Anything Goes

A colleague once told me that the most unique characteristic of art music of our day is a prevailing compositional spirit in which, as they say, anything goes. In a way, this is true: only in a time like ours can one find such a wide range of compositional aesthetics on simultaneous display. In the last century, composers were wont to blaze more or less one compositional trail at a time, as was most notably the case in the last century with the oft-contrasted Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. Critics and historians have at times gone so far as to place Schoenberg and Stravinsky in diametric opposition to one another, the yin and yang of 20^th-Century compositional methodology and intent. Surely, while the differences between the two men’s approaches sprung from the same essential quandary—that of how to speak meaningfully about the human experience after the First World War brought Romanticism to a crashing halt—the end result of those approaches differ in a number of important manners that make each composer’s work essentially singular.

The single-mindedness with which earlier composers developed their ideas has, in a certain sense, allowed contemporary composers to create the musical smorgasbord that we now enjoy. The radical nature of the innovations of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Cage, Varese, Stockhausen and others required such devotion in order to be sharpened individually with any degree of sufficiency. Now they help form the wide collection of musical tools composers carry in their bags and often use in conjunction. Western common-practice tonality, bitonality and post-tonal dodecaphony now freely mingle, and one is now more likely to find two or all three in a newly-composed piece than just one. One can now expect any manner of formal scheme in a work, executed by myriad combinations of musicians. In inexperienced hands, the use of so wide a range of tools can sound convoluted; in the hands of an innovator, they can be brilliant.

For just one example: only by following the “emancipation of the dissonance” to its logical conclusions did Schoenberg answer his own musical questions and help make dodecaphony a valid compositional tool—indeed, it was the rule more than the exception in academia through a fair portion of the 20th century. Since then, thankfully, we have learned an important lesson: dodecaphony is just one of many answers to the musical difficulties of these complex times. One by one, such has become the case with all of the innovations of the 20^th century; they have all become diverging roads that still, somehow, lead to the same place. That is, in fact, exactly what they should be—and that is why today’s music must be championed.

Critics often speak of an ever-widening gap between the listener and the composer, complaining that the ears of the audience are not as open as they once were. Surely, many listeners were (and still are!) apprehensive of almost everything composed post-Stravinsky, panning it as irrelevant and esoteric. The onus, therefore, falls on us as musicians to bring listeners along, to show them that there is nothing to fear in having a willing ear. After all, why should listeners be fearful when today’s composers write from so many diverse and exciting influences? How would these fearful music-lovers feel to know that when he composed The Death of Klinghoffer, in addition to minimalism, John Adams drew on such far-flung ingredients as “Berg, Stravinsky, rock and roll, doo-wop music, Arabic music and Jewish music?”

Solely on the strength of the diversity of its sources, art music of our time has the potential to bring old listeners back onto the edge and new listeners into the fold. Therefore, it is our job as performers, conductors, critics and listeners alike to encourage our young composers, those brilliant musical toddlers who are only beginning to realize their powers, to perform their works, and to help remake art music into the vital part of cultural life that it can be once more.