Will I be able to squash all of it in a few periods?!Ok. The other night at the Opera House i saw this concert featuring 'Bang on A Can All Stars' and the Australian chamber orchestra playing 'Black Angels',and other things.It was a while since the last time I heard some contemporary art music.During my teenage/artschool years,I used to listen mainly to experimental or 'contemporary'art music(a torture for the people living with me),and I believe I shifted somehow to folk an year ago.I remember one afternoon I was listening to some music with a friend.He played me some reels from the Encyclopedia Blowzabellica,and I innocently observed:but they all sound the same....what's the point of playing this cute stuff?!
But then i made him listen to some of my favourite stuff,it must have been a Xenakis or even a Luigi Nono(i really don't remember...)thing and he bursted:
What's this?!What's the point of this?!you can't dance on it,you can't stamp your feet,you can't even sing along it!!!
And yes,I couldn't find the point of music without the nature of music itself:groove,or feelings,or any connection.From that time art music sounded a lot like something between"I'm lost"or"See how clever I am at destroying,dissacrating music".And folk,however repetitive I found it in the beginning,was music."Beware,because of all arts,Music is the only one spinning around you...".So,i was quite amazed the other night when I found myself stamping my foot.That stuff was full of concepts,the players were 100% conservatory kids,yet I was stamping my foot and I would have rushed around the Concert Hall for the energy it was giving me.You put the beauty of an art music package and the groove,roots and sense of a folk piece and what you get is great...And I thought about all the folk in 20th century art music,like Ravel's Bolero(a reel going on for 13 minutes...)Stravinsky's rite of Spring,Kodaly,Bartok,up to Maxwell Davies' pieces on Orkneys Folk...
How comes art music composers don't have the guts to mix with folk music or allow some rithm/feelings in their music?!So please mudcatters,tell me something on how you feel about art music.