Music in Trains

This week I have spent countless hours listening to submissions for a new music festival, my first such experience. I was struck by two unusual trends:

1. Sounds that used to arouse negative valance (i.e. digital distortion and the like) are now free game for musical exploitation.
2. Music that using Western materials that maintains stasis for entire pieces.

Concerning (1), I sense that composers are simply playing with “forbidden” sounds much like the Diabolus in musica.

Concerning (2), hasn’t this already been exquisitely accomplished by composers such as Messiaen, as in the Quartet for the End of Time?

As I was editing the May/June issue of the SCI Newsletter this week, I was struck by a discussion on the SCI listserv concerning the difference between Art and Entertainment. A number of ideas were offered for a way of differentiating the two, including focus, audience or the content of the music. Some even offered better terms that would not be so derogatory, such as craft in place of entertainment.

I’m not sure that any of this discussion even matters. As Anthony Cornicello points out, there is such a big disconnect between composers and audiences that the public generally does not even know what a composer does. Conrad Kehn accurately describes the modern market with an incredible amount of entertainment options, with classical music ranking fairly low on the list for an entertaining evening (he mentions the stale, pretentious atmosphere, which forbids speaking and moving for long periods of time). Kyle Gullings made the most salient point in my mind: contemporary classical composers do a poor job of packaging their product.