[Fmpro] FMPRO Latest Rant: "Where are the Distinctive Voicesinscoring?"

[Fernando Rivas]

Ted,

When you say that Beethoven was 'cutting edge' I'm not so sure that such is
the case.  He was an innovator in many ways musically but he never created a
new form nor did he ever step out of the timbral universe already created by
Haydn.  In fact, Haydn in that respect was much more of a formidable force
in taking music in new directions through form and orchestration. And if one
goes back, certainly someone like Vivaldi deserves very strong attention.

Beethoven stretched the boundaries and also wrote music so unique and
personal that he was then and will always be in a league of his own.

Besides - comparing a composer of the early 19th century to a contemporary
film composer is an apples and oranges thing.  Our world, socially and
artistically functions on a completely different set of principles.
I disagree with you most strongly on the fact that John Williams is not
original.  The moments of sheer originality in his work abound but they are
balanced by long sections and even entire films of conventional writing.
That is because film, unlike musical composition, is a team effort, not a
vehicle for one person's artistic expression.  In that sense you are correct
when you say that so-called 'cutting-edge' composers would not do film.
Although it would certainly be possible to assemble a team of forward
thinking individuals who would work outside the norm of the industry.

I'm not real sure, however, that being cutting-edge is the end-all and
be-all of any artist.  My opinion is that it is far more important to have
something to say, regardless of whether you cast it in some kind of
groundbreaking form or procedure or whether you use forms already available.
It seems that being on the 'cutting edge' was a real twentieth century
plague responsible for creating a lot of ugly, senseless, and stupid music
that has nothing to say, nothing to convey, nothing to express but it's own
erratic, egocentric, masturbatory cutting-edgeness.

Beethoven was not cutting-edge - he was a human voice an infinitely
imaginative spirit that was able to reach across all human boundaries
including time and culture.  That is the true criteria of artistic success.
Sometimes true originality and 'cutting-edgeness' have absolutely nothing to
do with each other. And those who look for constant originality as something
meant to surprise and shock may find they are missing the deeper truth that
may be hidden under the surface of what at first glance appears to be
conventional.

FR

On 6/2/08 1:56 PM, "Ted Peterson" <ted.peterson at tcsn.net> wrote:

> I never said the original Mussorgsky piece wasn't great music. I just
> used it as an example for study. By the way, Mussorgsky also
> orchestrated much of the Pictures and these "sketches" have been
> found and analyzed. He also wrote and orchestrated "Boris Goudenov"
> so it shows he was a pretty capable orchestrator in his own right.
> 
> Stravinsky wrote "Sacre" in a small room with an upright piano. I
> have seen the originals through Robert Craft and because of
> Stravinsky's piano technique (He couldn't cross over and never
> studied scales so his technique was more like moving his hands in
> concert from octave to octave.), he wrote much as two piano the
> orchestrated from that. But much was just orchestrated while he
> composed and he used the piano to check registers and such. It is
> important to remember that he had already written "Firebird" and
> "Petrouchka" so his technique was expanding quite rapidly. The
> "Firebird" sound so much like Debussy that I have fooled a lot of
> people with a needle drop test (when records still were the main
> musical format) or a random track quiz.
> 
> Williams' music is not innovative and "classical" sources abound in
> his writing. That doesn't make it bad or make Williams a bad
> composer, just a hack. Take a listen to some Basil Poledouris' music.
> Every bit as innovative as Williams' but without the classical
> underpinnings. Do I think Williams is an innovative composer? No.
> It's that simple. The innovative composers working today are not
> writing sound cues. However, film composers are and must be fantastic
> craftsmen.
> 
> Yes, Williams and others, are very capable craftsmen but I would bet
> if you asked them, they would be the first to downplay their
> contribution to the innovative side of music. Nobody with any
> knowledge of music would think that anything written by Williams now
> would be the equal to what Beethoven wrote some 200 years earlier.
> What Beethoven did was cutting edge in his day. The same cannot be
> said for anything Williams has done. To me, it's like commercial
> jingles. Cute and appropriate but hardly experimental in an sense of
> the word. In addition, it is doubtful that Williams or any other film
> composer other than Glass will have any chance at a historical
> "school." But Glass came to film after he was established and writing
> in the minimalist style for some time. I don't recall Williams at a
> concert composer of any import at any time.
> 
> I don't think a simple piece of music is bad and I may have
> miswritten. What I mean is that an insignificant piece can be
> orchestrated to sound much better than the original material and give
> the illusion of being better than it really is musically. Whereas a
> very sophisticated piece of music can be orchestrated quite poorly
> and loose comprehension. I was commissioned to write a piece for the
> supporters of the LA Phil. I was given free hand to write whatever I
> wanted. So I wrote four quite difficult brass pieces. These were
> supposed to be played at the Hollywood Bowl by brass players standing
> on the tops of towers. Usually, they played Garibaldi or another
> composer of brass works. At the last minute, I'm told that the pieces
> will be played at a dinner and there would be no rehearsal. I
> initially said can the works, they aren't right for the evening but
> was pressed to have them performed. I picked the least offensive and
> easiest to comprehend of the works and had the brass from  the LA
> Phil play them with one partial readthrough. It was a mess. I had
> created works that were not appropriate for a dinner in the first
> place and had written them for at least two weeks of rehearsal which
> I was promised.  Fleishman corralled me after the dinner and asked me
> what I was thinking about writing pieces like that.  I told him what
> I was contracted to do and he was very sympathetic. If I had known
> the pieces were to be for a dinner, I would have written completely
> differently and turned out some pleasant music very tonally based.
> Also, I would never write brass pieces for an evening dinner event.
> So I went home and reorchestrated the pieces into chamber works and
> they have worked quite well as that. The point is that wrong
> orchestration can doom a good piece and completely save mediocre
> music. John Adams' music is very simple yet masterly orchestrated.
> I'm surprised he hasn't delved into film yet. But according to him,
> he has enough commissions that he will be dead before he can fulfill
> them all.
> 
> Ted Peterson
> 
> On Jun 1, 2008, at 1:53 PM, Han Otten - Soundpalette wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Ted,
>> 
>> 
>> I am a bit confused about your Mussorgsky example,
>> Ravel and Rimsky Korsakov are two of the most capable orchestrators
>> of the last centuries, but the original Mussorgsky piano version
>> is still a brilliant piece of music. So what does that say about
>> the crucial
>> role of the orchestrator?
>> 
>> 
> 
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