Preparing for the second dance

This post was written by Charles Jonah, and posted on March 25, 2008 | Filed Under music | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Charles Jonah | | For info on this author, visit http://www.sdgmusic.org/voices/2007/07/31/introduction/

I am certain we all know the question

If a tree falls in the wilderness, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

or the comparable

If a man says something and his wife doesn’t hear it, is he still wrong?

but one can also ask

If no one hears a composition, is it still music?

The reason I pose this question at all comes from the fate of much commissioned music. Is it music if the music does not make it into the repertoire? On Daniel Gawthrop’s website, he describes Behold this Mystery in the following way: “Further performances followed, and the piece has now earned a place in the small but distinguished category called Twentieth Century Extended Works for Chorus and Orchestra Which Have Received More Than One Performance. ”

I suppose it is cheating to answer my 3rd question above so quickly, but I have to say yes (the answer to the first, — I don’t care to return to that interminable debate, the answer to the second one is “of course” – (note, I have been married nearly 40 years). I have a friend that has to this point composed something like 600 pieces of music. Until recently most of them have never been heard and now, after I recorded two CD’s worth, more people have heard them. But even if that hadn’t happened, he still heard them in his mind and on his piano. As we all know, the Mass in B minor was not performed during Bach’s lifetime and possibly the first performance was more than 100 years after Bach’s death.

We are in a time in classical music much like the opening words of The Tale of Two Cities “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” For example, with recordings we can hear a wider variety of music than we have ever been able to hear. There are many composers. But today, composers in general don’t have musical groups to play their compositions and expose it to the public. All new music must compete with music from previous ages for an opportunity to be heard. With modern electronics, we can make satisfactory recordings of a live performance easily so that anyone can hear the music. But with the heavily processed modern studio recordings, the listener has come to expect perfection in recordings that just isn’t possible in a live performance. (I will return to this subject in two weeks time in a post entitled Is it real or is it Memorex) Musicians’ Unions have made it possible for classical musicians in the best orchestras to make a (good) living but have made it difficult to record new compositions.

I know that reading long posts on the Internet is not fun so I plan to continue this discussion next week in a post that I am tentatively calling Preparing for the afterlife.