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January 29, 2005

Composers canon

Last night I was attacked by a composer/music theorist (let's call him Artusi) about my choice to compose tonal music, aimed at an audience of noncomposers or nonmusicians.

I said I want to communicate with my audience. I want to communicate about social issues, human issues, like in Boilerplate where it is about corporate marketing, or in Voice Over about human (mis)understanding and also mourn the passing away of a great musician who lend his voice to this piece: not about music theory.

Artusi slammed the question in my face "You are aware of history, aren't you"?

Of course I don't know my history. I don't know anything about (take deep breath) ars antique, ars nova, ars subtilior, mensural notation, renaissance, chromatism in early baroque, symbolism in baroque music, rhetorical music, the Tristan chord, widened tonality, 12-tone music, serialism, aleatorism, minimalism, modernism and post-modernism and all stuff I forgot in this short list.

If Artusi wants to compose music with all knowledge about every music made, fine. If he can handle the weight carried within the obligation that each and one and only note he composes has to be historically and theoretically justifiable, fine. If he can compose good convincing music under these circumstances, great. I am the first to applaud and I will be his biggest fan.

The heart of the matter is I cannot compose music with history sticking a knife in my back. As an ordinary human being I am just too simple for that.

Posted by Renske at 17:03 UTC | permanent link