Listen and look at the score to the beginning of this piece. Brian Ferneyhough finished this piece in 1980, and it probably doesn’t sound like most classical music you’ve ever heard. I’ve been where you have been and I know what you’re thinking: “This is horrible.” But I have since grown to appreciate music like this, and read the comments of this piece: there are plenty of people who also love this stuff. It takes hundreds of hours and not nearly enough money to make this music for this to just be an Emperor’s New Clothes effect. So how do people genuinely enjoy this????
Classical music, like every other form of art, has experienced a big change in the last 100 years. The biggest difference from this revolution in music and other forms of art is that the general population cares significantly less for new music. When it comes to visual art, of course the media rolled their eyes at artwork like the Comedian. You might have even heard your grandma look at a modern painting and say something about “her cat being able to draw that.” But in general, modern art earns understanding and respect; names like Jackson Pollock, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol are revered. For music, our reaction as a society has been much more contemptive.
George Crumb, Makrokosmos Volume II. Movement 12 – Agnus Dei (1973)
This divide between music and other forms of art comes from the different roles they play in our society. MoMA recieved 2,000,000 visitors this year. These visitors go to modern art museums like MoMA to be challenged emotionally, to take in exciting artistic innovations, and most of all, to see things in a way they’ve never seen before. These are the reasons people engage with visual art, but music has always had a different responsibilty.
As an art form, music is expected to be therapeutic; it can bring you up in happy times, tell you you’re not alone in hard times, and push you in lazy times. Who wouldn’t like these things? The problem is not that music consumers use music in therepeutic ways, of course that’s a good thing. The problem lies in the commonplace that music’s quality lies in it’s ability to deliver positive emotion. Even sad music must serve the function of being relatable for people that are already struggling, and in this sense, it still serves to elicit positive emotion.
When a painting like “Little Electric Chair” posseses the ability to deeply unnerve the viewer, it’s hailed as a compelling piece of art and sold for 11.6 million dollars. I believe it’s worthy of this. If you were to write a piece of music that delivers a similar emotion (ex. “Persepolis” by Iannis Xenakis), you would not earn the same respect, and definitely not the same money. It did recieve attention and love, but not as much as it deserves. But music like this has been less of a failure than I have so far made it out to be.
2001: A Space Oddysey is a film scored to the brim with postmodern sounds and textures: clashing harmonies, seemingly nonsensical pitches, and mathematically dense rhythms. This is very much like the pieces I cited earlier. But most viewers did not come out of theater complaining about the score; the general consensus was actually that the score was deeply effective. Everyone going to see Kubrick’s masterpiece were consuming a film knowing they weren’t going to come out necessarily comforted. They went in with the intent to feel something, to experience the exciting new emotions associated with boundary-pushing art. Now that this art wasn’t tied to the explicit expectation to comfort, it became extremely effective and even enjoyable.
If you were intrigued by this, I would suggest to push your own boundaries by listening to The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. Even listen to just the first movement (up to 4:05). Don’t listen for Beethoven, don’t listen for Bach, listen to your own response, let yourself feel the emotions you want to feel, even if they are negative ones. Trying to experience music more like visual art instead of therapy can be a gorgeous and life-changing experience, and turning up your nose at something because it is different is nothing more than missing out.
I find your suggestion of trying to experience new music like we would experience visual art instead very interesting. I have never thought to do that, and just like many other, I have difficulty enjoying new music. I do wonder if it depends on the genre. As someone who mostly listens to rap music, I find that a lot of new songs sound too similar to every other song that is coming out and has been coming out for the past 5-10 years. I feel that many sounds in hip-hop have become diluted and less interesting. Since you are talking about more classical music here, I wonder if the same strategy would work for other types of music.
I think it’s really interesting how you discussed the different roles that visual art and music play in our lives and society — how we expect them to perform different roles and functions. Do you think that when music and visual art is paired together, like in A Space Odessey, people are more likely to enjoy a musical score that ventures outside of the box we expect it to typically reside in? I think that might be the case because instead of having the music run parallel (or antiparallel) to one’s emotions, they work together with the visuals. By coupling those two together, people are more “accepting” of music that doesn’t necessarily match what they’re used to — it just needs to match with something.
I love your persepctive on new music and how society has somewhat changed their liking to songs that are less classical, and more modern. As someone who loves R&B, rap, and even country, I feel as though I am pretty open to different genres of music, and don’t stick to one and hate on any other genre. It is also interesting on your perspective on visual art and music in society. I am sure many people do not think this way, and only look to music when they want to keep their mind busy, but it is far more than that.
As a musician, I’ve found that the more I listen to a certain genre, the more I can understand and enjoy it (though I do find the first piece you linked to be, in a word… atrocious). I think that the comparison between visual and aural arts is a crucial one, as visual art is much more recognized in today’s world. People tend to view visual art as a stand-alone display of emotion, whereas modern music (like film scores) tends to be viewed as a background to something else happening. It’s fortunate that professional orchestras do still receive enough support to stay afloat and keep music as a stand-alone art form that can be enjoyed for what it is.