Avant-garde in music, anyone?

[Whosis]

Does anyone out there besides me listen to avant-garde music? I have a copy of Hoodoo Zephyr by John Adams, and I find it soothing to listen to, despite its broken up form.

It's amazing how the repetition of a few notes can be relaxing. Avant-garde is John Adams, Steve Reich, John Cage, and Phillip Glass to name a few names. I always thought "Einstein on the Beach" by Phillip Glass to be one of the more creative titles, though this is not uncommon to avant-garde music. There was also "4'33"" by John Cage where he had a performer sit at a piano for this amount of time without playing it. It's not something commonly listened to, I'm sure, but the other stuff is great I think.

[cacian]

I thought Punk was avant garde? I may well be wrong but that is how it appeared to me.

apart from the Punk era that I thought the Clash and the Sex Pistol were also avant garde.

[108 fountains]

I can't say I listen to avante-garde music, but I have become dissatified with popular music for a number of years and have been looking for something to fill the void. I experimented with youtube and found some unusual and fascinating musical styles that I really enjoy. What I have found that I like best is midieval church music, including Gregorian chants, Scandinavian folk music, and Mongolian - yes, Mongolian - folk music. I'll copy a link to my favorite Mongolian musician, DaXun, playing the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle). I've never heard or seen anything like it for sheer musicianship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3cB20fZ1ZU

[YesNo]

I found John Adams HooDoo Zephyr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtQDHceS0IE

The rapid repetition of the same notes was interesting. However, it didn't jar my expectations of what something should sound like enough to make me want to stop listening to it. Maybe there's an avant-avant-garde out there?

[Whosis]

For another example, Steve Reich in "Violin Phase" repeats the same measure (I believe) of a violin over and over with slight variation. I still can listen to it. I don't know that you have to be unable to listen to it for it to be avant-garde, and I think it is different from expectations. I've never before heard of Punk as being avant-garde either. I think Punk sounds enough like rock to me.

[YesNo]

I would expect the avant garde to provide something I don't really want to hear but might get used to if I catch up to them culturally. Otherwise, in what way are they ahead of me? I assume "avant" means "ahead", but maybe I'm wrong there as well.

Actually, I don't know what avant garde means. I'm quite happy with music having lyrics sung by Celine Dion or Melina Leon. From that perspective, just about anything is avant garde.

[Whosis]

The dictionary defines avant-garde music as using unorthodox and experimental methods in its tunes.

[stlukesguild]

How do you define the "avant garde" with regard to music...? With regard to what be deemed "classical music" you name Steve Reich, John Adams, and Philip Glass... all defined as Minimalists. To this list you might add the so-called "Holy Minimalists" of Europe including Henryk Górecki, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Pēteris Vasks, Vladimír Godár, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener (among others). All of these composers work in a largely tonal manner... employing traditional harmonies... or even building upon earlier medieval modes. In this sense, some composers and music theorists posit that such composers are reactionary, rather than avant garde... rejecting the atonal concepts developed by Schoenberg and subsequent composers.

If we are simply putting forth a couple of names of contemporary composers/works (living or recently deceased) who we feel are worth investigating... I would include:

Henryk Górecki- Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Pēteris Vasks- Pater Noster; Cantus Ad Pacem
Einojuhani Rautavaara- Cantus Articus; Symphony no. 7 "Angel of Light"
Veljo Tormis- Choral Music; Forgotten Peoples
Erkki-Sven Tüür- Crystallisatio
David Lang- Little Match Girl Passion
Arvo Pärt- In Principo, Berliner Mass, Te Deum
Valentin Silvestrov- Silent Songs
Jake Heggie- Songs of Lost Voices; Passing By
Peter Lieberson- Neruda Songs; Rilke Songs
Osvaldo Golijov- Ainadamar; Oceana; La Pasión según San Marcos
John Tavener- Shunya

[108 fountains]

Thanks very much, Whosis and YesNo, for turning me on to this. I've been listening to John Adams and Philip Glass all day. It's exactly the kind of music/sounds I've been searching for. You guys might also like Electric Arguments, a 2008 album by Paul McCartney and Youth (collectively calling themselves The Fireman). It has a couple of traditional Rock'n Roll songs, but the other tracks are really just experiments in sound. Some of them, like Sing the Changes, are really uplifting, and all of them have all sorts of fantastical musical ideas and sounds happening in them. McCartney had been doing experiments with sound ever since the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, but these sounds usually were just incidental to his traditional musical forms. Electric Arguments is the first time I've heard him shift the entire focus to experimental sounds, with the vocals and the traditional forms taking the more incidental role. In fact, it was after listening to Electric Arguments that I started looking around for other types of music.

[Whosis]

Sure thing, 108 fountains.

I know for a fact John Cage was defined in class as an avant-garde artist. I'm pretty sure John Adams and Steve Reich were in that boat too. They certainly fit the definition I found. Phillip Glass I may have come across later, but it was so much as the others, I categorized it as such. The definition for minimalism seems to fit the music of John Adams and Steve Reich in the least. Who knows? It's like labeling Steinbeck as a realist despite being a naturalist perhaps, or something like romanticism that by one definition might be more broadly applied in literature.

[stlukesguild]

Minimalism is music is not quite the same as Minimalism in the visual arts where the image is stripped down to one or two elements repeated. Still the structures are far more limited than traditional tonal music and there is a clear emphasis upon repetition/variation. Reich may be the strongest of the American Minimalists. I quite like the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5lgAUHVFC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCkd46hcRag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHMBoDoFwj0

I drove my studio mates nuts with Drumming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9n6pwpK0A

But you might see why some would find the Minimalists less "avant garde" in comparison to some of what is available:

Erkki-Sven Tüür: Architectonics VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFXUEfW6xJU

György Ligeti: Lux Aeterna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVYu5lyX5M

Giacinto Scelso: Pfhat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnacs3kPg-I

Tristan Murail: Gondwana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQAXK15ZGM

Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOfX6Jh-S0

David Lang: Little Match Girl Passion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tn5-gHJ4Nk

Kaija Saariaho: Lonh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ZQTYhO4fM

Matthias Pintscher- Osiris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYywoMfsmbE

Robert H. P. Platz- Flotenstucke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzq6wvJyjvs

Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dweiGyjxhHs

[Whosis]

I think I remember now that in school, avant-garde had been defined by at least two parameters: does it shock, and does it take a while to find an audience? I think it's like asking what is kitsch, as it is less attached to a movement and more about a something. It is newer, though.

I'm not sure what you're having me look for in the pieces you consider avant-garde. Are you suggesting they've more dissonant? Because I find that's possible in the music I suggested. Also, for "Little Girl Match Passion," how would you not liken that to Phillip Glass where he has a chorus singing "One, two, three, four..."?

Thanks for sharing that, too. Got any more? :p

[YesNo]

I drove my studio mates nuts with Drumming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9n6pwpK0A



I'm glad I listened to it. I suppose it kept going longer than the 18 minutes in the video.

[mortalterror]

The only three living classical style composers I enjoy are Osvaldo Golijev, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. I keep an eye out for new artists, and try them from time to time, but it's usually far from rewarding. So much of contemporary art is nonsense, hackery, and fads. Unless you devote a lot of time and effort to keeping your finger on the pulse it's better just to wait fifty years and let the dust settle. Unearthing obscure gems of the past is easier and more fruitful. There's always some famous opera, cantata, or symphony from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century I've been meaning to get around to but never heard by an artist I already know is good.

A few weeks back, StLukesGuild dropped a list of modern composers and their compositions on me. I hadn't heard about twenty of them, so I spent three or four hours listening to the links on youtube and I didn't like any of them. For days afterwards I was kicking myself for my naive trusting nature and open mind. "Never try new things," I said to myself. "You're always disappointed." It's nearly May of 2014 and I've been watching last years movies on DVD. So far I've seen about 30 of them and I still haven't seen one I'd recommend. I tried a bunch of the Oscar nominees and they are all so terrible! The world makes about 1,000 films every year and only one or two are really good. Finding that one or two is such a pain. Meanwhile, I've invested 60 hours of my life with nothing to show for it. "New art, feh!" Hrrumph.

P.S. You really need a reliable guide for these sorts of things or else you are lost at sea in an ocean of information. I tried checking this list of modern compositions over at Talk Classical with some very little results. I tried looking up Classical Music Awards, and the new compositions Gramophone gave awards to did nothing for me. I wish I knew what critic or award was the gold standard for this sort of thing, the way the Oscars, Emmies, or Tonys offer hints that lead inquiring minds in the right direction, but so far I've got nothing. There's no short cuts here. You have to either do the work or remain in ignorance.

[prendrelemick]

I tried some Birtwistle the other day - does he count? - I normally like some discordant (atonal?) content in orchestral music, as it can be stimulating, but it was all a bit dreary.

[Emil Miller]

I tried some Birtwistle the other day - does he count?

Erm........... No.

[YesNo]

I looked up Birtwistle and listened to "Panic": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUe9FQtYB6A

It reminded me of some of the panic attacks of one of my relatives. I'd rather be listening to Birtwistle than her when she's in full form, but both can be entertaining if one is in the right frame of mind.

[Emil Miller]

I looked up Birtwistle and listened to "Panic": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUe9FQtYB6A

It reminded me of some of the panic attacks of one of my relatives. I'd rather be listening to Birtwistle than her when she's in full form, but both can be entertaining if one is in the right frame of mind.

I would have thought out of one's mind would be more appropriate.

[YesNo]

Yeah, the frame of mind that would make this tolerable past 10 minutes would be close to being out of one's mind.

[stlukesguild]

The only three living classical style composers I enjoy are Osvaldo Golijev, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. I keep an eye out for new artists, and try them from time to time, but it's usually far from rewarding. So much of contemporary art is nonsense, hackery, and fads. Unless you devote a lot of time and effort to keeping your finger on the pulse it's better just to wait fifty years and let the dust settle. Unearthing obscure gems of the past is easier and more fruitful. There's always some famous opera, cantata, or symphony from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century I've been meaning to get around to but never heard by an artist I already know is good.

I tend to lean toward a more conservative taste in art myself... but MortalTerror is far more close-minded than myself of many others when it comes to the artistic achievements of the last 100+ years. Certainly, in many cases it is far more difficult to grasp... let alone appreciate... a more contemporary art work, than the work by an established "old master". Much of this has to do with expectations. For example... one may know what Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms sound like... thus one will likely find it far easier to appreciate the works of a less-well-known older artist...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLMlo_3m0KE

... or that of a more contemporary composer who employs a more conservative artistic vocabulary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAXijkK_WZA

This is obviously because the more "avant garde" work employs a language that is more unexpected, unfamiliar... and yet to have been absorbed by generations of subsequent artists, art lovers, etc...

This is not a value judgment. It is quite possible that some artists... some works of art that explore a more-well-trodden path... that are less obviously or broadly "experimental" may ultimately be more valued as works of art by future generations.

Having said that, I find there are a great many Modern/Contemporary works of art that I find fascinating... even enjoyable... and I suspect a good many of these will not only survive, but eventually be embraced by artists/art lovers in their respective genres.

A few weeks back, StLukesGuild dropped a list of modern composers and their compositions on me. I hadn't heard about twenty of them, so I spent three or four hours listening to the links on youtube and I didn't like any of them.

Perhaps that says more about your limitations or inability to appreciate the unfamiliar or unexpected than it says about the merits of the music.

"New art, feh!" Hrrumph.

These seems to be the most revealing of what you've had to say. Haven't there always been those of all ages who were certain that "they just don't write 'em (paint 'em/compose 'em) like they used to..." "the art of today is just pure fraudulent nonsense and fads..."? I have a friend who is an avowed lover of "classical" music... yet limits himself almost wholly to music of the Baroque and Classical era. I have another friend whose musical tastes are largely limited to jazz. There are others who limit themselves almost exclusively to opera, while others are passionate fans of "classical" music yet virtually hate opera or any vocal genre. I, myself, am not fond of Chinese opera. It seems obvious that considering the width and breadth of music... even limited to so-called "classical music"... no one can be expected to be profoundly experienced, knowledgeable, and passionately enamored of everything. To largely dislike or feel disinterested in most of the "classical" music of the last 100+ years is fine. To frame one's dislike of an entire era/genre of art as some sort of objective value judgment suggesting it is little more than "nonsense, hackery, and fads" seems somewhat questionable on my part.

P.S. You really need a reliable guide for these sorts of things or else you are lost at sea in an ocean of information... There's no short cuts here. You have to either do the work or remain in ignorance.

Well... I suspect that is true of the whole of art. Coming upon almost any genre of music that one is unfamiliar with can be a challenging experience. I'm quite enamored of medieval and Renaissance music...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElnZI-XJ2hs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPqZqf1uRw

... but I can certainly see how someone who is mostly familiar with Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Post-Romantic "classical" music... or jazz, blues, bluegrass, pop music, etc... might struggle with such music.

At the same time, I can see how someone who appreciates "classical" music from the Baroque through Romanticism/Post-Romanticism may struggle with certain Modernist/Contemporary works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqK3_M1DZyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUTXNxFvjDw


Quite honestly... I'm not much of a Birtwistle fan myself...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUoKyjy6u8

[mortalterror]

I do enjoy classical music of the last 100 years. I just don't enjoy much written in the last 30, which I view as Avant-garde or contemporary. Here are the one's that I like:

1901 Pomp and Circumstance- Elgar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moL4MkJ-aLk
1901 Prelude in G minor- Rachmaninoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QB7ugJnHgs
1904 Un Bel Di- Puccini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLaY2VcIEqo
1916 The Planets- Holst http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B49N46I39Y
1917 Dream of Doretta- Puccini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3PtVRWNYus
1918 O Mio Babbino Caro- Puccini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxy4qrnKwVo
1920 The Lark Ascending- Vaughan Williams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKz6XJlI_jk
1924 Rhapsody in Blue- Gershwin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc
1926 Nessun Dorma- Puccini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfC9LfR3PI
1928 Bolero- Ravel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4J5j74VPw
1932 Suite For Jazz Orchestra 2- Shostakovich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYhZVqODYsI
1934 Rhapsody on a Theme By Paganini- Rachmaninoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Z-HCq5EeU
1934 Troika- Prokofiev http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hINfOSlMANc
1935 Dance of the Knights- Prokofiev http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUmq1cpcglQ
1936 Carmina Burana- Orff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNWpZ-Y_KvU
1936 Adagio For Strings- Barber http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g
1939 Concerto De Aranjuez- Rodrigo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9DOtuPLqNI
1940 Violin Concerto- Khachaturian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZexcMRKVMkk
1940 Comedians Gallop- Kabalevsky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw0oQ4sD4us
1942 Rodeo- Copland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ajQYANLiug
1942 Fanfare for the Common Man- Copland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEro8pG0hiE
1942 Sabre Dance- Khachaturian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqg3l3r_DRI
1947 Petrushka- Stravinsky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFvjao_RHVU
1952 Blue Tango- Anderson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQRIL4q7IPw
1956 Candide Overture- Bernstein http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=422-yb8TXj8
1966 The Ecstasy of Gold- Morricone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0wPBYDQ6Y
1975 Einstein on the Beach- Glass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX_GgozpQs
1976 Symphony of Sorrowful Songs- Gorecki http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miLV0o4AhE4
Also, kind of like Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint.

I think that about a hundred years ago certain philosophies of art creation crept into use which don't properly belong in aesthetics and artists, or people calling themselves artists began to create art by rubric that pleased the mind more than the eye or ear. In music, I think some very bad musicians are more concerned with the message, or whether they are breaking new ground, than if their music sounds good to anybody. The other day, I heard about a Swiss woman who drops painted eggs out of her vagina onto a canvas. Apparently, she does this naked, in public, standing between a pair of step ladders and calls it art. "Well," I thought, "that's the avante-garde for you." I like a couple of contemporary artists like Michael Triegel, Odd Nerdrum, Paul Day, Stelios Faitakis, Nyoman Nuarta, and Gottfried Helnwein, but for every one of them, there are about a thousand women squeezing painted eggs out of their vaginas between step ladders.

And it's not that I don't enjoy things I'm not accustomed to like you suggest. I heard a little bit of Indian sitar playing in a movie I was watching not long after I listened to those tunes you recommended and thought it was better than a lot of modern classical. I have more hope of finding something excellent and exotic among traditional Chinese Guzheng songs or Japanese Shamisen than I do in the mass of contemporary classical. I heard a fellow chanting the complete Quran the other day and thought, "That's lovely."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1x2TUaatBo

[stlukesguild]

MT... few of the composers you listed would have been considered "avant garde" in any way... even at the time of the compositions you posted. There are a few exceptions: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ravel, Glass... and to a lesser extent, Rodrigo. That doesn't mean I dislike them. Most of the composers you list are among my favorite composers of the century. I simply find some of the works deemed as "avant garde" (at the time) as being equally of interest:

Igor Stravinsky -The Rite of Spring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWotpIy0uTg
Debussy- 12 Études: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FymZsN_NiB4
Richard Strauss- Salome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJiFHv70WPo
Janáček- The Cunning Little Vixen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a79nSbmy69U
Darius Milhaud - La creation du monde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GPtgY9hSQ
Mahler- "Der Abschied" (Das Lied von der Erde): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phzFw84SdEs
Karol Szymanowski - Love Songs of Hafiz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osLh_U8QQjs
Jacques Ibert- Divertissement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeKTKKt1nJo
Béla Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkwdJJPT97Q
Othmar Schoeck- Notturno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeV3uxsa23A
Hindemith- Matthis der Maler Symphonie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uATlfSBzekM
Kurt Weill- Mack the Knife (Three Penny Opera): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHFXEPYU0FQ
Ernst Krenek- Sinfonia no. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJjuwiDE938
Karl Weigl - Symphony No. 5 "Apocalyptic Symphony": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPBrFKJVZbY
Karl Amadeus Hartmann- Adagio (Sinfonia n.2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5AmqY5OSX8
Mieczysław Weinberg: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMPUSL30JqY
Britten- Cello Sonata 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_FyQPsILnU
Shostakovitch- Preludes and Fugues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw6PzoKiomk
Toru Takemitsu- A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2JoZ3FR32c
Olivier Messiaen- Fête des belles eaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrYgm5MML58
Penderecki - Concierto para violín No. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux7iwDrkjc4
Valentin Silvestrov - Silent Songs : Farewell, o world, o earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssIOHVYjXzI

Personally, I largely share your dislike for a great deal of "atonal/dissonant" music... but I do find that there is a good amount among the more "avant garde" that is of interest.

As for visual art... I have little use for the majority of what be deemed the "institutionalized or academic avant garde" which is quite often mostly mental Onanism with little attempt to connect with the larger audience of those interested in art. I find Earl and High-Modernism (from the Impressionists) until the end of WWII to have been one of the greatest periods in the visual arts... perhaps second only to the Renaissance. I do agree that there was a falling off mid-century... and we see the same with the Renaissance slipping into Mannerism. Still there are more than a few artists of true merit: Francis Bacon, Dubuffet, Morandi, Lucian Freud, Balthus, Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, R.B. Kitaj, Tom Wesselman, james Rosenquist, Andrew Wyeth, Stelios Faitakis, etc... I am not overly enamored of abstraction... although I can appreciate it. For the most part I can do without installations, performance art, conceptual art, etc... but even there I find exceptions... and this can't dismiss the genres as a whole.