [below,Jan.21st], but it is not for him to decide such things. A friend of mine - who teaches composition in London (and whose name would be known even to the indigestible Berger) - wrote to me the other day and asked: "when is that silly man going to answer one of your questions?" I replied: "Never; he has no answers." Mr Berger has helpfully provided confirmation of the same in yet another poorly-written, ill-considered and weakly-argued letter. I have read better correspondence in English by writers for whom that language is their third or fourth. Regardless, Mr Berger must try and learn, if not from his mistakes then from those better equipped to debate this interesting and important issue. I shall go slowly so that he is able to keep up.

The NQHO was not established to perform music "better" than anyone else - since that is a subjective concept, tolerable only for the likes of Mr Berger, who lack the education to form objective views. If anyone doubts that consideration of my correspondent, then I would refer them to his earlier concession that he cannot identify the differences between orchestras (and he makes the same child-like generalisation in his latest missive), but only that they are different. I do not presume to speak for the NQHO, but I have heard their concerts, and I know the orchestra's founder quite well. What both are able to communicate is a singular ambition - something that an armchair retard like Berger would not understand. That ambition is not historical performance, or a recreation of the past. It is a determination to revive 19th and early 20th century values and attitudes to musical performance that have largely died out - values that owe as much to aesthetics as to engineering. Those values flow from what is known of the philosophies and convictions of everyone from Brahms, Wagner and Strauss to Mahler, Elgar and Debussy. Of course, performance as an ideal cannot be reduced (as Berger would have one believe) to considerations of skill and technique, both of which have led (reductio ad absurdum) to a situation in which pretty much all of the world's major orchestras sound the same. We know they do, as does Mr Berger - who conceded analytically that he had no answer to my now tired invitation that he accept my challenge.

What the ghastly Berger fails to understand - even while making my point for me - is that the art of orchestral performance is found not in technique but in expression, and that latter consideration is necessarily at odds with the sort of care for precision that has come to define modern performance practice. That may or may not matter to the majority, but it mattered to everyone interested in music until the 1950s - and readers of this correspondence will know on who and what I rely for my evidence. It mattered also to John Boyden. Now, Mr Berger may not understand ambition - having none himself - but my father's determination compelled him (as a hugely successful record producer) to do something about a problem that had been identified by the likes of Schuh, Abdendroth, Furtwängler, Nikisch and literally hundreds of other conductors before him. Whatever Mr Berger says - and it amounts palpably to nothing - the claims of the NQHO are grounded in research and learning - the sort of thing of which Berger is incapable - so that my father is able to refer his audiences and interlocutors to ideas, considerations and thoughts of actual substance.

I have already dealt with this, but Mr Berger's repetition of his best shot to date - namely, "How dare they put words in the mouths of long dead composers?" - is as stupid as its author. No-one has put any words into anyone's mouths. They wrote them down. In and of itself that is enough, since if one construes the voluminous writings of the 19th and early 20th century by critics, performers and composers to the scores themselves - and then reads Mr Berger's concession that all modern orchestras sound the same - it is clear that there is a need for an orchestra to engage with an approach to performance that was refined to its peak by Mahler, who was probably better at his job than JoAnne Falletta. For those capable of action, rather than blogging, this approach fosters respect, since it is founded on more than opinion, Mr Berger's stock in trade. It is clear that Mr Berger's failure as a man (qua intellect) is as complete a confirmation of the NQHO's value and importance as was its recent, and jaw-dropping performance in London of Brahms' Fourth Symphony. I would be happy to explain why it was so much better than what is done anywhere else - and analytically - if Mr Berger agrees to tell me first what is the difference between the CSO and the LSO.

As for my alleged "tantrum" - it was less a rant than the considered humiliation of the weakest correspondent I have ever known. And I get letters from children! Certainly, the many of those who wrote to me applauding my most recent destruction of Mr Berger did not think me petulant, but precise, reasoned and considered. Some even thought me patient, which was unexpected since I have felt none for the greasy Berger. So, and again - unless Mr Berger is happy for me to have the last word as to his appalling limitations, I invite him to put into words - the words of a music critic (as he claims to be), and a trained musician, no less - how precisely the orchestras he names are as different as the foodstuffs to which he refers. I know I have banged on about all those old-fashioned things like "learning" and "education" - qualities Mr Berger has done no more than assert - but let us see of what this little man is made. It cannot be that he would have us conclude that a comparison between cake and cheese is the best he has? In the absence of something more palatable, our readers will have to conclude - as they have done to date - that Mr Berger is a coward and a dime-store sophist, choking on an admixture of vanity and humiliation. Until he comes up with something of substance, I shall continue to spurn him as I would rancid meat. Tartare for now! Matthew Boyden (Exeter, England)

Jan.21st » Re: Get a grip I have become convinced, with age, that it is only innate snobbery and obsession with the past which prevents people from accepting that TV soaps are every bit as legitimate as the plays of Shakespeare. After all, the soaps at least use language that the ordinary person can understand, and present real characters in contemporary, modern situations. Who needs all that stuff about tapers and handkerchiefs these days? Likewise, it is nothing but elitism which leads people to suggest that Dan Brown's novels are in any way inferior to those from long dead writers such as Tolstoy, Dickens, Flaubert et al. Times move on, and what is the point of flowery prose and detailed characterisation when the modern reader is far more excited by two-page chapters with cliffhanger endings and an explosion or car chase every 200 words?

If I were to suggest the above points seriously, I would rightly attract scorn from anyone who considers him/herself in any way literate. Plenty of vitriol has been poured on the Harry Potter series by the literati, and a (London) Times poll which voted Lord of the Rings the most popular book drew disgusted letters from readers who thought it an abomination that Ulysses had not been given that honour. It is the same with all other art forms except, of course, music. People who take pride in mocking popular fiction or films get very upset when it is suggested that by the same token, the genius and skill required to compose, interpret and play a Beethoven symphony is demonstrably greater than it is to write a 3-minute pop song which has a very basic rhythm and harmonic structure, and in which the performers are usually aided by technology so they don't have to be very musically accomplished to play it. Why?

Floydian101's letter of 20th January [below] states that Musoc's argument is simply "my music is better than yours". Well yes - that's the whole point! To revisit the literary analogy, I will admit that my current taste in reading is hardly highbrow - I've read many of the classics and enjoyed them, but these days I'm far more likely to retire to bed with the latest Stephen King than Dostoyevsky or Proust. I read for entertainment, and I see nothing wrong with that, but would never claim that Stephen King is on the same plane as the great classic writers (and neither does Mr King). Most people would agree with me on that, so why can't people similarly accept that pop music is mass entertainment which many people enjoy - and have every right to, of course - but which is by nature ephemeral and simplistic, which is its very appeal? Admittedly there were some pop groups back in the 70s and 80s who did create music which was aimed at a more sophisticated audience, but they are very much the exception and to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing like that now.

If there were the same respect for the wonderful musical heritage which has been left us through the centuries as there is for other forms of "high" art, sites like Musoc would not need to exist. Neil (Prague, Czech Republic)

Jan.21st » Re: Christopher Hogwash I think it's time for some persective on the whole argument between me and Matthew Boyden and his father John [Letters,Jan.14th & passim]. The reason was not because I meant to attack the New Queen's Hall Orchestra as an orchestra; it was the insufferably arrogant and presumptuous claims about the group on its website. They are unbelievably smug and self-serving. If John Boyden wanted to form an orchestra to perform the music of late 19th and early 20th century on period instruments, that was certainly his right, and I have no objection to this. But his claim that such an orchestra was desperately needed in our time, and his asinine and grossly unfair blanket dismissal of our mainstream orchestras, fatuously seconded by his son, was an outrage. How dare any one claim to have a monopoly on the "right way to perform the music"? How dare father and son claim to have "restored the right sound for the music"? How dare they put words in the mouths of long dead composers?

So the younger Mr Boyden goes on a childish tantrum, calling me "ignorant","stupid", "anti-intellectual", uninformed etc, merely because I had the audacity to point out how stupid and presumptuous the claims about the NQHO are? If Matthew Boyden thinks that all or most of the world's orchestras sound the same, I question his ear! I have attended many orchestral concerts and played in who knows how many myself. Of course it's possible to get a good idea of what orchestras sound like unless the recorded sound is poor. Anyone who can say that the Vienna Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, Czech Philharmonic, London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic etc all sound alike is simply deluded. They no more sound alike than steak, lobster, cheese, apples, lamb, pork and chocolate cake taste the same. Matthew Boyden's comments show that having a doctorate in musicology is no guarantee of knowing what one is talking about. I declare this whole farce to be over. Robert Berger (New Rochelle, New York)

Jan.20th » Get a grip I'm truly amazed at how far you have gone up your own ass with this website. I came across your site while searching for others who may have noted the similarity between the "orgy porgy" of Huxley's Brave New World and modern day "raves". I'm pretty sure what I've found is a traditional musician who instead of embracing new technology and techniques has decided to double down on his dying art form and cling to it for grim death. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the sentiment of your argument and even understand the rationale that it originates from. I can even agree with some of your points. But you have taken it too far. You crossed the line when you attempted to draw a line in the sand and say music on one side of the line is "art" while everything on the other side is not. It wouldn't be so bad if you actually had a convincing argument to back up such a bold statement, but sadly the best you could offer comes off as "my music is better than your music."

To me you are like a painter who still refuses to acknowledge photography as an art form. How can you possibly state that music must be produced acoustically and notated in a certain way to be considered art??! I read through most of your site hoping to find a valid argument. But everything I saw just seemed to be filled with the bitterness of a student who dedicated himself entirely to a dying art form and who cannot come to terms with the fact that his passion is not appreciated by the masses anymore. Get a grip, get over yourself and realize that all music is art and that the value of that art is in the eye of beholder. Seriously, your whole site boils down to the juvenile assertion "my music is better than yours." Grow up. Floydian101 (Roger Waters)

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