Pulitzer awarded for whispers, sighs, murmurs, and wordless melodies
April 16, 2013 2:27 PM Subscribe
Caroline Shaw is a 30 year old composer, violinist, and singer. Yesterday, she also became the youngest person ever, and one of the few women, to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music for her composition Partita for 8 Voices. The work features four baroque inspired movements that were influenced by the violin music of Bach, and yet despite the baroque title, Partita is still thoroughly modern. The Pulitzer jury described it as a "highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects."
Originally composed for the New York based a cappella ensemble Roomful of Teeth (of which Shaw is also a member), the Partita emphasizes several different vocal traditions from around the world. Roomful of Teeth was founded in 2009 specifically to direct attention to novel non-classical singing techniques with a focus on 21st century composers. They released their first album, including Shaw's Partita, in October, 2012.
When not writing music for a cappella, Shaw has also written a number of modern chamber music works, many of which are featured on her website. Some examples of her recent works include:
Originally composed for the New York based a cappella ensemble Roomful of Teeth (of which Shaw is also a member), the Partita emphasizes several different vocal traditions from around the world. Roomful of Teeth was founded in 2009 specifically to direct attention to novel non-classical singing techniques with a focus on 21st century composers. They released their first album, including Shaw's Partita, in October, 2012.
When not writing music for a cappella, Shaw has also written a number of modern chamber music works, many of which are featured on her website. Some examples of her recent works include:
- Punctum - string quartet inspired by Roland Barthes’ book Camera Lucida
- Boris Kerner - piece for cello and flower pots, inspired by a book about traffic flow theory
- Valencia - string quartet
- Taxidermy - percussion quartet
I'm 42, so...dammit.
posted by davejay at 2:55 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by davejay at 2:55 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
I am loving this so far.
posted by starvingartist at 2:58 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by starvingartist at 2:58 PM on April 16, 2013
The group that recorded the piece might be the most impressive ensemble I've heard live in the last two years. They played an Ecstatic Music concert alongside Tune-Yards. They complemented each other so well. The album is great, and so is Shaw.
posted by lownote at 3:00 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by lownote at 3:00 PM on April 16, 2013
Dvorak was 47 or 48 when he published his first string quartet, davejay; there is yet hope for you and I (age 46). More on topic, I immensely enjoyed listening to the Partita, but I would like to hear it performed by more mature voices. That is not intended as an insult; Roomful of Teeth are all amazing singers technically and impressive ensemble work (to pull off this insanely complex and non-intuitive music live is surely enough to demonstrate that), but the group have obviously young voices that need to round out some with age. I'd like to hear them get together and sing it again in five or ten years, but I think I'll go ahead and purchase the current recording and enjoy it thoroughly in the meantime.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 3:08 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 3:08 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is the most inventive, intelligent, and *enjoyable* stuff I've heard in years. And I'm not pleased that I first learned of their existence several days AFTER their NYC concert. :-P
posted by ariel_caliban at 3:22 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ariel_caliban at 3:22 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
I am suddenly filled with inexplicable anxieties.
posted by mikurski at 3:48 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by mikurski at 3:48 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
I am suddenly filled with inexplicable anxieties.
That's a good observation about the effect of this type of vocal music on many. If you consider this a good effect that you would seek out, give a listen sometime to Vagn Holmboe's Requiem for Nietszche ; to my ear, there is a family resemblance to this music.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 3:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
That's a good observation about the effect of this type of vocal music on many. If you consider this a good effect that you would seek out, give a listen sometime to Vagn Holmboe's Requiem for Nietszche ; to my ear, there is a family resemblance to this music.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 3:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
So good.
posted by legospaceman at 6:06 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by legospaceman at 6:06 PM on April 16, 2013
Caroline Shaw is terrific. I had the pleasure of seeing her with Roomful of Teeth recently, and she and they are fantastic. In addition to being a great vocalist and composer, she's a first-call violinist with a variety of contemporary classical ensembles.
Here's her performance with a quartet at the 10th anniversary 9/11 concert at the Temple of Dendur at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Brava!
posted by the sobsister at 6:07 PM on April 16, 2013
Here's her performance with a quartet at the 10th anniversary 9/11 concert at the Temple of Dendur at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Brava!
posted by the sobsister at 6:07 PM on April 16, 2013
The entire Roomful of Teeth record is available on Bandcamp. It's very fun for a choral record, at least from what I've heard, and it's good too!
As a fan of classical music who often worries that its practitioners are doing a shitty job of evolving to meet contemporary audiences, this is found gold for me: it's simultaneously a very good classical composition, a fun and lively bit of music, and a work that manages to bridge between the two intelligently, so that it's fun and lively in complex and cool ways and it's classical and rigorous in an exciting and lively manner. Very neat!
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:49 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
As a fan of classical music who often worries that its practitioners are doing a shitty job of evolving to meet contemporary audiences, this is found gold for me: it's simultaneously a very good classical composition, a fun and lively bit of music, and a work that manages to bridge between the two intelligently, so that it's fun and lively in complex and cool ways and it's classical and rigorous in an exciting and lively manner. Very neat!
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:49 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
Astonishingly weak music. She is now in the company of Charles Wuorinen, Elliot Carter and Roger Reynolds to name a few. Let's see if anyone gives a shit about her music in ten years.
posted by ReeMonster at 7:38 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by ReeMonster at 7:38 PM on April 16, 2013
Wow. Not just "weak," but "astonishingly weak." There's a well-reasoned indictment of her work right there.
Your favorite contemporary classical composer 5uxx0r5, amirite?
Back under the bridge now, shug.
posted by the sobsister at 7:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Your favorite contemporary classical composer 5uxx0r5, amirite?
Back under the bridge now, shug.
posted by the sobsister at 7:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well look, I get into this stuff all the time here. If we are to have an open exchange of opinions and ideas then I'm going to share mine and as a lifelong student of music history and a professional performer, I am not alone by a longshot in mourning the state of contemporary composed music in America. If the Pulitzer were an international award, none of the post-minimal composers so honored here would mean anything to an award committee. Harmonically it's completely juvenile and the strange/new sounds you hear such as breathing, guttural noises, sighs, breathing and plain speech have all been used to greater and more meaningful and intelligent effect by composers like Stockhausen, Schoenberg, Ligeti, Partch, Saariaho, and many more. I just wish more serious composers would be considered for an honor like this. The seemingly fresh and innovative effects used in this piece appeal to people who haven't heard them much, for sure, but they are all superficial, as the harmony is so entirely simplistic and the entire conceit of the piece (setting sol lewitt art instructions to music???) is about as banal as anything I could ever imagine.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:06 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by ReeMonster at 8:06 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
In other words, I'm not just blindly reacting to shit which I know nothing about. I am deeply involved in this world and it means everything to me and I've devoted my life to music. This ain't knee-jerk.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:07 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by ReeMonster at 8:07 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
Dude, it boils down to a) you don't like it and b) your initial comment was utterly lacking in substance. It worked wonderfully in performance, as I and a theaterful of people will attest. And it clearly appealed to others who might be considered to have some grounding in the discipline and who were empowered to award it a prize.
posted by the sobsister at 8:13 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by the sobsister at 8:13 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
ReeMonster, why the angry criticism? I find it shocking that anyone in this century would mourn anything related to art or creativity. This isn't the stuffy 19th century where everyone had to fit the same form and mould as everyone else. This is the wild and crazy 21st century where there's a niche for everything.
If you are so appreciative of the sounds of these international composers, then start an ensemble to celebrate them. Roomful of Teeth was created to celebrate the sounds of innovative and global singing styles, and they worked hard to build an audience of listeners who share that appreciation. Then they kickstarted their album, got amazing reviews for it, and now have a Pulitzer to show for their efforts.
There's nothing conspiratorial here. It's all about having a creative vision, working hard, and being persistent. You can do the same with your interests.
Let's celebrate those who succeed with their creativity, no matter how much we may disagree with their visions. There's plenty of room for everyone's good ideas.
posted by fremen at 9:16 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you are so appreciative of the sounds of these international composers, then start an ensemble to celebrate them. Roomful of Teeth was created to celebrate the sounds of innovative and global singing styles, and they worked hard to build an audience of listeners who share that appreciation. Then they kickstarted their album, got amazing reviews for it, and now have a Pulitzer to show for their efforts.
There's nothing conspiratorial here. It's all about having a creative vision, working hard, and being persistent. You can do the same with your interests.
Let's celebrate those who succeed with their creativity, no matter how much we may disagree with their visions. There's plenty of room for everyone's good ideas.
posted by fremen at 9:16 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Where do Liz Fraser and her overdubbed selves fit into all this?
posted by ostranenie at 9:18 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by ostranenie at 9:18 PM on April 16, 2013
ReeMonster, why the angry criticism?
Well, I'd expect passion either way from this person:
I am deeply involved in this world and it means everything to me and I've devoted my life to music.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:36 PM on April 16, 2013
Well, I'd expect passion either way from this person:
I am deeply involved in this world and it means everything to me and I've devoted my life to music.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:36 PM on April 16, 2013
I went to the recordings expecting something sublime and came away underwhelmed. I also am a life-long musician (though not professional) who listens to a wide variety of music, including modern works.
I know little about how Pulitzer awards are determined, but an argument that boils down to “won an award = must be good” is not always true. For example, look at the Grammy awards. For that matter, you can find “theaterful[s] of people” who like corporation-manufactured pop music, so that is not necessarily a reliable measure of quality either.
Also, ReeMonster’s first comment, while short and harsh, was not “utterly lacking in substance” in that he drew parallels to three other composers. His getting personally attacked by another MetaFilter user in response to his opinion about the subject of the post is in poor form. In his expanded comment he gives multiple criticisms of the music itself. That can certainly be responded to by also talking directly about the music and its place within modern composition (or even music history in general). Just because the composer and the musicians who recorded this piece may be nice people doesn’t mean the music itself is beyond criticism.
posted by D.C. at 10:17 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
I know little about how Pulitzer awards are determined, but an argument that boils down to “won an award = must be good” is not always true. For example, look at the Grammy awards. For that matter, you can find “theaterful[s] of people” who like corporation-manufactured pop music, so that is not necessarily a reliable measure of quality either.
Also, ReeMonster’s first comment, while short and harsh, was not “utterly lacking in substance” in that he drew parallels to three other composers. His getting personally attacked by another MetaFilter user in response to his opinion about the subject of the post is in poor form. In his expanded comment he gives multiple criticisms of the music itself. That can certainly be responded to by also talking directly about the music and its place within modern composition (or even music history in general). Just because the composer and the musicians who recorded this piece may be nice people doesn’t mean the music itself is beyond criticism.
posted by D.C. at 10:17 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Thesobsister, saying that someone is a troll is not okay. If you think a comment is out of line, flag it, contact us, or start a metatalk post. Everyone: Further meta discussion about this should go to Metatalk.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:09 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:09 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
I just wish more serious composers would be considered for an honor like this. The seemingly fresh and innovative effects used in this piece appeal to people who haven't heard them much, for sure, but they are all superficial, as the harmony is so entirely simplistic and the entire conceit of the piece (setting sol lewitt art instructions to music???) is about as banal as anything I could ever imagine.
The Pulitzer Prize isn't where you go to find experimentation. Its purpose isn't to reward pioneers. It's to reward excellence in journalism, literature, music. "Excellence" is a deliberately nebulous term, and in this case I think it's well-deserved. It's not just that a series of unusual techniques are being applied to create a compelling, cohesive piece, it's also the excitement and joy that clearly went into making it. The credit should go as much to her ensemble as to her, I think. It's definitely "young" music, written and performed by a group of whippersnappers, but that's part of what makes it exciting.
Being "a lifelong student of music history" has a tendency to blind people to the study of subjective music sociology, which is my overly-snooty way of saying that music doesn't exist in a vacuum; that music might excite people or appeal to an audience is part of its potential to be great. Appeal isn't enough, though plenty of people certainly think popular music is the only music that truly matters; however, appeal is certainly a part. In any event, this piece clearly (for me) falls into so many categories of "doing a thing well" that I feel its Pulitzer Prize is warranted. It's not as good in the same way as Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto, which won the Pulitzer recently; and I think that Higdon's is a more "serious" composition, but I'm okay with the Pulitzer not having a specific repetitive criteria for awarding winners. It helps keep the award from stagnating and may be part of the reason why I tend to like Pulitzer winners more frequently than I like, say, Grammy winners, or Academy Award victors, or even Nobel-laureate writers.
I don't give a shit if anybody likes her music in ten years' time. I like it now. I predict that I'll still like it next month, and perhaps the month after that, and maybe even all the way through the next Pulitzer year. Certainly I'm still discovering Higdon years after her win.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:23 PM on April 16, 2013 [6 favorites]
The Pulitzer Prize isn't where you go to find experimentation. Its purpose isn't to reward pioneers. It's to reward excellence in journalism, literature, music. "Excellence" is a deliberately nebulous term, and in this case I think it's well-deserved. It's not just that a series of unusual techniques are being applied to create a compelling, cohesive piece, it's also the excitement and joy that clearly went into making it. The credit should go as much to her ensemble as to her, I think. It's definitely "young" music, written and performed by a group of whippersnappers, but that's part of what makes it exciting.
Being "a lifelong student of music history" has a tendency to blind people to the study of subjective music sociology, which is my overly-snooty way of saying that music doesn't exist in a vacuum; that music might excite people or appeal to an audience is part of its potential to be great. Appeal isn't enough, though plenty of people certainly think popular music is the only music that truly matters; however, appeal is certainly a part. In any event, this piece clearly (for me) falls into so many categories of "doing a thing well" that I feel its Pulitzer Prize is warranted. It's not as good in the same way as Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto, which won the Pulitzer recently; and I think that Higdon's is a more "serious" composition, but I'm okay with the Pulitzer not having a specific repetitive criteria for awarding winners. It helps keep the award from stagnating and may be part of the reason why I tend to like Pulitzer winners more frequently than I like, say, Grammy winners, or Academy Award victors, or even Nobel-laureate writers.
I don't give a shit if anybody likes her music in ten years' time. I like it now. I predict that I'll still like it next month, and perhaps the month after that, and maybe even all the way through the next Pulitzer year. Certainly I'm still discovering Higdon years after her win.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:23 PM on April 16, 2013 [6 favorites]
ReeMonster, I'm curious whom you think ought to be considered for a Pulitzer--if the recent winners are not in your opinion the best of American composers, who is? Or does no one meet the bar these days, in your opinion?
Also, I find that this opinion is quite a dividing line among professional musicians:
I don't give a shit if anybody likes her music in ten years' time. I like it now.
I am of the omnivorous variety, in that I love great-enough-for-the-ages Art Music and great-enough-for-this-afternoon popular ephemera, and some of everything in between. But in my professional world (music), many are quite dogmatic about views one way or another and do not tolerate someone blathering about the value of music they abhor.
It's the Object vs. Experience debate (is music a noun or a verb?) that pops up in musical art nearly constantly in various ways. In culture generally, it manifests as High Art vs. Low Art or art vs. vernacular or whatever one wishes to call it; in music education, it manifests as aesthetic education vs. praxial education; and so forth. What is frustrating to me, as Rory Marinich points out, is that one's conceptual framing of music often leads to value judgments that are assumed to be objectively correct, all the moreso if the person doing the judging is an expert.
But music is this slippery thing, because it is temporal. It is a phenomenon or an act, not a thing, that must be conceptualized as a thing for work to be made in the medium. This theoretical construct, the musical object, is often mistaken for an actual thing, and the problem with that is that music isn't a thing, it's not a noun at all. It is quite literally a verb, the creation and manipulation of pressure waves through time. Once the pressure waves dissipate, there is no actual music, there is no thing. So music is an experience, and I find it hard to judge the quality of other people's experiences. If a person--or a culture--values a particular music, then that music is valuable, regardless of what my expert opinion of that music may be.
(Having said that, I'm not a complete musical relativist--I think that those aspects of music that are objectively conceptualized can also be evaluated somewhat objectively. But I feel that the professional musical world doesn't allow for the other kind of value, of the experience of the listener as opposed to the objective quality of a composition.)
posted by LooseFilter at 12:26 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, I find that this opinion is quite a dividing line among professional musicians:
I don't give a shit if anybody likes her music in ten years' time. I like it now.
I am of the omnivorous variety, in that I love great-enough-for-the-ages Art Music and great-enough-for-this-afternoon popular ephemera, and some of everything in between. But in my professional world (music), many are quite dogmatic about views one way or another and do not tolerate someone blathering about the value of music they abhor.
It's the Object vs. Experience debate (is music a noun or a verb?) that pops up in musical art nearly constantly in various ways. In culture generally, it manifests as High Art vs. Low Art or art vs. vernacular or whatever one wishes to call it; in music education, it manifests as aesthetic education vs. praxial education; and so forth. What is frustrating to me, as Rory Marinich points out, is that one's conceptual framing of music often leads to value judgments that are assumed to be objectively correct, all the moreso if the person doing the judging is an expert.
But music is this slippery thing, because it is temporal. It is a phenomenon or an act, not a thing, that must be conceptualized as a thing for work to be made in the medium. This theoretical construct, the musical object, is often mistaken for an actual thing, and the problem with that is that music isn't a thing, it's not a noun at all. It is quite literally a verb, the creation and manipulation of pressure waves through time. Once the pressure waves dissipate, there is no actual music, there is no thing. So music is an experience, and I find it hard to judge the quality of other people's experiences. If a person--or a culture--values a particular music, then that music is valuable, regardless of what my expert opinion of that music may be.
(Having said that, I'm not a complete musical relativist--I think that those aspects of music that are objectively conceptualized can also be evaluated somewhat objectively. But I feel that the professional musical world doesn't allow for the other kind of value, of the experience of the listener as opposed to the objective quality of a composition.)
posted by LooseFilter at 12:26 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
So you're saying that there's a subjective part of music, and that part is subjective.
posted by legospaceman at 1:49 AM on April 17, 2013
posted by legospaceman at 1:49 AM on April 17, 2013
Two points.
1) Accessibility is a real problem in many genres of art. The more intricate a piece is, often (but not always), the more domain-specific knowledge is required in order to appreciate it. In the extreme, exquisitely moving (to some) visual art may look (to others) like spatters of paint or nothing more than a painted wall. In music, some of these pieces may can a musical phrasings and aural language that are as opaque and garbled to those who only listen to Lady Gaga as Finnish is to a Francophone.
2) The Pulizters are a populist award. They are very much a "hey! you people! look at this!" organisation. It's easy for practitioners of art to think much of what the Pulitzers recommend is crap or childish or lowest-common-denominator. And you know what: that's true to a certain degree. Pulitzers aren't going to single out stuff that the average guy on the street will find opaque. What would the point of that be? "Hey, look at this, you won't understand it, but trust us, it's great!" Okay, that's not really helpful.
Combine these points, and hopefully you understand why I think this award is a good thing. Shaw's work is contemporary, novel and accessible. It will introduce millions of people to a genre of music they might not even have considered to be music, and because it is basic and simple (for its genre), those people have a chance of "getting it" and being intrigued and wanting to find more like it, then learning more about the genre, and then becoming able to appreciate its masters.
I hope that helps.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:41 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
1) Accessibility is a real problem in many genres of art. The more intricate a piece is, often (but not always), the more domain-specific knowledge is required in order to appreciate it. In the extreme, exquisitely moving (to some) visual art may look (to others) like spatters of paint or nothing more than a painted wall. In music, some of these pieces may can a musical phrasings and aural language that are as opaque and garbled to those who only listen to Lady Gaga as Finnish is to a Francophone.
2) The Pulizters are a populist award. They are very much a "hey! you people! look at this!" organisation. It's easy for practitioners of art to think much of what the Pulitzers recommend is crap or childish or lowest-common-denominator. And you know what: that's true to a certain degree. Pulitzers aren't going to single out stuff that the average guy on the street will find opaque. What would the point of that be? "Hey, look at this, you won't understand it, but trust us, it's great!" Okay, that's not really helpful.
Combine these points, and hopefully you understand why I think this award is a good thing. Shaw's work is contemporary, novel and accessible. It will introduce millions of people to a genre of music they might not even have considered to be music, and because it is basic and simple (for its genre), those people have a chance of "getting it" and being intrigued and wanting to find more like it, then learning more about the genre, and then becoming able to appreciate its masters.
I hope that helps.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:41 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
ReeMonster, composers like Shaw are the only hope for new art music even to survive. No one cares about Wuorinen or Saariaho except other composers. No. One.I don't know if you really intended this literally but since you took the care to repeat it with extra periods, I'll assume that you do. Anyway, as a counterexample, my dad is not particularly musically literate and certainly not a composer, and is a Saariaho fan.
By the way, after having heard constant references to Wuorinen as the boogeyman of unlistenable academic serialism, I was surprised to find his music quite witty and pleasant.
posted by dfan at 5:51 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure ReeMonster was actually saying anything positive about Wuorinen or Saariaho...
posted by en forme de poire at 7:19 AM on April 17, 2013
posted by en forme de poire at 7:19 AM on April 17, 2013
Astonishingly weak music. She is now in the company of Charles Wuorinen, Elliot Carter and Roger Reynolds to name a few. Let's see if anyone gives a shit about her music in ten years.
People still seem to care about Elliot Carter.
posted by Jahaza at 7:37 AM on April 17, 2013
People still seem to care about Elliot Carter.
posted by Jahaza at 7:37 AM on April 17, 2013
Jahaza, I think what ReeMonster was trying to say is that Shaw, Wuorinen, Carter, and Reynolds have now all been awarded Pulitzer Prizes for music, and along with that, make the point along the lines of Sesame Street's "one of these things is not like the others" game, that the three older composers all deserve their long-standing reputations, while Shaw won't have one. Given ReeMonster's lifelong devotion to music history, I cannot conclude s/he thinks nobody "gave a shit" about Elliot Carter's various works ten years after their dates of composition.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 7:46 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 7:46 AM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
I enjoy this a lot, while as a fellow professional musician and lifelong theory/history student, I agree that it is pretty harmonically insipid and that a lot of the techniques have already been used far better by others including Stockhausen and Partch. I'm okay with that, and the debate it inspires is good; people talking casually about concert music is a good thing.
However, I don't think it's fair to assume she'll be forgotten in 10 years; from everything I've seen, she isn't resting on her laurels, but merely sees this as encouragement to continue studying and improving, and I like that she is reaching out to new audiences through stuff like YouTube. As you know, artists peak at different ages, and to write someone off because they haven't yet accomplished something "for the ages" by 30 is ridiculous. The Mozarts or Chopins may outnumber the Verdis or Bruckners, but they're out there.
Every time I feel the urge to say something too violently disparaging about a piece of modern music (which is often, despite being a generally good-natured kind of guy, or so says my mom), I pull out Slonimsky's "Lexicon of Musical Invective", open it to a random page, and check my 21st century greater internet fuckwad privilege.
posted by jake at 8:09 AM on April 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
However, I don't think it's fair to assume she'll be forgotten in 10 years; from everything I've seen, she isn't resting on her laurels, but merely sees this as encouragement to continue studying and improving, and I like that she is reaching out to new audiences through stuff like YouTube. As you know, artists peak at different ages, and to write someone off because they haven't yet accomplished something "for the ages" by 30 is ridiculous. The Mozarts or Chopins may outnumber the Verdis or Bruckners, but they're out there.
Every time I feel the urge to say something too violently disparaging about a piece of modern music (which is often, despite being a generally good-natured kind of guy, or so says my mom), I pull out Slonimsky's "Lexicon of Musical Invective", open it to a random page, and check my 21st century greater internet fuckwad privilege.
posted by jake at 8:09 AM on April 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
It's a nice piece. I'm not immediately struck with a revulsion that "oh, this is so badly constructed and derivative, how could it even be considered for the Pulitzer, etc." But I do think the selection of this piece by this composer represents the powerful pull that the current school of New York-based post-minimal composers have. I'm reminded of David Lang winning with "The Little Match Girl Passion" a few years back; that piece was also in a harmonically accessible style, with references to the formality of classical canon. In that context, this piece winning makes sense.
What bothers me is the recent self-promotion by the current scions of the Downtown post-minimalist school as the authentic heirs of Cage and Reilly! and we're the ones who are open to self-expression! while all those "academic" musicians are timid and afraid to write enjoyable music or to work outside an ivory tower! and the popularity of guys like Reich and Glass confirms that we're the ones who'll be remembered! This is sad, and bad for music. It's bad for music to say Saariaho is irrelevant when Caroline Shaw is building off of Saariaho's innovations with whispers, sighs, and amplification. It's good to reward the culminators who build on the past to produce good music, but thinking you have to reject the less-palatable music of originators is a bad view of how music works.
posted by daisystomper at 8:49 AM on April 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
What bothers me is the recent self-promotion by the current scions of the Downtown post-minimalist school as the authentic heirs of Cage and Reilly! and we're the ones who are open to self-expression! while all those "academic" musicians are timid and afraid to write enjoyable music or to work outside an ivory tower! and the popularity of guys like Reich and Glass confirms that we're the ones who'll be remembered! This is sad, and bad for music. It's bad for music to say Saariaho is irrelevant when Caroline Shaw is building off of Saariaho's innovations with whispers, sighs, and amplification. It's good to reward the culminators who build on the past to produce good music, but thinking you have to reject the less-palatable music of originators is a bad view of how music works.
posted by daisystomper at 8:49 AM on April 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
Eh, the piece is fine. It has some really wonderful moments. It's gimmicky, a little schlocky. I would not have described it as 'novel,' but then again I listen to a lot of Berio and Ligeti and Stockhausen and Ferneyhough (if I had to do the derivation game on this piece I would have said it was Sinfonia meets The Cave). The performance, however, is really very good, polished and committed, which makes up for some of the less interesting compositional work.
I am not really too surprised it won a Pulitzer, or upset about, frankly, because, eh, pulitzers. It is exactly the kind of classical music that NPR likes. It is accessible for people who aren't trapped in some hermeneutic apparatus of music history and artistic progress and all of that. It isn't for the listeners who want their music to be interesting. It's for people who want listening to give them a feeling. And that's totally fine. There is a place for that. The best artists of course straddle those worlds, and while I don't think this is one of those pieces, it's nice enough. I will listen to it at least twice but no more than four times.
Insofar as there's still a schism in the classical music world left over from the Stravinsky v. Schoenberg days, pulitzers will also go to those in the former camp. That's fine. I have nothing against the expressionists, but I understand why it gets people riled up.
But I do think the selection of this piece by this composer represents the powerful pull that the current school of New York-based post-minimal composers have
Yeah, this is what's more disappointing to me about it. The "survival" of classical music, or whatever, has in the past decades really been hung by the non-classical music type folks on the post-minimalist school, which is kind of sad, imho. I get why - it's accessible for the non-"serious" music listening population, it's poppy, it's easy. I like Adams and Reich and Lang and Torke and &c as much as the next guy, but their ilk have become increasingly the only sort of contemporary concert music to seep into the major orchestras and the popular listening sphere. Which, insofar as we can put value judgements on those sorts of things, seems sad to me.
The piece is really sort of indicative of the homogenization of classical music over the past couple decades. The composers of spectral music and new complexity seem to have been completely brushed under the rug in increasing favor of the here's an orchestra playing a glorified rhythm guitar part and here's a choir that talks and sings type works. I guess I miss the 50s. I don't know.
All of that said, I am a bit of a sucker for amplified voices singing dissonant straight tones. So, whatever, it's all good.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:20 AM on April 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
I am not really too surprised it won a Pulitzer, or upset about, frankly, because, eh, pulitzers. It is exactly the kind of classical music that NPR likes. It is accessible for people who aren't trapped in some hermeneutic apparatus of music history and artistic progress and all of that. It isn't for the listeners who want their music to be interesting. It's for people who want listening to give them a feeling. And that's totally fine. There is a place for that. The best artists of course straddle those worlds, and while I don't think this is one of those pieces, it's nice enough. I will listen to it at least twice but no more than four times.
Insofar as there's still a schism in the classical music world left over from the Stravinsky v. Schoenberg days, pulitzers will also go to those in the former camp. That's fine. I have nothing against the expressionists, but I understand why it gets people riled up.
But I do think the selection of this piece by this composer represents the powerful pull that the current school of New York-based post-minimal composers have
Yeah, this is what's more disappointing to me about it. The "survival" of classical music, or whatever, has in the past decades really been hung by the non-classical music type folks on the post-minimalist school, which is kind of sad, imho. I get why - it's accessible for the non-"serious" music listening population, it's poppy, it's easy. I like Adams and Reich and Lang and Torke and &c as much as the next guy, but their ilk have become increasingly the only sort of contemporary concert music to seep into the major orchestras and the popular listening sphere. Which, insofar as we can put value judgements on those sorts of things, seems sad to me.
The piece is really sort of indicative of the homogenization of classical music over the past couple decades. The composers of spectral music and new complexity seem to have been completely brushed under the rug in increasing favor of the here's an orchestra playing a glorified rhythm guitar part and here's a choir that talks and sings type works. I guess I miss the 50s. I don't know.
All of that said, I am a bit of a sucker for amplified voices singing dissonant straight tones. So, whatever, it's all good.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:20 AM on April 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
So you're saying that there's a subjective part of music, and that part is subjective.
You would be amazed how contentious this point is in many musical circles.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:17 AM on April 17, 2013
You would be amazed how contentious this point is in many musical circles.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:17 AM on April 17, 2013
These pieces made me feel so excited. I can actually say I felt something like wonder, expectation, delight. I'm so glad I decided to click over, and thanks for posting this!
posted by custardfairy at 1:49 PM on April 17, 2013
posted by custardfairy at 1:49 PM on April 17, 2013
You would be amazed how contentious this point is in many musical circles.
Yeah, I'm one of those self-contained circles. Quality is quality. Some music is bullshit, other music is less bullshit. The degree of bullshit is objective and variably clear, mostly dependent on how sensitive to bullshit you happen to be, constitutionally. That in turn drives how much more sensitive your bullshit meter gets. That sensitivity is pretty much some kind of rising scale, probably closer to exponential than linear.
Unless you believe that say, the Goosebump series and Infinite Jest are roughly equally bullshit, or that campy horror is on the same level as Kurosawa, in which case, your bullshit meter is broken and the rest of us with better meters feel free to disregard your tolerance of bullshit. And you feel free to disregard ours, except that, psst here's a secret, I am enjoying my bullshit-free material far more than you are enjoying your bullshitty material (if we are talking for e.g. RL Stine vs David Foster Wallace).
You know how I know? Cause once upon a time I enjoyed a little more of the material that now seems like bullshit. And I remember what that enjoyment feels like, and what I enjoy now, and the difference is an order of magnitude at least. I enjoy what I like more than you enjoy what you like (whoa now I'm making claims about your enjoyment?) because the relative lack of bullshit just sets off those synapses in a way that even Britney Spears' pretty decent songwriters never could (or like the example I give adolescents that might start dabbling in hard drugs, do you still enjoy stickers like your 5 year old brother? No? Okay then. The rest follows - some people are farther along the path of finding more challenging things to enjoy than stickers, and those same people recommend you stay the fuck away from hard drugs until you can look back at your current situation the same way you can look back at your sticker-loving era of life. Cause hard drugs are a shortcut to pleasure, and using them might mean never figuring out the difference between passive pleasure and active enjoyment ala this guy. Or figuring out how to recalibrate your bullshit meter.)
Or, since this is metafilter, you can ad hominem the whole thing cause Paul Graham said it too.
posted by legospaceman at 9:15 PM on April 17, 2013
Yeah, I'm one of those self-contained circles. Quality is quality. Some music is bullshit, other music is less bullshit. The degree of bullshit is objective and variably clear, mostly dependent on how sensitive to bullshit you happen to be, constitutionally. That in turn drives how much more sensitive your bullshit meter gets. That sensitivity is pretty much some kind of rising scale, probably closer to exponential than linear.
Unless you believe that say, the Goosebump series and Infinite Jest are roughly equally bullshit, or that campy horror is on the same level as Kurosawa, in which case, your bullshit meter is broken and the rest of us with better meters feel free to disregard your tolerance of bullshit. And you feel free to disregard ours, except that, psst here's a secret, I am enjoying my bullshit-free material far more than you are enjoying your bullshitty material (if we are talking for e.g. RL Stine vs David Foster Wallace).
You know how I know? Cause once upon a time I enjoyed a little more of the material that now seems like bullshit. And I remember what that enjoyment feels like, and what I enjoy now, and the difference is an order of magnitude at least. I enjoy what I like more than you enjoy what you like (whoa now I'm making claims about your enjoyment?) because the relative lack of bullshit just sets off those synapses in a way that even Britney Spears' pretty decent songwriters never could (or like the example I give adolescents that might start dabbling in hard drugs, do you still enjoy stickers like your 5 year old brother? No? Okay then. The rest follows - some people are farther along the path of finding more challenging things to enjoy than stickers, and those same people recommend you stay the fuck away from hard drugs until you can look back at your current situation the same way you can look back at your sticker-loving era of life. Cause hard drugs are a shortcut to pleasure, and using them might mean never figuring out the difference between passive pleasure and active enjoyment ala this guy. Or figuring out how to recalibrate your bullshit meter.)
Or, since this is metafilter, you can ad hominem the whole thing cause Paul Graham said it too.
posted by legospaceman at 9:15 PM on April 17, 2013
legospaceman: "You know how I know? Cause once upon a time I enjoyed a little more of the material that now seems like bullshit. And I remember what that enjoyment feels like, and what I enjoy now, and the difference is an order of magnitude at least. I enjoy what I like more than you enjoy what you like"
I used to enjoy more highfalutin stuff than I do now, and I've found that as my tastes have grown wider, and more inclusive of stuff that is often looked down on, my enjoyment has risen. So unless we have some sort of peer-reviewed studies to fall back on, it looks like one of those "my anecdote versus your anecdote" things.
posted by Bugbread at 9:27 PM on April 17, 2013
I used to enjoy more highfalutin stuff than I do now, and I've found that as my tastes have grown wider, and more inclusive of stuff that is often looked down on, my enjoyment has risen. So unless we have some sort of peer-reviewed studies to fall back on, it looks like one of those "my anecdote versus your anecdote" things.
posted by Bugbread at 9:27 PM on April 17, 2013
I'm not sure your anecdote contradicts my anecdote. I also went from low-brow -> middle-brow looking down on low-brow -> wherever the fuck I'm at now (I'm not sure, but I see ReeMonster's point to some degree w/r/t the relative depth of this piece vs how novel it seems to me, and it made me find a lot of the music by composers that people have name-dropped in this thread).
Anyway the point is I'm able to enjoy just about everything to some degree, including straight up pop in any number of genres/other media (and that is a turnaround). Reminds me of the whole 'having more kids doesn't mean your love gets divided--it multiplies'. It's not that I enjoy pop less, it's that I enjoy other stuff MORE. So what I should have said is 'I know what that enjoyment feels like', not remember.
And shit, that's assuming other people have the same enjoyment baseline for music, when that's clearly not the case. Most people seem not to even give much of a damn about music enough to engage with it when it's playing (even live - considering how many douchebags were standing around talking at the Alt-J show I went to last night). Most people don't actively seek out new music. If they do find something, it's incidental. (But if you're saying that this last part too is anecdotal then we're done, because I'm not willing to mount evidence for what I think is the patently obvious claim re: people mostly suck at challenging themselves).
posted by legospaceman at 10:01 PM on April 17, 2013
Anyway the point is I'm able to enjoy just about everything to some degree, including straight up pop in any number of genres/other media (and that is a turnaround). Reminds me of the whole 'having more kids doesn't mean your love gets divided--it multiplies'. It's not that I enjoy pop less, it's that I enjoy other stuff MORE. So what I should have said is 'I know what that enjoyment feels like', not remember.
And shit, that's assuming other people have the same enjoyment baseline for music, when that's clearly not the case. Most people seem not to even give much of a damn about music enough to engage with it when it's playing (even live - considering how many douchebags were standing around talking at the Alt-J show I went to last night). Most people don't actively seek out new music. If they do find something, it's incidental. (But if you're saying that this last part too is anecdotal then we're done, because I'm not willing to mount evidence for what I think is the patently obvious claim re: people mostly suck at challenging themselves).
posted by legospaceman at 10:01 PM on April 17, 2013
Blue Man / Bang On A Can level bullshit
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:27 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:27 AM on April 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Related: NewMusicBox has a wonderful analysis and critique of the entire work. It breaks down the individual movements and looks at what makes the work both "simple" and interesting.
They had the following to say about Caroline Shaw:
They had the following to say about Caroline Shaw:
In fact, if I’m not mistaken, from the sound of it I would posit that Partita would not–could not–exist without Roomful of Teeth...posted by fremen at 11:11 AM on April 19, 2013
Caroline belongs to the new generation of artists who seem to thrive in a community of their own making, playing in each others’ groups, and helping and supporting one other because they remember when that option did not seem to be possible earlier in their careers. If there’s anything to be gleaned from this gift to Caroline, it’s that this generation has indeed found its place.
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posted by es_de_bah at 2:53 PM on April 16, 2013