The Rest is Noise Audio Guide
October 15, 2008 10:43 PM Subscribe
"Here you can listen to brief excerpts of some of the works discussed in The Rest Is Noise. There are also embedded videos, images, and links to archives, stories, and sound files elsewhere... Examples: THE GOLDEN AGE: Mahler, Strauss, and the Fin de Siècle l Apparition from the Woods: The Loneliness of Jean Sibelius l CITY OF NETS: Berlin in the Twenties l SUNKEN CATHEDRALS: Music at Century’s End l BEETHOVEN WAS WRONG: Bebop, Rock, and the Minimalists l THE ART OF FEAR: Music in Stalin’s Russia l MUSIC FOR ALL: Music in FDR’s America " and many more.[via]
One of the composers listed on the page for "Sunken Cathedrals", Gerhard Staebler, taught me how to vomit at will. He had not intended to do so. We were putting on a bunch of futurist plays (by Marinetti I think?), and in one scene, my part was to kneel at a bucket in the corner and continuously pretend to vomit. Practice made perfect and after a number of rehearsals, I eventually no longer had to pretend.
I saw him and his partner Kunsu Shim do a great tribute to Nam June Paik, including a wonderfully excruciating slow violin smash, and a strip act where he took off at least 12 pair of underwear before he was done. I experienced a composition of his which required me to eat a chocolate candy very slowly, in a specific and disciplined way, and that phenomenal experience is seared into my memory, as the most wondrous food eating experience I have ever had.
Oh, and his music is good too. Of what I have heard, particularly remember his piece with the ravens.
posted by idiopath at 3:30 AM on October 16, 2008 [3 favorites]
I saw him and his partner Kunsu Shim do a great tribute to Nam June Paik, including a wonderfully excruciating slow violin smash, and a strip act where he took off at least 12 pair of underwear before he was done. I experienced a composition of his which required me to eat a chocolate candy very slowly, in a specific and disciplined way, and that phenomenal experience is seared into my memory, as the most wondrous food eating experience I have ever had.
Oh, and his music is good too. Of what I have heard, particularly remember his piece with the ravens.
posted by idiopath at 3:30 AM on October 16, 2008 [3 favorites]
This is great, thanks.
I just hate that free.napster makes the same mistake as hulu.com and bars users from outside the US. This kind of provincial content restriciton seems to become more common these days.
posted by kolophon at 7:26 AM on October 16, 2008
I just hate that free.napster makes the same mistake as hulu.com and bars users from outside the US. This kind of provincial content restriciton seems to become more common these days.
posted by kolophon at 7:26 AM on October 16, 2008
Great stuff, many thanks.
posted by languagehat at 8:32 AM on October 16, 2008
posted by languagehat at 8:32 AM on October 16, 2008
The Rest is Noise was a great book. Really made me want to listen to more music. I highly recommend it if you're interested in classical music since 1900.
posted by pombe at 10:13 AM on October 16, 2008
posted by pombe at 10:13 AM on October 16, 2008
Interesting stuff. Some very useful samples and links and a great overview. Of course, in the last chapter I don't agree with some of the choices or the weight placed on some composers rather than others, but that's par for the course -I'm as biased as the next guy, but it does make me want to read the book.
posted by ob at 10:34 AM on October 16, 2008
posted by ob at 10:34 AM on October 16, 2008
Sweet, I loved the book too and was having trouble locating recordings of a lot of the stuff referenced. This is a great resource - there goes my productivity today.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 10:45 AM on October 16, 2008
posted by arcanecrowbar at 10:45 AM on October 16, 2008
I've heard great things about that book.
It's a little strange that 1945-2000 is just a third of the book - but it could well be that he considers that area overdone already, or mostly pop, or?
If any of you have read it, I'm curious.
As an aside, by my quick calculation over 99% of the preserved (i.e., written, recorded or otherwise kept) music ever created in history has been created since 1945. For example, every year humans release far more CD titles than the total number of LP titles ever released.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:16 AM on October 16, 2008
It's a little strange that 1945-2000 is just a third of the book - but it could well be that he considers that area overdone already, or mostly pop, or?
If any of you have read it, I'm curious.
As an aside, by my quick calculation over 99% of the preserved (i.e., written, recorded or otherwise kept) music ever created in history has been created since 1945. For example, every year humans release far more CD titles than the total number of LP titles ever released.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:16 AM on October 16, 2008
lupus_yonderboy: I have not read the book, but my educated guess is maybe it has to do with the fact that main stream society lost interest in new developments in serious music, just as serious music lost interest in main stream society (in the 1950's, when lots of that crazy avant garde shit started going down, perhaps even the "noise" alluded to in the book's title). Fluxus, and the music leading up to it and coming after it, was hated by critics, audiences, and sometimes even the composers themselves (they no longer felt they needed to "like" their own music). Many composers got more interested in the concepts preceding a piece or the performances accompanying the music, and less interested in the music itself, this was the era of multimedia "happenings" and performance art.
I am a big fan of music of this era myself (particularly the more "difficult" pieces of Xenakis, Cage, Tudor and Mumma), and more recent things like the work of Masami Akita (Merzbow) and John Weise (Bastard Noise, Cherry Point) that follow in that tradition, with a more "pop" approach (or at least very much post rock-and-roll).
posted by idiopath at 12:09 PM on October 16, 2008
I am a big fan of music of this era myself (particularly the more "difficult" pieces of Xenakis, Cage, Tudor and Mumma), and more recent things like the work of Masami Akita (Merzbow) and John Weise (Bastard Noise, Cherry Point) that follow in that tradition, with a more "pop" approach (or at least very much post rock-and-roll).
posted by idiopath at 12:09 PM on October 16, 2008
MetaFilter: taught me how to vomit at will
posted by Foosnark at 12:38 PM on October 16, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Foosnark at 12:38 PM on October 16, 2008 [1 favorite]
From what I've perused already, this looks fantastic. This is an area of music I know little about but am very intrigued with. I'm hoping to mind some good starting points here. Already, I know I want to hear more of Iannis Xenakis' Metastasis (which I'll be honest - I only clicked on it because he referenced it as having similarities to "A Day in the Life" and "Revolution 9" a decade later). I'm not sure how rewarding the book would be for m without some audio references, but now I think it's something I want to dive into. Big thanks!
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 12:43 PM on October 16, 2008
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 12:43 PM on October 16, 2008
main stream society lost interest in new developments in serious music
Quoi?! What's not "serious" about The Beatles, et al?
I think this does answer my question though. There's a certain stream of music going roughly Medieval/Baroque/Classical/Romantic/New Music and if you aren't in that stream he's not interested in you. Fair enough.
It much be a pretty depressing definition of serious music, because it sort of defines serious music as mostly "music almost no one will ever enjoy." I actually like to listen to Xenakis and Ligeti a great deal but that doesn't blind me to the fact that it's a zillion years of musical training that allows me to appreciate it, and frankly I think The Orb has made a greater contribution to the world of music than Xenakis ever did.
I personally don't feel the way he does. I think there were four great movements in the classical tradition. There was the "getting started" level where we were mastering instruments and orchestration - that brings us to the start of the Classical era. Then there was the "melody" era - the triumph of tune that was the Classical and Romantic worlds.
The 20th century was the era of percussion, both from ground-blazers like Varèse, Cage and Harrison and from non-Western sources.
And now we're in the era of timbre - where details in the internals of the sound are primary. The Orb is perfectly consistent with this progression where much of the New Music world is still lost in sterile "experimentation" (as Varèse said, "I do my experimenting before I present the music to an audience.")
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:58 PM on October 16, 2008
Quoi?! What's not "serious" about The Beatles, et al?
I think this does answer my question though. There's a certain stream of music going roughly Medieval/Baroque/Classical/Romantic/New Music and if you aren't in that stream he's not interested in you. Fair enough.
It much be a pretty depressing definition of serious music, because it sort of defines serious music as mostly "music almost no one will ever enjoy." I actually like to listen to Xenakis and Ligeti a great deal but that doesn't blind me to the fact that it's a zillion years of musical training that allows me to appreciate it, and frankly I think The Orb has made a greater contribution to the world of music than Xenakis ever did.
I personally don't feel the way he does. I think there were four great movements in the classical tradition. There was the "getting started" level where we were mastering instruments and orchestration - that brings us to the start of the Classical era. Then there was the "melody" era - the triumph of tune that was the Classical and Romantic worlds.
The 20th century was the era of percussion, both from ground-blazers like Varèse, Cage and Harrison and from non-Western sources.
And now we're in the era of timbre - where details in the internals of the sound are primary. The Orb is perfectly consistent with this progression where much of the New Music world is still lost in sterile "experimentation" (as Varèse said, "I do my experimenting before I present the music to an audience.")
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:58 PM on October 16, 2008
Well, lupus_yonderboy, you and spar over this stuff every now and then it seems, though I think our musical values align a great deal. This statement, though:
I think there were four great movements in the classical tradition. There was the "getting started" level where we were mastering instruments and orchestration - that brings us to the start of the Classical era. Then there was the "melody" era - the triumph of tune that was the Classical and Romantic worlds.
...is a little facile and dismissive, and shortchanges some--most--of the brilliant musical innovations and creations prior to 1750 or so. (An area that most history professors either fetishize or shortchange, but most often in my experience fail to put into real perspective.) I also think that the Classical era was far more about harmony than melody, but our disagreements there would be a big derail. My point really is that I think overgeneralizations about centuries' worth of creative effort are best avoided.
I don't think it takes a bunch of musical training to appreciate "difficult" music, just the right frame of reference. I've presented complex, different music to all kinds of audiences for years, and usually have a lot of success finding points of entry for them as listeners, and have won more than a few converts over the years. It's a conceit I once had that my experiences have caused my to dispense with; I think great music speaks for itself just fine, if a listener is willing to give it an attentive, open-minded listen. Of course, there's the rub, because popular music for the past five or six decades has conditioned listeners to pay attention on a 3-4 minute scale and to think in terms of strophic form, so most listeners really have quite an atrophied frame of reference for musical art. IMHO.
There's a certain stream of music going roughly Medieval/Baroque/Classical/Romantic/New Music and if you aren't in that stream he's not interested in you. Fair enough.
This is incorrect, read his blog or body of work for the New Yorker. As far as this book goes, yes, its subject matter is limited in scope. But Alex Ross is anything but exclusionary in his writing in general.
posted by LooseFilter at 3:41 PM on October 16, 2008
I think there were four great movements in the classical tradition. There was the "getting started" level where we were mastering instruments and orchestration - that brings us to the start of the Classical era. Then there was the "melody" era - the triumph of tune that was the Classical and Romantic worlds.
...is a little facile and dismissive, and shortchanges some--most--of the brilliant musical innovations and creations prior to 1750 or so. (An area that most history professors either fetishize or shortchange, but most often in my experience fail to put into real perspective.) I also think that the Classical era was far more about harmony than melody, but our disagreements there would be a big derail. My point really is that I think overgeneralizations about centuries' worth of creative effort are best avoided.
I don't think it takes a bunch of musical training to appreciate "difficult" music, just the right frame of reference. I've presented complex, different music to all kinds of audiences for years, and usually have a lot of success finding points of entry for them as listeners, and have won more than a few converts over the years. It's a conceit I once had that my experiences have caused my to dispense with; I think great music speaks for itself just fine, if a listener is willing to give it an attentive, open-minded listen. Of course, there's the rub, because popular music for the past five or six decades has conditioned listeners to pay attention on a 3-4 minute scale and to think in terms of strophic form, so most listeners really have quite an atrophied frame of reference for musical art. IMHO.
There's a certain stream of music going roughly Medieval/Baroque/Classical/Romantic/New Music and if you aren't in that stream he's not interested in you. Fair enough.
This is incorrect, read his blog or body of work for the New Yorker. As far as this book goes, yes, its subject matter is limited in scope. But Alex Ross is anything but exclusionary in his writing in general.
posted by LooseFilter at 3:41 PM on October 16, 2008
...is a little facile and dismissive, and shortchanges some--most--of the brilliant musical innovations and creations prior to 1750 or so.
I had no such intention. As I pointed out, that era is the basis for all the other parts.
I'd certainly agree with you that harmony is at least as important as tune in the classical era. My division in three wasn't intended at all to be authoritative, just a structure to show that many current electronic composers do fit perfectly well into the arc of "Music".
I think great music speaks for itself just fine, if a listener is willing to give it an attentive, open-minded listen.
Well, it depends. I've had excellent success with Riley and Reich; I've had some success with Stockhausen but not very much.
I remember seeing a performance of the "The People United Will Never Be Defeated," the epic piano work by Rzewski. My girlfriend, an intelligent artist with a very open mind, told me afterwards that she had no idea what was going on, and was shocked when we all jumped up and gave him a standing ovation afterwards.
The point is that the concept of "art music" is a peculiar one, only really relevant to the West and the last hundred years or so. A piece of music you can't hum on the way out of the concert hall is an alien concept to most people and most cultures. Schönberg wrote an essay called, "Who Cares If They Listen?" - he was sort of joking but sort of serious. A century of that sort of attitude hasn't really helped the relationship between the audience and the composer.
3 minute pieces.
While I agree that TV and mass media have infantilized our tastes, I don't think it's the length of the works as much as their inaccessibility that makes them difficult listening. My mother said to me about music I was showing off to her, "What's wrong with tunes? I like tunes!", and even though I said, "Well, we did tunes!"
I'm glad that Mr. Ross has wide tastes, very much so! (And I'd read the book anyway, I personally love this period in music.) However, as a musician and composer myself, I react against the assumption that there's some special anointing from academia that makes it "serious" - particularly since I originate from this world.
Going to the Bang on a Can Festival, the 24-hour "new music" marathon, this year was particularly depressing. I've been going since forever.... when it first started I'd stay up all night. This year there literally wasn't one piece that said anything to me at all. The orchestral version of Revolution #9 really rather depressed me; it seemed such a sterile exercise, but more, it was murky and unclear and unpunchy.
Sorry for seeming combative; I meant no such thing, just wanting to unghettoize new music and bring it into the mainstream.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:30 PM on October 16, 2008
I had no such intention. As I pointed out, that era is the basis for all the other parts.
I'd certainly agree with you that harmony is at least as important as tune in the classical era. My division in three wasn't intended at all to be authoritative, just a structure to show that many current electronic composers do fit perfectly well into the arc of "Music".
I think great music speaks for itself just fine, if a listener is willing to give it an attentive, open-minded listen.
Well, it depends. I've had excellent success with Riley and Reich; I've had some success with Stockhausen but not very much.
I remember seeing a performance of the "The People United Will Never Be Defeated," the epic piano work by Rzewski. My girlfriend, an intelligent artist with a very open mind, told me afterwards that she had no idea what was going on, and was shocked when we all jumped up and gave him a standing ovation afterwards.
The point is that the concept of "art music" is a peculiar one, only really relevant to the West and the last hundred years or so. A piece of music you can't hum on the way out of the concert hall is an alien concept to most people and most cultures. Schönberg wrote an essay called, "Who Cares If They Listen?" - he was sort of joking but sort of serious. A century of that sort of attitude hasn't really helped the relationship between the audience and the composer.
3 minute pieces.
While I agree that TV and mass media have infantilized our tastes, I don't think it's the length of the works as much as their inaccessibility that makes them difficult listening. My mother said to me about music I was showing off to her, "What's wrong with tunes? I like tunes!", and even though I said, "Well, we did tunes!"
I'm glad that Mr. Ross has wide tastes, very much so! (And I'd read the book anyway, I personally love this period in music.) However, as a musician and composer myself, I react against the assumption that there's some special anointing from academia that makes it "serious" - particularly since I originate from this world.
Going to the Bang on a Can Festival, the 24-hour "new music" marathon, this year was particularly depressing. I've been going since forever.... when it first started I'd stay up all night. This year there literally wasn't one piece that said anything to me at all. The orchestral version of Revolution #9 really rather depressed me; it seemed such a sterile exercise, but more, it was murky and unclear and unpunchy.
Sorry for seeming combative; I meant no such thing, just wanting to unghettoize new music and bring it into the mainstream.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:30 PM on October 16, 2008
I haven't even thought about Bang On A Can since that time they recreated, note for note, Brian Eno's Music For Airports, and that turned out to be not all that interesting. Just left you with a weird desire to listen to the original.
--someone at the NYer should do a piece on Magazine.
posted by vronsky at 10:35 PM on October 16, 2008
--someone at the NYer should do a piece on Magazine.
posted by vronsky at 10:35 PM on October 16, 2008
just wanting to unghettoize new music and bring it into the mainstream.
I completely agree. I understand all of your perspective, coming from academia myself. There is much there that I find myself in consistent disagreement and conflict with (from the dogma hidden in the curricula to the curious sense of entitlement one often encounters, etc.), as well. But with Ross' writing, I've never gotten the sense that he shares that superiority complex, but rather that this is music he loves and as a writer, it's his beat, just like Lester Bangs wrote about rock.
I've had some success with Stockhausen but not very much.
Laughing at that, truly--I still struggle with his music myself, so must admit I've not tried to present it to anyone else. The essay you mention (by Babbitt, not Schoenberg if we're thinking of the same one) is indicative of an unfortunate mindset which concert music fell victim to through the middle of the 20th century. That whole era is still a lot for historians to unpack, I think--it wasn't just changes in music, but deep, lasting, sweeping changes in all of culture that were happening, that a couple of generations of artists really struggled with. As an American born in the later 20th century, I think I'm fortunate to have inherited a mindset and perspective much more in line with the world in which I live. You mention Schoenberg, poor fellow, growing up in the Weimar Republic under a monarchy for goodness sake, finding himself living in mid-century Los Angeles in the deeply democratic U.S....what a terrific cultural shift, especially for an artist!
I agree that academia and composers and concert musicians in general still to a great degree need to get over themselves, but that doesn't in my mind diminish the magnitude of the adjustment that has to take place: as you mention, the work-concept in music is a fairly recent one, and a strangely different one in the context of all music at that. Perhaps we've lived through the death of that idea, and the institutions and works and artists built up around it are casting about lost, not realizing their time has past; perhaps the idea just needs to be reconsidered so that it can be integrated in a meaningful way into the reality of our culture as it actually exists, today. I work toward the latter, optimistically, because I know from experience that the musical art from that tradition has much abiding value, and it remains a lush and fecund garden for future art.
But I find so often that the cultural conflicts of the past several decades have left so many chips on everyone's shoulders that it can be difficult even to get to a neutral ground to discuss these things, because music--by its commodification--has been made such a part of personal identity that to discuss the art critically for many is to insult their very being. Not to mention the ridiculous internecine warfare within music schools that those who seek formal training must endure.
Anyway. Like I said, I think you and I align very much on these things, and I always enjoy our exchanges. I think that moving new concert music out of its isolation and back to a wider audience is a profound challenge, but it's work I relish, and figure there's plenty enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life, happily.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:52 AM on October 17, 2008
I completely agree. I understand all of your perspective, coming from academia myself. There is much there that I find myself in consistent disagreement and conflict with (from the dogma hidden in the curricula to the curious sense of entitlement one often encounters, etc.), as well. But with Ross' writing, I've never gotten the sense that he shares that superiority complex, but rather that this is music he loves and as a writer, it's his beat, just like Lester Bangs wrote about rock.
I've had some success with Stockhausen but not very much.
Laughing at that, truly--I still struggle with his music myself, so must admit I've not tried to present it to anyone else. The essay you mention (by Babbitt, not Schoenberg if we're thinking of the same one) is indicative of an unfortunate mindset which concert music fell victim to through the middle of the 20th century. That whole era is still a lot for historians to unpack, I think--it wasn't just changes in music, but deep, lasting, sweeping changes in all of culture that were happening, that a couple of generations of artists really struggled with. As an American born in the later 20th century, I think I'm fortunate to have inherited a mindset and perspective much more in line with the world in which I live. You mention Schoenberg, poor fellow, growing up in the Weimar Republic under a monarchy for goodness sake, finding himself living in mid-century Los Angeles in the deeply democratic U.S....what a terrific cultural shift, especially for an artist!
I agree that academia and composers and concert musicians in general still to a great degree need to get over themselves, but that doesn't in my mind diminish the magnitude of the adjustment that has to take place: as you mention, the work-concept in music is a fairly recent one, and a strangely different one in the context of all music at that. Perhaps we've lived through the death of that idea, and the institutions and works and artists built up around it are casting about lost, not realizing their time has past; perhaps the idea just needs to be reconsidered so that it can be integrated in a meaningful way into the reality of our culture as it actually exists, today. I work toward the latter, optimistically, because I know from experience that the musical art from that tradition has much abiding value, and it remains a lush and fecund garden for future art.
But I find so often that the cultural conflicts of the past several decades have left so many chips on everyone's shoulders that it can be difficult even to get to a neutral ground to discuss these things, because music--by its commodification--has been made such a part of personal identity that to discuss the art critically for many is to insult their very being. Not to mention the ridiculous internecine warfare within music schools that those who seek formal training must endure.
Anyway. Like I said, I think you and I align very much on these things, and I always enjoy our exchanges. I think that moving new concert music out of its isolation and back to a wider audience is a profound challenge, but it's work I relish, and figure there's plenty enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life, happily.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:52 AM on October 17, 2008
I don't think it's the length of the works as much as their inaccessibility that makes them difficult listening.
Oh yes, I meant to say that this is a really good point, too--the challenge for me is, with the works that I believe in, how to build a bridge to them for those that don't devote as much energy to listening and understanding as we musical fetishists do.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:56 AM on October 17, 2008
Oh yes, I meant to say that this is a really good point, too--the challenge for me is, with the works that I believe in, how to build a bridge to them for those that don't devote as much energy to listening and understanding as we musical fetishists do.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:56 AM on October 17, 2008
(and this is what I get for posting late at night: I have to, pedantically, correct myself: Schoenberg growing up in a monarchy and then living in the Weimar Republic, etc. Because of course the Republic wasn't a monarchy.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:55 AM on October 17, 2008
posted by LooseFilter at 7:55 AM on October 17, 2008
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posted by LooseFilter at 12:02 AM on October 16, 2008