Here I am again, always with problems related to composition and eventual participation in competitions. To tell the truth, I'm getting a bit tired... and I don't know if I will try to participate again in the future, because the result is always the same, or almost.
I was saying in a previous post about the Savona competition, organized by the "De Musica" association: the thing had a follow-up, in the sense that some composers were asked to participate in the publication of a piano anthology. The only constraint: the piece had to fit on two pages. I don't know what kind of screening was done... anyway, it is evident that the published pieces are very different from each other, both in style and technical difficulty (but each has its own interest). The association that produced this publication committed to sending a copy to many music schools scattered across the national territory.
In the meantime, there was another rather serious commitment, namely the composition of a quartet for the "Florence String Quartet Call for Scores" competition (I had also mentioned this in another post). From a quick telephone contact with one of the organizers, I understood that they were interested in something "modern," so a piece of a classical character (which remains the language most suitable to me... damn, I should have been born 150 years earlier!) would have had no chance. I then set myself the goal of writing something very far from tonality: not "random" dissonances, but rather an absence of tonal references. The structure of the piece is classical (four beats, in each of which classical patterns can be discerned), the rhythm is all in all quite regular, and in some way there are also recurring "melodic" elements, but certainly compared to many of my previous pieces it represented a great step forward. The competition was a great success (112 works submitted, well beyond the expectations of the organizers themselves); the commission was supposed to select three works to be performed publicly in Florence on September 8th, but in reality, five were eventually chosen. For me, needless to say, the result is always the same...
On the website of the association that organized the competition www.artesitalia.it, one can find the list of selected and noted compositions, along with a statement from the jury. The video of the concert (unfortunately of low quality, but the audio sounds good) can be found on the site www.pinkmonkey.tv; therefore, anyone, if they have the patience, can hear with their own ears what the jury has selected. And here opens a very complicated discussion, on which I would also like to know the opinion of other forum members.
We know that today it is impossible to speak of "ONE" musical language: granted, there have been different styles in all eras, but what has happened from the end of the nineteenth century onwards reminds me of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel: suddenly languages are confused, and no one can understand what the other is saying anymore. Well, maybe it's not quite like that in an absolute sense: it is true, however, that during the twentieth century many different languages were experimented with, evolution was very rapid (with the consequent setting aside of some "innovative" languages), and at the current moment it is impossible to establish "what contemporary music is," precisely because of the multiplicity of languages, which are not always mutually intelligible.
Coming then to the competition: first of all, I would have liked the organizers to be clearer about the "type" of music they expected. In some cases, the calls clearly state that "there are no stylistic exclusions," in other cases it is clear that a certain type of language is expected (if, for example, it is mandatory to use electronics, I can understand on my own that a classical piece cannot be taken into consideration, even if it were well written). But let's look at which pieces are actually selected. Perhaps it is I who am hard of hearing and do not understand today's language (languages). But when I see all musical elements (rhythm, melody, harmony) being eliminated in favor of pure and simple "sound effects"... well, I am left a bit perplexed!
The paradoxical thing is that I went back to studying composition also to escape the traps of self-teaching, and to know (I say "know," not necessarily "practice") more modern languages. After several years of participating in competitions of various kinds, the only (modest) recognitions have been fourth place in a 2010 competition in Puglia and the mention for artistic merit in Savona, which was followed by the publication of the anthology. In other words, the most appreciated pieces were precisely those of classical style, even those written when I was working solely as a self-taught person, basing myself only on an instinctive analysis of the
musical literature!
With this, I do not want to conclude that it wasn't useful for me to start studying composition again a little... if nothing else, today I have a greater awareness of certain technical and musical issues (and I regret not deciding to do so sooner). However, the perplexity remains, and in my opinion, it is a discussion that goes beyond the selection criteria of competitions. What I mean is: how should one regulate oneself if one wishes to propose one's own music (assuming one has the channels to do so, and we know that even for the best professionals it is very difficult)? Should we regulate ourselves based on what the public "probably" enjoys? A very dangerous discussion: we know that certain minimalists (I don't even want to mention names) fill stadiums with cheap little tunes passing them off as "contemporary classical" (!), and from the height of the money earned, they even allow themselves to say that the world of classical music is sick, that young people do not love Beethoven because he has no rhythm, and other nonsense that isn't even worth reporting. The fact is that unfortunately the "confusion of languages" I mentioned before, and the substantial "distance" of contemporary music from the sensibility of the public, make even these negative phenomena possible. But then, for whom should we write? Only for musicians, assuming our language is similar to theirs so that they may appreciate it? Or is it better if we don't care and compose for ourselves?
A warm greeting to you all
Gino (from Rome)
