Ludovico Einaudi, Minimalism and Contemporary

RedScharlach wrote:

... I hope you will agree on the fact that the Indians were the victims!

Clearly, the Lega Nord also played along with this principle for a while.

One must see how much blame the others truly bear and how little they were able to exploit/waste their own cards.

Besides, those who did not evolve went extinct, the harsh law of nature.

(to be precise, this is not a commercial for the Lega, you never know.... as it is easy to play with certain things...)"}

I am reading and re-reading the topic.

In the end, why does one write?

For the audience, for the students, for oneself?

It might be cliché, but I wouldn't really consider the students... is it not because of this that since the beginning of the topic there has been talk of little groups staying faithful to certain guidelines?

Frank wrote:

Here the student arrives with their draft or project idea and you support them in reaching realization ... it is different to show one's own ideas and one's own aesthetic connotation and say: this is my craft. In this case, it is a matter of collaboration and no longer a lesson.

There is much talk about craftsmanship, about the Renaissance workshop... well, in the Renaissance workshop this is exactly what happened: the student worked with the master to learn the technique (the master's technique!), to learn the craft from someone who practiced it daily. Then, it was up to the student, if they were capable, to become a Master in their own turn.

If they were not capable, no harm done I would say (I repeat: the doctor does not prescribe that we become composers!).

RedScharlach wrote:

In a Renaissance workshop, this is exactly what happened: the apprentice worked with the master to learn his technique, to learn a technique from someone who practiced it daily. Then, if they were capable, the apprentice would become a Master in their own right.

Exactly, the principle always holds as long as the code is global; when it becomes personal... the code and the technique can become the same thing, being one and the same in that music. I don't have to teach my code to students; I must teach Technique and eventually how to build one's own code. If a student is inclined toward minimalism, an Einaudi of the sort (since we are on the subject), what benefit could they get from my code? None, except copying it... so let's return to a shared code, where Chopin is different from Schumann despite both moving between V and I.

...life is too comfortable; when we want, the code is personal... when we don't, we must return to the origins. You know what the problem is, Red, but I won't tell you, eh... I actually like you (and that's a bit of the essence of the topic), that someone wants to decide what the code is... disregarding the listeners (clearly, excluding colleagues (in a broad sense) and students (in a broad sense)...). And they work at the base, at the school level, which is the most insidious thing..."}

micamahler wrote:

Well, if that were the case, Romitelli, whom you spoke of previously, he certainly contaminated, and yet you included him, if I remember correctly, in a caste. So?

Even those who belong to a caste can become contaminated, so what? It doesn't seem impossible to me. The issue is not whether one becomes contaminated or not; I believe that is clear.

Dante wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn't like the term contamination; it has a very negative connotation. There are more specialized terms to define the act of synthesizing multiple "origins."

personally, I try not to give too much weight to definitions and labels. I read a comment like this from Ivan Fedele that associated the term "contamination" with disease. It is his view of things. I use it quite comfortably and don't make an issue of it.

RedScharlach wrote:

Anyway, without wanting to pull this hair metaphor, I remember that Donatoni was vividly impressed by Alce Nero parla, and so... I hope you will agree on the fact that the Indians were the victims!

certamente concordo. Infatti quella della "riserva d'indiani" è solo una metafora. Dato che i figli di Donatoni non sono vittime di nessuno, credo che il significato della metafora abbia più a che vedere con "riserva" che con "indiani".

Natan wrote:

Well, basically... he died in the '70s having brought dodecaphony to its peak. Oh well.

Surely Darmstadt wasn't a lobby... tell that to poor Britten, or Messiaen himself who founded it and (de facto) authorized a certain type of music.

More than their students... their children

When did we ever see Britten, Bettinelli, etc. go to Darmstadt? But when would they have ever wanted to.

Because, good old Nono who doesn't hold hands with Britten... why do you think he didn't give it to him? Because he was outside the clique.

Have you ever seen a jazz musician in Darmstadt?

You see that music is one: the "A" series, of the clique... and that of the others is the "B" series. And Someone has already decided... and it wasn't time.

So, it's a matter of differences, Natan.

It's true, Darmstadt was a "lobby," but in what sense? In the sense that, being an avant-garde bringing a sharp break with the public, it had somehow isolated itself. But it was still AVANT-GARDE, meaning novelty, meaning a way of distancing oneself from a stale academic reality that smelled of old age.

Today it is different: the lobbies of "contemporary" music (all music today is contemporary, even rock, so I don't understand why they continue to define only music of "learned" origin as such) are academic because they smell of old age and do NOT represent novelty.

I would add that if Romitelli was part of a system, even while being contaminative, it was because he had chosen the path of research centers, which is absolutely shareable. Let's not confuse things, otherwise generalizing is very easy.

RedScharlach wrote:

A lot is said about craftsmanship, about the Renaissance workshop... well, in the Renaissance workshop this is exactly what happened: the apprentice worked with the master to learn the technique (the master's technique!), to learn the trade from someone who practiced it daily. Then, it was up to the apprentice, if they were capable, to become a Master in their own right.

If they were not capable, no harm done, I would say (I repeat: the doctor doesn't prescribe that you become a composer!).

The necessity of being a composer must first and foremost be internal; it must come from within: a physiological necessity, like that of the writer, the photographer, the poet, or the director.

Then there is the apprenticeship, right?

Dante wrote:

I am re-reading and re-reading the topic.

In the end, why does one write?

For the audience, for the students, or for oneself?

It might be cliché, but I wouldn't really consider students... isn't that why, from the very beginning of the topic, there has been talk of little groups staying faithful to certain guidelines?

In my opinion, one writes for oneself, out of an inner need to express something, an intuition, an idea. Then comes the question of the audience: in my view, Einaudi says something important: creating a link between the audience and the composer (which I repeat, does not mean selling out) is a matter of intelligibility: even the fact of using material derived from tonality or modality (not tonality or modes), flawed as it may be in itself, can be a good starting point precisely because it resides in people's "collective memory." The substance lies in the development of that material and in its ability to produce emotions (which are the result of good rhetorical-musical construction).

Often, expressive possibilities are dictated by the type of material used. I doubt that Donatoni's arabesques are capable of achieving an emotion equal to that of Bach's Goldberg Variations, or Beethoven's 5th. It is not a matter of who was better, but simply of the expressive resources of the material. Consonances and dissonances organized in a certain way produce one thing; a chromatic total managed with combinatorial mechanisms produces another.

The non-tonal material nonetheless produces tension on various levels, if well developed. The piece I was talking about with Red—I mean LUMEN by Donatoni—gives me chills every time I hear it! Or do we want to talk about NIDI? Fantastic...

Open content (youtube)

Frank wrote:

You know what the problem is, Red, but I'm not telling you, eh... I actually like you (and that's a bit of the essence of the topic), that someone wants to decide what the code is... not caring about the listeners (clearly, excluding colleagues (in a broad sense) and students (in a broad sense)...). And they work at the base, at the school level, which is the most insidious thing...

It's not fair, you took the words right out of my mouth!

Frank wrote:

If a student is inclined towards minimalism, like the Einaudi of the moment since we are on the subject, what benefit can they get from my code? None, other than copying it...

I think the opposite: precisely if the student has different inclinations, contact with the techniques and ideas (codes? I didn't quite understand what you mean) of the master can be useful to them.

Obviously, it's not that one spends the whole year studying the teacher's music, but this seems superfluous to specify! The fact remains that I look with great suspicion at teachers who hide their own music from their students... If all goes well, I take it as a form of modesty (completely out of place, since we are talking about composers!).

I agree. Honestly, I am still inclined to ask a teacher to see their music, but that doesn't mean I have to follow it...

Turning back to the topic at hand, it seems to me that we started with Einaudi to conclude: elites exist in music.

That doesn't seem like news to me.

Regarding Feldman: you said your thought concerned contamination, but previously you said that nobody gives a f*** about Romitelli; subsequently, I told you, "but look, even Romitelli uses contamination," and now instead you say that isn't the issue. I'm having a bit of trouble following you!

micamahler wrote:

To Feldman: you said that your thought concerned contamination, but previously you said that nobody gives a f*** about Romitelli; subsequently I told you, but don't you see that even Romitelli uses contamination, and now instead you say that isn't the issue. I'm having a bit of trouble following you!

My fault, I explained myself poorly. Romitelli used contamination but nevertheless remained within the elite.

Even Mario Garuti seems to me prone to contamination, and yet he always follows the usual line. I have even read his name in the concert programs of Darmstadt.

RedScharlach wrote:

The fact remains that I look with great suspicion at teachers who hide their own music from their students...

But you have to admit that today it is very difficult to hide one's music; a little search on YouTube and the whole world pops up. Even looking with your own eyes at your teacher's music doesn't hurt.

However, in this way... it always seems to me like I am speaking from the student's point of view

micamahler wrote:

I agree. Sincerely, I am still inclined to ask a teacher to see their music; this doesn't mean that I have to follow it...

And indeed I was saying: "curiosity strikes, precisely curiosity,"

I would like to share my experience in terms of technique; a few years ago I attended a masterclass where they discussed composition for wind orchestra, and a professional composer illustrated the most "effective" types of dialogues through his pieces.

Given that the masterclass was also open to conductors, I must say, as a composer, that this music was not so brilliant, and the teacher would have made a better impression by showing the same factual situations by referencing pieces from more important composers.

At least that is what I would have preferred. In effect, it left me with very little... and we were "studying" his music.

Feldman wrote:

Even Mario Garuti

... oh come on, Allevi's teacher...

... then people complain if he rebels against the system and talks about the Caste

DiesIrae wrote:

... oh come no, Allevi's teacher...

... then one complains if they rebel against the system and talk about Caste

Excuse me, what does that have to do with it? Can you prove to me with facts what you think of Garuti? In the meantime, I'm posting one of his pieces, just so as not to fall into prejudice:

just look at this...

Open content (youtube)

Basically, Allevi declares himself opposed to the Caste and writes pieces called "L'angelo Ribelle" (The Rebel Angel).

He basically makes the same arguments as you; however, we know his music and we know that he is more skilled as a philosopher than as a musician, in the sense that fundamentally he is right, but his methods are those of a pop musician... we haven't heard anything from you yet.

I know Garuti well... so... I don't understand what the problem is. Besides, he is a very well-prepared composer who is attentive to sound... I mean, but what is your music like?